Flaming notepad - Defense of Dreamweaver

the web is such an instantanious medium and its so easy to quickly set up a website.

here is how i see it...
i don't care if some kid wants to make some crap website for his quake clan (or whatever the kids are doing these days). i'm not saying that is a horrible injustice. i'm not waving a banner that says "don't deny your children the gift of html"

my problem is when people spend a weekend learning how to fumble through their cracked version of dreamweaver and set up shop as a web designer. there are lots of them out there.

HTML really is easy to learn... I learned it 2 summers ago when I was 14. Took me only a couple weeks to get pretty good at it. I didn't even have to buy any books; I just found the right resources online that made it quick and easy.

Now, 2 years later, I've practically mastered HTML. I can construct any layout, no matter how complex it is, and make it IE and Netscape compatible. I'm getting sick of typing out all the coding though, so I'm thinking of going out to get a program to help me speed things up (i.e., DW, Golive, etc...)

Which of all the webpage building programs do you guys think is best to use?

Or which do you think is best between Dreamweaver, Adobe Golive, and Frontpage?

I wasnt around when this first came up...vacation is fun...so here is my reply

a proper text editor like emacs which genuinely is quick to use and does things like code highlighting, auto-tabbing, shortcut keys etc

I use emacs...I dont like it in windows. It plain out sucks. I like it better in unix. but in a unix environment, I prefer vi anyday. I dont need syntax highlighting, I know wtf I am typing.

I dislike dreamweaver because I don't like going back and trying to read the code, figuring out where I need to put some element in. In my code ( notepad/vi ) I can tell exactly where I am putting it.

Flame notepad if you will, but without it, you would see alot more crappy sites laid out in 20 minutes by some kid who is too lazy to take the time to learn something. He/She just wants it done.

Where did this come from? I think I must have missed it the first time around.

Deusy, I think I was the one that mentioned the 50 line, 150 line thing. And I didn't mean it the way you interpreted it. I realize there is really no difference between a 150 line page and 50 line page. I was just exaggerating that point to try to encourage newbies to at least learn a little HTML before they jump into Dreamweaver. I personally use Dreamweaver, and have never hand coded an entire page in my life. But I do know HTML, and I learned it before I ever even knew there were programs to do it for me.

My point was that I've seen newbies on here and other places asking how to layout a web site. Even so basic as, "How do I get a navbar to stay on the left, and put my content on the right side?" Obviously they don't even have the first idea of what HTML is, and I don't think that by telling them to get Dreamweaver, they are going to learn anything. All Dreamweaver does is write HTML, but if the person using it doesn't even know what HTML is or does, what use is it to them?

I'm not saying people should hand code in notepad, I think it's silly to do that. And I'm not saying it makes a difference if your page is 50 lines or 150. All I'm saying is that if you are going to use a program like Dreamweaver, you should at least have some idea of what it even does.

ESPECIALLY if they are going to 'start a web design business'. I agree very strongly with Charm on that, and it pisses me off like nothing else. If you look back at some of my posts, you'll see I usually feel very strongly about that particular subject. It's just ridiculous for someone to spend a couple days learning Dreamweaver, and reading a Photoshop tutorial or two, and call themselves a web designer. There is so much more to web design than HTML, Photoshop, or even computers.

And yes, it's the prospective clients fault for not properly researching a 'design firm'... But they really shouldn't even have to wonder if the person knows HTML, or how a web page even works. That's what they are paying them to do, make a web site, not press buttons on Dreamweaver. They could buy Dreamweaver themselves and make a page of the same quality some of these people are doing these days.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Interesting topic, and as a relative newbie I would like to share these comments.

At the beginning of this year my employer asked me to help with the layout of our product catalog, this is what started my interest in html. We discussed making a website but being a small company we didnt want to pay for one to be buitl. So, having a VERY lenient deadline (within a year) for the site I started researching web design.

First step was a site I found called "pagetutor" and one called "jalfrezi". I started practicing hand coding tables in notepad with a browser window open. I would just refresh the window after a save to see what happens, just about as good as any fancy editor out there (ie, dreamweaver).

