RE: Web Development Software

["L. S. Russell" <leslier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 1. FP 2000 allows you to configure it for cross-browser compatibility. As 
> an aside, you can also set automatic spacing and indenting for all the 
> tags. It's pretty slick.

I didn't know that, I have never used Frontpage 2000, but these features
are pretty much universal thanks to the M$ IE and NS Navigator war.

> 2. I would argue the opposite of your stance: that a program like 
> FrontPage, where you can first paint the screen, *then* see the HTML behind 
> it, is vastly superior to first learning the HTML with an ASCII editor. 
> Taking that a bit further, I'd say the real way to learn HTML is to save a 
> web page into FrontPage, and toggle over into the HTML to see how it works.

I will just say that if you understand HTML from the get go then, no
matter what you are forced to use as a development environment, you are
more likely to be valuable than if you only know Frontpage or HomeSite.
The thing I don't like about frontpage and HomeSite is that they attempt
to tie you down to their style of coding and try to force you into their
method of extensibility. Frontpage has its bots, HomeSite has its
ColdFusion macros.

> 3. FP 2000 can be extended with VBA. Again, pretty slick.

Extend with VBA? Don't you mean shot fulla security holes with VBA :)

> 4. I have found that I can quickly design a page in FrontPage, then tweak 
> the HTML and/or import it into ColdFusion when it's ready. FP is a 
> phenomenal prototyping tool. As much as Microsoft gets a bad rep, there are 
> a few tools the company does VERY well: FrontPage, Visual Basic, Word/Excel 
> and Access.

To each his own, I was just offering my experience. But the thing is that
when you talk to ASP and Frontpage developers you quickly realize that
they have to tweak the code. So does the trade off of WYSIWYG offer any
advantage over knowing the language and finding a good editor?
If you have to tweak the code anyway what good is WYSIWYG?

If you don't mind, build a table with Frontpage open the code browser cut
and paste the table in your reply I would like to see if M$ has improved
its code generation any.

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