[Kevin]

I think "Leopard Rules" is a bit of a over-statement. It has nice features, and is less buggy than most OSs put out "unfinished" But I wouldn't go as far as to say it rules.

I will say it has great POTENTIAL to rule in the near future.

[PaperNotes]

I love kicking Kevin in the shins.

[lkrupp]

Originally Posted by FastAMX79 

You all do realize that henjin (the OP) has not posted anything since the first post. I think you all have been had.

And look how many indignant replies he got. Trolling Mac users is easy. Did anybody bother to read his other posts? He claims to be a 'former' iPhone user too. Every one of his posts either bash Apple or extoll the virtues of PCs and Windows. Do guys like this really have so much Apple/OS X penis envy that they feel compelled to visit Mac forums with their dog and pony shows? I guess so.

Yes, we've been had

[Gee4orce]

You guys doing web site 'design' in Dreamweaver should a) get a clue, b) learn CSS based layout, and c) buy CSSEdit.

Leopard roars. Really. To me it feels like the kind of OS I thought I might be using in the 21st century. Vista is the dying gasp of a dinosaur, a coat of paint on a turd.

[eggman]

Originally Posted by Gee4orce 

You guys doing web site 'design' in Dreamweaver should a) get a clue, b) learn CSS based layout, and c) buy CSSEdit.

I think that was directed at my comment, so pardon me if I reply.

First of all, I don't do the 'design' in Dreamweaver. I 'design' in Photoshop, slice the graphics up in Fireworks, and then do production in Dreamweaver. Those are different tools for different phases of development. But in short...

a) Thank you, but over the years I have accumulated plenty of clues to spare. One of 'em is that Dreamweaver shaves hours off my aggressive web development schedule. I've proven this empirically, repeatedly. That counts for a lot, especially when I've got multiple clients colliding in my schedule, or when development cycles need to be ridiculously shortened. If hand-coding sites or using another tool were as productive for me, I'd do it that way. So far, Dreamweaver buys me the most time. I'm not married to it, but it's a bread-and-butter tool for me. And, yes, I've been reading the criticisms of Dreamweaver from folks on this board pretty much since I got here, back in 2002. Different strokes. Someone must find value in it, given the installed base of Dreamweaver users. And I know I do.

b) I use CSS based layout. Always. Dreamweaver has been supporting CSS increasingly well for the past three major versions. Maybe it's time for you to take a look at what Dreamweaver is, right now in late 2007, rather than critique something you may not have liked several versions ago. It has been through some major changes, and strong CSS support was a fundamental part of that. At least two versions ago.

c) I've tried CSSEdit, and think it's a very nice tool, but as far as I'm concerned Dreamweaver CS3's CSS capabilities render it superfluous to me.

People's preference in tools vary. Because someone chooses one over another doesn't mean they're clueless. It may mean that they work differently than you do, and different - contrary to a popular delusion - isn't a euphemism for inferior.

But I appreciate your curt yet magnanimous three-point plan for fixing my professional life. There's a future for you in talk radio.

[AppleOptionFour]

Lock and let die.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by PaperNotes 

I love kicking Kevin in the shins.

I have shin guards. Go right ahead.

Originally Posted by Gee4orce 

You guys doing web site 'design' in Dreamweaver should a) get a clue, b) learn CSS based layout, and c) buy CSSEdit.

Leopard roars. Really. To me it feels like the kind of OS I thought I might be using in the 21st century. Vista is the dying gasp of a dinosaur, a coat of paint on a turd.

Gee4orce's post was almost as trollish as the OP.

And yeah, this thread need to go away.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by eggman 

a) Thank you, but over the years I have accumulated plenty of clues to spare. One of 'em is that Dreamweaver shaves hours off my aggressive web development schedule. I've proven this empirically, repeatedly. That counts for a lot, especially when I've got multiple clients colliding in my schedule, or when development cycles need to be ridiculously shortened. If hand-coding sites or using another tool were as productive for me, I'd do it that way. So far, Dreamweaver buys me the most time. I'm not married to it, but it's a bread-and-butter tool for me. And, yes, I've been reading the criticisms of Dreamweaver from folks on this board pretty much since I got here, back in 2002. Different strokes. Someone must find value in it, given the installed base of Dreamweaver users. And I know I do.

