Web design dreamweaver vs text editor

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davids

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HI All,

Quick question for any web designers out there:

Just wondering what you all use for coding?

Me and my friend are just starting a little web design business but we argue over coding methods; I am used to using alleycode on Windows, and now Ive started to use linux I use screem on there - when I first began designing websites I got pointed away from word (hehehe) and was told to use something more like a text editor because it means you can make really clean code and have everything validated and that most WYSIWYG programs tend to add alot of extra code and go about things the wrong way).

My friend uses dreamweaver and whilst it doesnt code as bad as i had been told, it does tend to make heavy work of simple designs.

Imjust wondering what everyone else uses, wheather you can make really good pages with a text-editor and whether you can make W3C complient clean pages with dreamweaver.
 
First, Techspot is not focused on coding techniques and you will get a bigger
population (and thus more replies) on some other boards.

However, your question is great as it says you're trying to plan ahead and start
off right. I'll give you my take, but understand, I am a purist and disdain GUI tools.
I what to know what is written so that I can change it if I desire to.
IF you use a TEXT editor, every line is yours and there's no surprises.
The really bad part of a GUI tool, imo, is that if you need to make a change,
you tweek the PRESENTATION, not the code. Sure it's what you want, but compare
the new file to the old -- massive changes result and finding exactly
that line that implements what you wanted is usually impossible.

Another issue with web page generation (as apposed to manual editing) is the
bloat and cruff that they generate. If you've ever see a Word.rtf file (in a text editor)
you'll understand immediately -- tons of stuff that is just not obvious
and sometimes it's not even references (ie: used).

Then too, the HTML,SCRIPTS, and CSS are just merged into one file --
not very effecient and makes the maintenance just that more difficult.
Lots of web designers don't realize that placing each resoruce in its own file
and using the appropriate < script scr="..." > </ script> or
< link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" title="xxx" href="pagestyle.css" />
is a performance as well as a maintenance issue; the browser can be loading
multiple resources at the same time.

Lastly, I'm also a minimalist; less is more. Flash creates great presentations,
but also greatly slowdown the user waiting for all that stuff to load -- ONLY
to be bypassed if the user clicks SKIP THIS INTRO.

The web is about INFORMATION CONTENT; the cute presentations are just eye candy. No customer ever purchases your eye candy.

btw: You should get some kind of Change Management Software to manage
versioning your pages. google for CVS :)
 
Whatever gets the job done properly is the best way. Dreamweaver saves time if used correctly, since it automates tedious aspects. It may also teach you a thing or two if you inspect its code. If integrated with sever-side controls, it can adeptly automate simple database driven actions, requiring only basic SQL.
 
cheers guys, I know its not the best forum for this subject, but as i had another discussion about web servers, I thought you would all have some good advice, I've discussed it before on statcounter too, they had similar opinions.

That CVS thing looks good Jobeard, I will read up on that.
 
it's command line oriented and obtuse in the grammer, but VERY effective in
keeping control!

again, best wishes
 
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