Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

[Brian]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

Mark Jones wrote:[color=blue]
>
> The only people who dismiss Dreamweaver are the
> one who don't know how to use it.[/color]

My problem with Dreamweaver is the muck it produces in graphical view,
which, AFAICS, claims to be a WYSIWYG[1]. Admittedly, this is what I
see after others have updated an html file that I created. It *was*
html 4/strict, but after the Dreamweaver treatment, I see something like
<tr><td align="center">
<font face="arial"> <font color="blue">&n bsp;C Print &nbsp;
</font>
</font></td>
</tr> </table>

<div align="center"> <div align="right>
<div align="center"> &nbsp; home</div></div></div>

Very discouraging.
[color=blue]
> In the right hand, you can create a site much faster
> than by hand with html that is just as clean.[/color]

And how does one do that? This is not a smart-a%# question, I'm
really wondering? Must one stick to code view? That would be
perfectly sensible, but then why pay the money for Dreamweaver when
you can just get a good text editor for much less money -- in many
cases free -- and edit in code view all the time. ;-)

And even if it's true that Dreamweaver is capable of delivering good
code, I can see no excuse for the sort of code that it produces in
graphic mode.

[1] As I said earlier in this thread, there is no such thing as a
WYSIWYG html editor.

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

[Eric Jarvis]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

Mark Jones wrote:[color=blue]
> "RFox" <rfox001@go.com > wrote in message
> news:2a6b0f47.0 309100728.690d7 a6@posting.goog le.com...[color=green]
> > Thanks for everyone's responses.
> >
> > Looks like I can dismiss the Dreamweaver route :whew!:
> > It just seems like I see it everywhere and I see it listed
> > a lot in web design job listings, that I thought that's
> > what everyone was using.[/color]
>
> The only people who dismiss Dreamweaver are the
> one who don't know how to use it. In the right hand,
> you can create a site much faster than by hand with
> html that is just as clean.
>[/color]

there is simply no way that can be true

DW cannot produce mark up that is anywhere near as clean as I
demand...so...e ither you mean that it can be used effectively as a text
editor, in which case it isn't particularly great compared with some
others, or you have no concept of the process that actually goes into
creating mark up "by hand"

I've used Dreamweaver...i t's got NOTHING that a decent text editor hasn't
got except the WYSIWYG view and one or two site management tools that
there are freeware alternatives to...what it can't do is create halfway
decent mark up...of course it can't, it's software, it doesn't understand
concept or context...it is possible to do stylesheets effectively with
software (and Top Style gets close) Dreamweaver doesn't even manage that
effectively

what you can do with Dreamweaver is slap together a visual layout and then
claim that nobody could actually have done it cleaner...since the chances
are that nobody any good id going to bother to show you how much more
cleanly exactly the same could be done without being paid to do it...the
very fact that a number of us have, at times, made a decent living simply
cleaning up the mess made by WYSIWYG editors ought to give a clue as to
how much tidier it is possible to get

I've yet to see a Dreamweaver produced page that I couldn't knock at least
25% off the size of...I've yet to see one where I couldn't improve the way
it is "perceived" by search engines...I dismiss Dreamweaver because I've
tried it and I'm better off without it

--
eric

https://www.ericjarvis.co.uk

"Hey Lord don't ask me questions
There ain't no answer in me"

[Mark Parnell]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

Jim Royal wrote:[color=blue]
> I don't believe the
> personal web sharing built into Windows does SSI.
>[/color]

I'm not sure, but IIS does (comes with some versions of Windoze).

--

Mark Parnell

http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

[Mark Jones]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

"Headless" <me@privacy.net > wrote in message
news:h5sulv0jes reoeinm0m0ef9ht fa6ijcg6n@4ax.c om...[color=blue]
> Mark Jones wrote:
>[color=green]
> >The only people who dismiss Dreamweaver are the
> >one who don't know how to use it. In the right hand,
> >you can create a site much faster than by hand with
> >html that is just as clean.[/color]
>
> The only people who dismiss hand coding as being slower than WYSIWYG
> lack proper hand coding skill/experience/tools.[/color]
I can hand code very quickly, but Dreamweaver
allows me to do complex layouts more quickly
than doing it by directly editing the html. For
more simple designs, I do almost all of the work
in the code view window of Dreamweaver and
just use the design window for visual feedback.

I still do most CSS by hand as it is easier to get it
to do what I want when no "helpful" editor is getting
in the way.