I just don't buy this. If hand coding is slower for you, perhaps you need more practice at it? I simply cannot fathom how dorking around with a GUI that is trying to automate the coding process for you is any faster than taking care of business yourself, providing you know how to do exactly that?

b) I use CSS based layout. Always. Dreamweaver has been supporting CSS increasingly well for the past three major versions. Maybe it's time for you to take a look at what Dreamweaver is, right now in late 2007, rather than critique something you may not have liked several versions ago. It has been through some major changes, and strong CSS support was a fundamental part of that. At least two versions ago.

What does this mean? CSS is not something that needs "support", CSS rules are rules that you can whip up in a text editor. Do you mean support for giving you previews of the CSS changes you make? Why would somebody dick around with Dreamweaver's preview when you can preview them in a real browser? If you need a GUI based app to craft your CSS rules for you, again, perhaps you need more practice at writing CSS by hand?

c) I've tried CSSEdit, and think it's a very nice tool, but as far as I'm concerned Dreamweaver CS3's CSS capabilities render it superfluous to me.

All CSSEdit does is help generate syntax. If you know this syntax yourself, you don't need this tool.

But I appreciate your curt yet magnanimous three-point plan for fixing my professional life. There's a future for you in talk radio.

I don't mean to be combative with any of this, but it seems clear that you are more of a graphic designer type than a programmer type, fine... I'm sure Dreamweaver is more productive for you. However, for those programmer types, we don't need to shell out money for a glorified text editor like Dreamweaver that is designed to help us do things we can do ourselves on a napkin, if we had to...

[eggman]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I don't mean to be combative with any of this, but it seems clear that you are more of a graphic designer type than a programmer type, fine... I'm sure Dreamweaver is more productive for you. However, for those programmer types, we don't need to shell out money for a glorified text editor like Dreamweaver that is designed to help us do things we can do ourselves on a napkin, if we had to...

What seems clear to you is also totally incorrect. While I do have a degree in fine art, I also had a lengthy and distinguished career as a software developer before I started my own web consultancy, which included:

• Designing and coding the prototype client for a social telecommunications network, back in 1983. On Commodore 64s. In hand-coded 6502 assembler. Without a linker. Or a hard disk. Ultimately, that software was licensed by a company called QuantumLink and was the basis for AOL. Some of the communications protocols I developed are still being used in that system. So I'll probably go to hell for developing what became the AOL Chat Room.
  
• Project lead for one of the very first microcomputer-based paint, animation and illustration programs, Lumena. It ran under DOS, back when a 16-bit graphics display adaptor cost $3,000. That software was a predecessor to - and influence upon - later products, like Painter and Photoshop. I know that because the designers of those products told me so.
  
• Senior Software Archictect at Macromedia for their flagship multimedia authoring application, Director. While there, in addition to other stuff, I developed some of the first multimedia plug-ins for the web. Even before there was Flash, there was Shockwave. That was 12 years ago. I no longer have any Macromedia (or Adobe) stock, nor any connection with the existing organization, so don't interpret my advocacy of Dreamweaver to any abiding affection for Macromedia. I can be their harshest critic about many things.

Since then, I've developed websites for a broad variety of clients, including major corporations and a U.S. Congressman. And most of those had custom coding for specialized back-end services. I've developed groundbreaking web-based volunteer management tools for grassroots organizers. I'm currently building a syndicated event management system for a major online political advocacy organization.

So, yeah, I'm a programmer, by anyone's standards. And for a long time, too. I first learned to code on a Univac 1108, on a teletype machine... and saved my code to paper tape. Bjarne Stroustrup taught me C++ himself back when that language had a cult following.

Your inability to 'buy' what I'm saying is simply an assertion of you own limitations. I just don't share your religious conviction that everything is best done by hand coding. If that were the case, then I suppose we could all ditch our copies of Illustrator and should create SVG files by writing out vertex lists in our text editors. I do plenty of hand coding, when necessary... which is often.

And I also use visual programming tools when they do the job. And that includes Dreamweaver.

[MindFad]

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by eggman 

What seems clear to you is also totally incorrect. While I do have a degree in fine art, I also had a lengthy and distinguished career as a software developer before I started my own web consultancy, which included:

• Designing and coding the prototype client for a social telecommunications network, back in 1983. On Commodore 64s. In hand-coded 6502 assembler. Without a linker. Or a hard disk. Ultimately, that software was licensed by a company called QuantumLink and was the basis for AOL. Some of the communications protocols I developed are still being used in that system. So I'll probably go to hell for developing what became the AOL Chat Room.
  
• Project lead for one of the very first microcomputer-based paint, animation and illustration programs, Lumena. It ran under DOS, back when a 16-bit graphics display adaptor cost $3,000. That software was a predecessor to - and influence upon - later products, like Painter and Photoshop. I know that because the designers of those products told me so.
  
