Ok, I recently answered a post about someone trying to work with PHP pages in Dreamweaver… Now I must rant! 
Its a formatting tool not a programming language! Big differance!
Sorry for this rant, but this just happended like twice in the past week! :evil:
Voted ‘Only if I have to’, while I actually wanted to vote ‘Never have never will’, but that wouldn’t be correct, as I have used Frontpage back in the days.
That is, I’ve used Frontpage a few times, until I actually discovered what kind of crap it generated and tried to pass for HTML. I learned my HTML from a tutorial on neopets.com (don’t ask), where I wanted to modify my pet’s page. After learning the basics (links, images, line breaks), I found out about Frontpage, but it only took days until I learned that it was NOT what I was looking for. Which is when I started looking on the net about it, and I found out I could make HTML pages in applications as simple as Notepad. So I used that for awhile.
When I started taking Java programming classes in school, I was offered a tool called Textpad. It’s not opensource (but they do have a free non-expiring trial version with most, if not all, features enabled), but it did the job well: syntax highlighting, DOS command shortcuts, etc.). And it worked for HTML well.
Suffice to say, the next step was learning PHP. I actually tried my hands on Perl first, but I still have blisters from that one ^_^;; A friend of mine had a vBulletin forum set up, and asked me if I could install some hacks. So I said ‘I don’t know how’ and he explained the basics to me. That’s where I first touched PHP, and started adapting the code little by little (trial-and-error is a good way to learn). And lookie where I am now
But yea, script kiddies who claim to be programmers just because they know how to center text in Frontpage are the worst. Best way to deal with them is to ignore them.
Well… Let me see…
Most of my pages are done in VI… It doesn’t get any plainer then that. I have used Dreamweaver more to get a layout or design… And I have even tried to use it to “Edit” my php, but I don’t really like it. Partly because, I have HTML pages that I parse as PHP (Yes my apache is set to do that). In Dreamweaver, if you don’t have a PHP extension then it doesn’t do it nice and pretty for you (or at least not as pretty as I would like).
I abhor Frontpage. It only took me about 10 seconds to decide I don’t like it. You would be just as well to take WORD and create your document and then save it as an html (with about a million lines of code). UGH!!!
I prefer a basic editor that provides SYNTAX Highlighting. To me that is more valuable than anything else. Notepad will work in a pinch but no highlighting.
I have used text pad (I believe I heard about it from one of Zyporra’s other posts). It’s ok. don’t really care for some of the colors for the highlighting… I guess I could probably alter it, but since I do most of my editing on a Linux machine… It’s a moot point because I have Textpad for windows. Also my Linux is basically running in text mode (CLI) only. (GUI takes up to many resources when not really needed.)
As for HTML being programming? There is no “Logic” in HTML alone. It’s just a Markup Language, so I would have to say…er… uh… NO! If you know HTML you can be a “Developer” (i.e. web developer), but not a programmer (at least not in my opinion).
To “Program” you need to develop LOGIC and FLOW (and of course error trapping). If you start doing Javascript or PHP, ASP, CGI, etc… you know have moved (at least closer) to a programmer.
Script Kiddies are pathetic and should at least take a look at what they steal/download/etc…
I’d like to highlight this. I agree to the fullest with you. In fact, I got interested and once did a ‘Hello World!’ test in the most used of MS Office apps. It was funny.
Compared to the ‘very basic’ Notepad, which made a file no bigger than 14 bytes, Frontpage did the best of the Office apps. Word came in second with a forest of tags (of which most were MS horrifications). Excel was a jumble that extends and implements ‘tag soup’ multiple times, and Powerpoint managed to create no less than 8 files (!!!) on something as simple as an HTML page containing only the words ‘Hello World’. Just a little benchmarking 
Just to see what I get… I created a “Basic” hello world" page in MS Word. Courier font, From the FIRST character on the first line I typed.
hello world
Then I saved it as an html file.
Below is the “CODE” of that file.