[Mark Jones]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

"Brian" <usenet1@mangym utt.com.invalid-remove-this-part> wrote in message
news:gOK7b.4092 79$Ho3.64402@sc crnsc03...[color=blue]
> Mark Jones wrote:[color=green]
> > In the right hand, you can create a site much faster
> > than by hand with html that is just as clean.[/color]
>
> And how does one do that? This is not a smart-a%# question, I'm
> really wondering? Must one stick to code view? That would be
> perfectly sensible, but then why pay the money for Dreamweaver when
> you can just get a good text editor for much less money -- in many
> cases free -- and edit in code view all the time. ;-)
>
> And even if it's true that Dreamweaver is capable of delivering good
> code, I can see no excuse for the sort of code that it produces in
> graphic mode.[/color]
I never use it in full layout mode, but rather the simpler
standard view. I always keep the code view window open
so I can see the html that is being generated. Years of
experience is what allows me to avoid doing many of
the things that Dreamweaver isn't good at.

Remember, the code view window is your friend and
should be used as much as possible. Use the design
view window primarily for visual feedback and you can
very quickly get a page designed the way you want it.

I still frequently open pages in Notepad for quick changes
when I do not want to wait for Dreamweaver to open.

Dreamweaver can be a very bad tool to use if you are
not very experienced at hand coding. It can leave all kinds
of garbage behind as you repeatedly edit the same section
of a page. It isn't smart enough to remove nested tags that
have no effect at all on what the page looks like.
The "clean up html" command has to be applied way too
often, and it doesn't clean up all of the empty tag pairs.

[Mark Jones]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

"Eric Jarvis" <web@ericjarvis .co.uk> wrote in message
news:MPG.19c9a6 26e0fe2f6c98b6f 8@News.CIS.DFN. DE...[color=blue]
> Mark Jones wrote:[color=green]
> > "RFox" <rfox001@go.com > wrote in message
> > news:2a6b0f47.0 309100728.690d7 a6@posting.goog le.com...[color=darkred]
> > > Thanks for everyone's responses.
> > >
> > > Looks like I can dismiss the Dreamweaver route :whew!:
> > > It just seems like I see it everywhere and I see it listed
> > > a lot in web design job listings, that I thought that's
> > > what everyone was using.[/color]
> >
> > The only people who dismiss Dreamweaver are the
> > one who don't know how to use it. In the right hand,
> > you can create a site much faster than by hand with
> > html that is just as clean.
> >[/color]
>
> there is simply no way that can be true
>
> DW cannot produce mark up that is anywhere near as clean as I
> demand...so...e ither you mean that it can be used effectively as a text
> editor, in which case it isn't particularly great compared with some
> others, or you have no concept of the process that actually goes into
> creating mark up "by hand"
>
> I've used Dreamweaver...i t's got NOTHING that a decent text editor hasn't
> got except the WYSIWYG view and one or two site management tools that
> there are freeware alternatives to...what it can't do is create halfway
> decent mark up...of course it can't, it's software, it doesn't understand
> concept or context...it is possible to do stylesheets effectively with
> software (and Top Style gets close) Dreamweaver doesn't even manage that
> effectively
>
> what you can do with Dreamweaver is slap together a visual layout and then
> claim that nobody could actually have done it cleaner...since the chances
> are that nobody any good id going to bother to show you how much more
> cleanly exactly the same could be done without being paid to do it...the
> very fact that a number of us have, at times, made a decent living simply
> cleaning up the mess made by WYSIWYG editors ought to give a clue as to
> how much tidier it is possible to get
>
> I've yet to see a Dreamweaver produced page that I couldn't knock at least
> 25% off the size of...I've yet to see one where I couldn't improve the way
> it is "perceived" by search engines...I dismiss Dreamweaver because I've
> tried it and I'm better off without it[/color]
You have to be very experienced with Dreamweaver to get
maximum benefit from it. I have been building web sites
for over 7 years and one of my early sites was over 1300
pages that was built using Windows Notepad.

I have seen people create garbage with Dreamweaver
simply because they had no idea that it would create
a bloated html file with empty tags thrown in all through
the html. I told one designer many times that she needed
to keep the code view window open and clean up problems
as they occurred. She wouldn't listen, so the site ended up
being launched with lots of bloat that served no purpose.

I gave up trying to get her to change because I believe
she didn't really understand hand coding html and how
to clean up Dreamweaver's bloated html.

[Mark Jones]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

"Mark Parnell" <webmaster@clar kecomputers.com .au> wrote in message
news:3f5fd0ee$0 $23593$5a62ac22 @freenews.iinet .net.au...[color=blue]
> Jim Royal wrote:[color=green]
> > I don't believe the
> > personal web sharing built into Windows does SSI.
> >[/color]
>
> I'm not sure, but IIS does (comes with some versions of Windoze).[/color]
I run IIS 5.1 on XP to view pages using html, css, cold fusion and
asp. I have used some SSI whenever I felt it would simplify
maintaining a site. Apache is much faster, but it is hard to get
working with CF and ASP on Windows XP.