I played with this for a couple months, bought a domain name and made some really horrible sites. After some experimenting I was able to make somethin decent and figured it was worth investing some money in. So I bought Dreamweaver.

Now, my point, finally :D

Coding in notepad is fine for learning and I recommend it as a way to learn html, but if you happen to feel like spending the money on dreamweaver before you even now if this is something you are really going to do as work, thats fine. I think dreamweaver would help you learn HTML no faster and no slower than learning with a text editor, for once you get down to good layout I think you have to know how to code html and you will learn it becouse you have to.

Anyhow, thats my longest rant ever on this forum!

Take care...

Ahhhh, nothing more fun than a good debate--silly me thinking I'm wise enough to contribute.

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." ~Shakespeare

Dan's two cents:

I'm a newbie to web design and Photoshop. I have run out and spent... whoa I've spent alot on software, and I now proudly call myself a web designer. Okay, maybe that's not really how it happened. But first, let me digress ::fade out with twilight zone swirly effect::

I am a Sr. Product Designer with a Fortune XXX company. I have almost 15 years design experience with CAD. And one of the lessons I've learned is that proficiency with a given design tool does not a great designer make... on the other hand, would I want someone designing the 4x4 transfer case on my Dodge Ram by doing the stress analysis with notepad--I THINK NOT! I would want them to use the best design tool available. My point, you ask? Point... point.... ummmm, I forgot to get one of those--so, instead I'll regress ::fade back in::

I'm designing websites because I had to. The bonehead we hired to help us bring an ecommerce site online couldn't deliver. By necessity, I had to run out and buy a crapper-full of software to quickly bring a site online. Guess what, I'm having a blast. I've found a creative outlet, everyone I know wants a website now. Will I learn HTML, I've already started. Will I stop using wysiwyg's once I'm good @ it, I think not. I would much rather put my energy into the graphics, content, flow, and fluff of a website than coding pages. Will I need to know enough to debug and fix pages, absolutely. But just knowing HTML, JAVA, and ASP will not make me a good webdesigner. I will use the best design tools I can get my hands on! (Sidebar: besides designers, how many people you know look @ the source code on websites they visit?)

Gosh durn, I sure do sound blissfully ignorant! Thanks for listening anyways.... :D

would I want someone designing the 4x4 transfer case on my Dodge Ram by doing the stress analysis with notepad

Uhh. What kind of question is that? You use tools that lend themselves easily to the task at hand. Notepad is a plain text editor, not an advanced research program designed to do anything of what you just described. So why make that comparison? It makes no sense to me.

What does make sense? Using tools that I am used to and that I like. I have tried dreamweaver, I didn't like it. I found myself going back to a plain text editor. Now, you can continue to use DreamWeaver and spit out cookie cutter sites because that is what you are used to. But for anyone to ridicule others for thier choice in software packages is ignorant. As for many of the designers I know, they don't like the code that dreamweaver spits out. They do like plain text editors like HomeSite and Notepad and BBEdit because it feels natural.

Uhh. What kind of question is that? You use tools that lend themselves easily to the task at hand.

I couldn't agree more! Where the debate lies is WHICH tool is that? I think the difference, as you pointed out so eloquently, is what people are comfortable with.

My point (gosh I wish I had one)--and I mean no ridicule, quite the contrary--is that ultimately, mastery of any TOOL does not make a good designer. A good designer is forged by experience, talent, eye, creativity....

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." ~Scott Adams

I completely agree with you on that. There's too many software operators out there and not enough designers.

Cool to have you here Dan, I've always had an interest in product/industrial design myself and look forward to your comments.

Chris

i agree that tools do not make a good designer, skills/talents/etc make a good designer. but bad tools can make a good designer look not so good.

for the most part, dreamweaver makes clean code, but try do do anything complex and it starts to spit out crap. this may not matter to granny on her knitting homepage, but it does to a designer's peers.

at my job we work with outside designers occasionally and we laugh at the ones with that dreamweaver gibberish code or 'paste html text here' in their source code. usually they don't get the job. that says a lot right there.

it all depends on WHY you are making webpages. are you doing it for a Fortune 500 award winning website or are you doing it for your cousin vito's custom el camino web shrine?