Re: html and dreamweaver

Tony Hedges, at 22:06 -0000 on Sun, 10 Dec 2000, wrote:

    I have to say the best editor anyone could use to write HTML is
    either notepad or wordpad. Editors are ok, but why put yourself
    through the bother of learning how to use an editor in the first
    place?

I'd have to strongly disgree with this statement.  Using an editor to
generate HTML could, in many instances, produce much better documentation
than writing by hand.  When I'm referring to editors, I'm referring to any
sort of interface or language that provides a higher method of entering
documentation than by simply entering plain text.

For instance, an editor could automatically prompt you to exand an acronym
if you enter a word which suspiciously looks like an acronym, and then
automatically put in the <acronym title="expansion"> tags.  Also, an
editor can help you generate the correct CSS for the look you want.  
Editors can also help make sure that.  Of course, editors can provide good
indentation.

Whether or not good editors exist or not is irrevelant; the point is that
they could exist, and produce better documentation, learning HTML is not a
goal in itself; the goal is to produce better documentation.  If an editor
lets you produce better documentation with more ease, then the editor is
the way to go.

Lastly, of course, who would use soemthing as simple as notepad or wordpad
when they could be using a powerful "editor" such as X/Emacs :)

-- 
Frank Tobin		http://www.uiuc.edu/~ftobin/

Received on Sunday, 10 December 2000 18:20:26 UTC