• Senior Software Archictect at Macromedia for their flagship multimedia authoring application, Director. While there, in addition to other stuff, I developed some of the first multimedia plug-ins for the web. Even before there was Flash, there was Shockwave. That was 12 years ago. I no longer have any Macromedia (or Adobe) stock, nor any connection with the existing organization, so don't interpret my advocacy of Dreamweaver to any abiding affection for Macromedia. I can be their harshest critic about many things.

Since then, I've developed websites for a broad variety of clients, including major corporations and a U.S. Congressman. And most of those had custom coding for specialized back-end services. I've developed groundbreaking web-based volunteer management tools for grassroots organizers. I'm currently building a syndicated event management system for a major online political advocacy organization.

So, yeah, I'm a programmer, by anyone's standards. And for a long time, too. I first learned to code on a Univac 1108, on a teletype machine... and saved my code to paper tape. Bjarne Stroustrup taught me C++ himself back when that language had a cult following.

Your inability to 'buy' what I'm saying is simply an assertion of you own limitations. I just don't share your religious conviction that everything is best done by hand coding. If that were the case, then I suppose we could all ditch our copies of Illustrator and should create SVG files by writing out vertex lists in our text editors. I do plenty of hand coding, when necessary... which is often.

And I also use visual programming tools when they do the job. And that includes Dreamweaver.

When do visual programming tools actually do the job? Are you a fan of Visual Basic?

Your comparison to Illustrator and SVG is unfair, because at the heart of a computer illustration is something that is crafted with a mouse. You could get the geometry and the basic polygon formed with a text editor, but can you do all of the shading and refinement that makes an illustration great without a tool such as Illustrator?

Contrast this to web development, where absolutely everything can (and often is) done without a graphical tool.

I'm sorry for pigeon-holing you unfairly, I was clearly wrong, but I'm just not a fan of visual programming, and many Mac users that I have communicated with in here seem to long for shortcuts to putting in the work of learning the code and look for these shortcuts with tools like Dreamweaver. I'm sure you have seen code purely constructed visually, it is ass, and a pain to work with and/or inherit. This is what I feel strongest about.

Others have said "don't use Dreamweaver as a WYSIWYG tool then", and to this I wonder what the real net gain is then, in consideration of the fact that the thing costs several hundred dollars, last I checked...

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by MindFad 

I wish these sorts of graphics would be rid from this universe. It makes even my most childish poop joke seem extremely infantile.

[PaperNotes]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I wish these sorts of graphics would be rid from this universe. It makes even my most childish poop joke seem extremely infantile.

I ungraphically denounce you. You over-exaggerate your qualifications in fields you know little about. You're not a good enough coder to talk about CSS and web design apps and every time coding comes up it shows.

Leopard rules on my MBP.

[kelso]

Ok... Blame Apple for Adobes lack of updates.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by PaperNotes 

I ungraphically denounce you. You over-exaggerate your qualifications in fields you know little about. You're not a good enough coder to talk about CSS and web design apps and every time coding comes up it shows.

Leopard rules on my MBP.

I have nothing to prove to you, I'm content to be denounced by you....

[PaperNotes]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I'm content to be denounced by you....

You mean deserve.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by PaperNotes 

You mean deserve.

I have no interest in comparing cock sizes with you or anybody else, sorry. I expect my opinions to be disputed on an intellectual level based on their own merits, I have no interest in making this personal and emotional.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by eggman 

Thank you, but over the years I have accumulated plenty of clues to spare. One of 'em is that Dreamweaver shaves hours off my aggressive web development schedule. I've proven this empirically, repeatedly. That counts for a lot, especially when I've got multiple clients colliding in my schedule, or when development cycles need to be ridiculously shortened. If hand-coding sites or using another tool were as productive for me, I'd do it that way. So far, Dreamweaver buys me the most time. I'm not married to it, but it's a bread-and-butter tool for me. And, yes, I've been reading the criticisms of Dreamweaver from folks on this board pretty much since I got here, back in 2002. Different strokes. Someone must find value in it, given the installed base of Dreamweaver users. And I know I do.

Out of curiosity, do you find much of this value in the whole graphical-layout aspect of the program? I know many pros who use Dreamweaver, but it seems like most use it mainly as an IDE and wind up doing most of the code by hand anyway, which I think is what besson was trying to get at, maybe.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Out of curiosity, do you find much of this value in the whole graphical-layout aspect of the program? I know many pros who use Dreamweaver, but it seems like most use it mainly as an IDE and wind up doing most of the code by hand anyway, which I think is what besson was trying to get at, maybe.