<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document>
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11">
<meta name=Originator content="Microsoft Word 11">
<link rel=File-List href="hello%20world_files/filelist.xml">
<title>hello world</title>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:DocumentProperties>
<o:Author>IT</o:Author>
<o:LastAuthor>IT</o:LastAuthor>
<o:Revision>1</o:Revision>
<o:TotalTime>1</o:TotalTime>
<o:Created>2007-04-16T14:58:00Z</o:Created>
<o:LastSaved>2007-04-16T14:59:00Z</o:LastSaved>
<o:Pages>1</o:Pages>
<o:Words>1</o:Words>
<o:Characters>11</o:Characters>
<o:Company>OPM</o:Company>
<o:Lines>1</o:Lines>
<o:Paragraphs>1</o:Paragraphs>
<o:CharactersWithSpaces>11</o:CharactersWithSpaces>
<o:Version>11.5703</o:Version>
</o:DocumentProperties>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:GrammarState>Clean</w:GrammarState>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>6 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>
<w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>2</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>2</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Garamond;
panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:.75in .75in .75in .75in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang=EN-US style='tab-interval:.5in'>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:Garamond'>hello world</span><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Garamond'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>91 lines (ok… Including WHITE SPACE lines)
Now Power Point, I did a similar thing Accept a single text box.
<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"
xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
xmlns:p="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:powerpoint"
xmlns:oa="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:activation"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<meta name=ProgId content=PowerPoint.Slide>
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft PowerPoint 11">
<link rel=File-List href="helloworld_files/filelist.xml">
<link rel=Preview href="helloworld_files/preview.wmf">
<link rel=Edit-Time-Data href="helloworld_files/editdata.mso">
<title>PowerPoint Presentation</title>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:DocumentProperties>
<o:Author>IT</o:Author>
<o:LastAuthor>IT</o:LastAuthor>
<o:Revision>2</o:Revision>
<o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime>
<o:Created>2007-04-16T15:00:23Z</o:Created>
<o:LastSaved>2007-04-16T15:00:58Z</o:LastSaved>
<o:Words>2</o:Words>
<o:PresentationFormat>On-screen Show</o:PresentationFormat>
<o:Company>OPM</o:Company>
<o:Paragraphs>1</o:Paragraphs>
<o:Slides>1</o:Slides>
<o:Version>11.5703</o:Version>
</o:DocumentProperties>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:PixelsPerInch>80</o:PixelsPerInch>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<link rel=Presentation-XML href="helloworld_files/pres.xml">
<meta name=Description content="4/16/2007">
<meta http-equiv=expires content=0>
<![if !ppt]><script>
<!--
var ver = 0, appVer = navigator.appVersion, msie = appVer.indexOf( "MSIE " )
var msieWin31 = (appVer.indexOf( "Windows 3.1" ) >= 0), isMac = (appVer.indexOf("Macintosh") >= 0)
if( msie >= 0 )
ver = parseFloat( appVer.substring( msie+5, appVer.indexOf ( ";", msie ) ) )
else
ver = parseInt( appVer )
browserSupported=0
if( !isMac && ver >= 4 && msie >= 0 ) {
browserSupported=1
window.location.replace( 'helloworld_files/slide0001.htm'+document.location.hash )
}
//-->
</script><![endif]>
</head>
<body>
<script><!--
if( browserSupported )
document.writeln('<div style="visibility:hidden">');
//--></script><font face=Arial size=2><b>
<p>This presentation contains content that your browser may not be able to show
properly. This presentation was optimized for more recent versions of Microsoft
Internet Explorer.</p>
<p>If you would like to proceed anyway, click <a
href="helloworld_files/slide0001.htm">here</a>.</p>
</b></font><script><!--
if( browserSupported )
document.writeln('</div>');
//--></script>
</body>
</html>This one only had 79 Lines (including white space) But same thing… I get another 7 files in a sub folder… So 8 files and a folder. Granted if you wanted to put a “Presentation” online… Then Absolutely the Power point would work, (although Flash might be better, but since I don’t know Flash… I can’t say for sure) but to do a simple HTML, no way.
Give me VI (or notepad) any day. I do like getting a “Template” from something like Dreamweaver, but I prefer to edit it manually.
I once tried my hands on VI, but I guess her 'n I didn’t really work out. I know it’s very powerful and fast when you know the shortcuts 'n hotkeys 'n stuff, but frankly I don’t So I go for GUI-based stuff (tried Kate, but her 'n Gnome don’t like each other) so I’m running OOo’s Bluefish now.