Re: FrontPage cons

At 08:08 PM 29/01/99 -0700, you wrote:
>What I would like input  on is how to argue for allowing people to use the
>program of their choice.  I don't think FP is the panacea for all
>departmental sites that the exec's think it is, but I need fodder to show
>them why it should be just one of many choices.=20
>
>They respond well to things like space issues (with the tabs Michael wrote
>about earlier, that FP puts extra stuff in).  Any other ideas on the
>disadvantages from a nondesign point of view appreciated.

Hi again Chris,

Well, as Donna so aptly put and a point that your exec's will surely
understand is that all the proprietary markup and numerous kludges, code
bloat and HTML syntax errors that FrontPage and most WYSIWYG tools insert
into code will really hurt the usability of the page.  Can your company
afford to loose potential customers because of bad coding or because they
do not have the "right" browser or browser version to access the content on
your company's site properly?  Most professional Web designers that work
with WYSIWYG tools know their limitations and will clean up the code
manually before it reaches the Web.  That's why visual tools like
DreamWeaver and NetObjects Fusion (who both are far superior to FrontPage
IMO...) released versions of their products that came bundled with a
dedicated code based editor (HomeSite in these cases). Personally, I really
see no advantage in working with a tool that creates code so bad that it
will need to be fixed afterwards when I can build a page once, get control
over the code and get much more predictable results much faster instead of
wasting my time doing it twice.

The keyword here is control.  Visual tools shield you from that control and
if you don't take steps to make sure the code they produce is OK, your best
bet to get your users to see what you see is to pray... ;-)  I am not
trying to start a flame war either but the above is my opinion based on my
experience.  YMMV

Btw Tom,  I do not hate Microsoft, I work on a PC and I do not use Notepad
as my editor.  Do you really think that so called "modern" editors are
limited to WYSIWYG tools?  Ever heard of HomeSite?  HotDog?  BBE Edit?
They are all full featured sophisticated editors who assist designers in
performing the monotonous tasks of web design but do so without creating
bloated and error laden code (unless human errors are involved of
course;-).  To me, professional Web designers are people who know what they
are doing and their professionalism has nothing to do with the tools they
are using.  Surely many of them use WYSIWYG editors in their arsenal but
they do so in full awareness of their severe limitations in regard to code
portability and usability and take steps to make sure their pages behave
the way they want them to.  And Unix and Perl fringe technology?  You must
be kidding right?  Surely you know that most of the Internet is based on
UNIX servers and that Perl is the most widely used CGI scripting language
by far?  Hardly fringe technology...

St=E9phane Bergeron

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