Is there any disadvantage to use Dreamweaver to do web design?
April 22, 2010 by
Filed under web design tools
I know dreamweaver is a handy web design tool, but is there any disadvantage to use it, for example, get some bad habits or limit creative to web designer? If I want to be professional web designer, Do I need write html and css in notepad for some time or directly use Dreamweaver?
DW is a powerful web design tool, but should never be considered by a “professional”.
- It creates a code that is cluttered with inadequate tags and arguments;
- It usually develops a site for one given browser and one resolution;
- It never solve all browser’s incompatibilities; (Never found a DW site working on the 5 main browsers!)
- It is barely capable of dealing with any kind of interactivity (server-side scripts and AJAX)
- It prevents the coder from learning how to code properly.
In other words, you learn to design a site, but not how to develop it, and the coding is very hard to maintain (as it has no “meanings”).
Some consider it useful to set-up the base of their website “to save time”, then adapt the code by hand. I disagree! A good set of images created in Photoshop, and one set of HTML, CSS, javascript and php basics, together with an AJAX framework, allows me to set-up any website in a few hours and in a very professional manner.
My tools: Photoshop and Notepad++ (and many years of experience).