Pretty much, yeah...

I'm sure Dreamweaver does provide a few nice features for hand coders, but I run a small business and have just not been terribly compelled or felt justified to shell out the money for the app. Maybe this is moreso a reflection of my general philosophies and quirks though, or something - I generally prefer lightweight, simple apps to big beastly monolithic environments like Dreamweaver or Flash.

I obviously make exceptions with Photoshop and Flash though, since it would be extremely hard to replace them both, but I often think about moving to Photoshop Elements or Gimpshop, or moving to a more Javascript/AJAX approach to replace Flash for this same sort of reason.

I apologize again to eggman for generalizing prematurely. I know I would be insulted if somebody did that to me, I shouldn't have done this.

[eggman]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

When do visual programming tools actually do the job? Are you a fan of Visual Basic?

I frankly haven't looked at Visual Basic in so long that I don't feel like I can make any intelligent comment on it. I have an animus against Basic in general for having created an entire generation of spaghetti coders, but I occasionally hear that it has become object oriented and has accreted a plethora of wonderfulness over the years, but I have no particular need or desire to find out if that is so.

OTOH, I don't think that there's necessarily any reason, a priori, for visual programming to be a Bad Thing. In fact, an ideal world of rich, robust, reusable code objects lends itself to visual construction techniques.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Your comparison to Illustrator and SVG is unfair, because at the heart of a computer illustration is something that is crafted with a mouse. You could get the geometry and the basic polygon formed with a text editor, but can you do all of the shading and refinement that makes an illustration great without a tool such as Illustrator?

Well, your characterization of Dreamweaver as a glorified text-editor is equally unfair, IMO, and that's what I was trying to communicate.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Contrast this to web development, where absolutely everything can (and often is) done without a graphical tool.

I don't know what the sites you design look like, but when prototyping and integrating graphical assets, which are often characteristic of compelling websites, graphical tools are incredibly useful.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I'm sorry for pigeon-holing you unfairly, I was clearly wrong, but I'm just not a fan of visual programming, and many Mac users that I have communicated with in here seem to long for shortcuts to putting in the work of learning the code and look for these shortcuts with tools like Dreamweaver. I'm sure you have seen code purely constructed visually, it is ass, and a pain to work with and/or inherit. This is what I feel strongest about.

Bad code is bad code, whether output by a scripting engine or by a programmer in a rush. And, no, I don't agree that code inserted by a tool like Dreamweaver is inevitably ass. It's often well tested, reusable code that has been vetted on a number of platforms and browsers.

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Others have said "don't use Dreamweaver as a WYSIWYG tool then", and to this I wonder what the real net gain is then, in consideration of the fact that the thing costs several hundred dollars, last I checked...

Well, if a professional tool doesn't earn its keep, you oughtn't to use it. Photoshop ain't cheap, either. But the point is that despite the fact that it spits out CSS, HTML and JavaScript, which are textual, calling it a text-editor - and comparing it to TextMate or BBEdit is just wrongheaded. I've been able to quickly deploy sites by using its programming behaviors as a basis, extending them as necessary - or integrating decent code resources from 3rd parties.

It's a platform.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by eggman 

I frankly haven't looked at Visual Basic in so long that I don't feel like I can make any intelligent comment on it. I have an animus against Basic in general for having created an entire generation of spaghetti coders, but I occasionally hear that it has become object oriented and has accreted a plethora of wonderfulness over the years, but I have no particular need or desire to find out if that is so.

OTOH, I don't think that there's necessarily any reason, a priori, for visual programming to be a Bad Thing. In fact, an ideal world of rich, robust, reusable code objects lends itself to visual construction techniques.

That make creating mediocre stuff easy, no? Isn't this sort of the iLife approach to programming?

Well, your characterization of Dreamweaver as a glorified text-editor is equally unfair, IMO, and that's what I was trying to communicate.

Fair enough.. What I was trying to communicate is that I would probably end up using it as a glorified text editor, at least most of the time.

I don't know what the sites you design look like, but when prototyping and integrating graphical assets, which are often characteristic of compelling websites, graphical tools are incredibly useful.

Good point, and obviously a tool like Photoshop or Illustrator can be considered development tools as well. What I meant was tools involved in the actual assembly/implementation of the site itself, not tools for planning for the site or creating assets to be placed on the site.

Bad code is bad code, whether output by a scripting engine or by a programmer in a rush. And, no, I don't agree that code inserted by a tool like Dreamweaver is inevitably ass. It's often well tested, reusable code that has been vetted on a number of platforms and browsers.