[Mark Parnell]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

Mark Jones wrote:[color=blue]
> I run IIS 5.1 on XP to view pages using html, css, cold fusion and
> asp. I have used some SSI whenever I felt it would simplify
> maintaining a site. Apache is much faster, but it is hard to get
> working with CF and ASP on Windows XP.[/color]

I run Apache at home, but that's because I have XP Home - can't get IIS.
And that way I can test redirects, etc with .htaccess locally, and upload it
to the server which is also Apache.

I don't use CF or ASP at home, though.

--

Mark Parnell

http://www.clarkecomputers.com.au

[Jonathan Brady]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 13:36:12 -0400, Kris wrote
(in message <kristiaan-C67105.19361110 092003@news1.ne ws.xs4all.nl>):
[color=blue]
> Or BBedit for on the Mac. 'it doesn't suck.'
> http://www.barebones.com/[/color]

My whole coding toolbox is BBEdit combined with HyperEdit. Can't be
beat.
Instant preview as you type (css included) and validate with a single
command... There is simply no faster way for hand editing html/css.

You can even build your own preprocessor into BBEdit (via AppleScript,
perl or python) and even edit html files directly on the server if you
wish to...

--
J Brady

[Headless]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

Mark Jones wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> The only people who dismiss hand coding as being slower than WYSIWYG
>> lack proper hand coding skill/experience/tools.[/color][/color]
[color=blue]
>I can hand code very quickly, but Dreamweaver
>allows me to do complex layouts more quickly[/color]

By "complex layouts" I'm assuming that you are referring to table based
layouts (because doing a proper CSS layout is a nightmare in DW). Such
(dreadful) layouts can actually be made very quickly with a _proper_
editor, and typing speed doesn't matter (creation of very complex tables
is all graphic).
[color=blue]
>than doing it by directly editing the html. For
>more simple designs, I do almost all of the work
>in the code view window of Dreamweaver[/color]

I suspect that this is the problem, you've never learned how to work a
proper editor. Don't dismiss what you don't know.


Headless

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Email and usenet filter list: http://www.headless.dna.ie/usenet.htm

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

What's the point of fast coding if you waste all that saved time in a
thread like this?


Matthias

[Stephen Poley]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 17:04:44 +0100, Headless <me@privacy.net > wrote:
[color=blue]
>RFox wrote:
>[color=green]
>>1) When you make a layout or navigation change, you
>>have to manually change every single web page it's on.[/color]
>
>Search & replace. Search for a good one with multi line S&R with regexp
>option (Homesite for example).[/color]

I strongly disagree. You might be forced to use it occasionally, but
using search & replace is basically amateurish hacking. You are
constantly going to hit problems with false positives and false
negatives in your search strings (unless your site is trivially small).

For a reliable update system you want either preprocessing or something
like PHP/SSI.

Of course if you use CSS properly, quite a few presentation changes will
only need to be done in one place anyway.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Stephen Poley]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

On 10 Sep 2003 08:35:58 -0700, rfox001@go.com (RFox) wrote:
[color=blue]
>Another thing I forgot to mention in regard to using CSS
>is that I've always limited it's usage to mainly text
>styles rather than positioning and layout because I still
>have to make everything compatible with Netscape 4.x
>(which tends to corrupt almost every CSS attempt I make).
>
>It's just painful to watch CSS layout come out exactly
>how I want it in every browser I test EXCEPT Netscape 4.x.
>But that's a different rant for another thread.[/color]

In case you haven't already met the concepts of hiding bits of CSS, my
page on Netscape 4 may help:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/netscape4.html

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Headless]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

Stephen Poley wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>>Search & replace. Search for a good one with multi line S&R with regexp
>>option (Homesite for example).[/color]
>
>I strongly disagree. You might be forced to use it occasionally, but
>using search & replace is basically amateurish hacking.[/color]

I am indeed an amateur, how does that relate to my skills and
experience?
[color=blue]
>You are
>constantly going to hit problems with false positives and false
>negatives in your search strings[/color]

You might, I don't.
[color=blue]
>(unless your site is trivially small).[/color]

Mwoah, 345 html documents currently on one site.


Headless

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[Headless]

Re: Anyone still hand-coding web sites?

Matthias Gutfeldt wrote:
[color=blue]
>What's the point of fast coding if you waste all that saved time in a
>thread like this?[/color]

You want to decide what I spend my time on?

Here's a hint: if you find certain threads a waste of time then most
news clients offer an option to ignore such threads.


Headless

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