I've yet to be impressed by anything any WYSIWYG editor has come up with, especially when you try to "trick out" these editors by doing all sorts of silly tricks you would do in MS Word (e.g. tabs/spaces for layout). Perhaps a pro can use these editors in such a way as to produce passable code, but the demographic amateur user? I haven't seen anything but ass code...

[besson3c]

I guess maybe another problem I have with WYSIWYG editors is that it seems like your best case scenario is that you'll come up with something that is "good enough". Maybe good enough is productive for prototyping large sites or something (although I generally don't like to mockup prototypes as websites at all), but I'm really picky when it comes to what I'm willing to accept as a final result when it comes to how things behave and operate on the back end.

In fact, I often feel that this is where I differ from many Mac users. I was close to ditching OS X altogether when I was running Tiger and getting pissed off at the Finder and its performance - particularly with network volumes. To me this was absolutely unacceptable and intolerable, especially after all these years. I'm far more willing to put up with some interface imperfections than I am with something like that. Some others here (again, don't mean to pigeonhole or center out anybody in particular) seem fussier about how scrollbars look than anything else - I'm the complete opposite. The way scrollbars look is so far down my list of concerns that it is barely on my list to begin with.

Any, I'm digressing here... What was the original topic again? Oh yeah, Vista being better...

[gskibum3]

I so miss the days before the appearance of Adobe Illustrator.

Hand-coding PostScript was so satisfying. I loved the way putting down the adopters of the GIU of Illustrator inflated my ego. /sarcasm

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Such an vague accusation, and one that gives the wrong impression. Let's be precise: It exploited a built-in, documented feature to accomplish things for which the feature was not originally conceived.

In other words: it hacked the system.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I've yet to be impressed by anything any WYSIWYG editor has come up with, especially when you try to "trick out" these editors by doing all sorts of silly tricks you would do in MS Word (e.g. tabs/spaces for layout).

Well, yeah, hand-edited pages would suck if you tried stupid things on them too.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Well, yeah, hand-edited pages would suck if you tried stupid things on them too.

But it's much harder to. HTML interpretation handed by a web browser is absolutely literal. It will not translate a tab you put in a text document into      .

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I just don't buy this. If hand coding is slower for you, perhaps you need more practice at it? I simply cannot fathom how dorking around with a GUI that is trying to automate the coding process for you is any faster than taking care of business yourself, providing you know how to do exactly that?

Because that is the way designers are used to doing things. Just like you are used to doing it the code way. Ever wonder why page layout applications like InDesign don't have a code by hand equivalent?

This "code by hand" stuff is elitist corksniffery.

Originally Posted by gskibum3 

I so miss the days before the appearance of Adobe Illustrator.

Hand-coding PostScript was so satisfying. I loved the way putting down the adopters of the GIU of Illustrator inflated my ego. /sarcasm

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by MindFad 

I would call that smackdown of the year.

Wow, you just gained a bunch of respect from me egg. I had no clue.

[gentryfunk]

Hey Everybody! Everything that Leopard does is crap and Vista is the perfect Operating System. It does everything in the world and, more importantly, it never, ever crashes. Vista is really, really incredible! I mean, I've used it for years (oops, I mean months), and it makes all of my software better. In fact, when I installed it, all the software I already had ran GREAT! Leopard, f course, destroyed everything, and I even lost all my data on the hard drive when Leopard actually wiped out all of my files!! Can you believe it?

I have always owned Macs but no longer. I am a Vista convert!

P.S. This entire post, before this line, is complete B.S!

[Kevin]

The OP was probably a tardo from ihateapple.net

[eggman]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

Wow, you just gained a bunch of respect from me egg. I had no clue.

One of the things about the Internet is that no one can tell you're a dog. But people mostly assume you are.

I've been on the other side of it:

Me: Well, I disagree!!! I have studied extensively, as an avocation, the way the human brain works.
Other Guy: I am a brain surgeon.
Me: Oh.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by eggman 

One of the things about the Internet is that no one can tell you're a dog. But people mostly assume you are.

Yeah recently happen to me in another forum.

I've been on the other side of it:

So have I. I think we all have. Though when it happens to me, and someone has impressive credentials I actually attempt to apologize.

I don't think you were really trying to "brag" Or I'd have heard about this before now.

[moonmonkey]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

Yeah recently happen to me in another forum.

there are other forums?

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by moonmonkey 

there are other forums?

Yup.

And on top of that, some of the are even worth going to.