html vs. WYSIWYG

I would like for the group to consider the following:

There are many web site designers who seem to rely
heavily on the use of
WYSIWYG editors (cold fusion, front page, etc) to get
web pages done. I can
understand why some who just want to get their pages
up fast and be done
with it would do so. But it is increasingly becoming
evident to me that even
some professional designers are using this approach.

There are obvious advantages to this-speed being one
of them. However, there
are also obvious disadvantages such as lack of control
over the look of the
pages and the risk of using built in HTML code that
can't be parsed by older
browsers thus eliminating a portion of an audience
that may not be able to
read  pages as the designer intended them to be
read-or worse yet-having the
pages totally unreadable. Also, if a designer doesn't
know HTML how can web
pages be edited if the need arises?

What pages I have built thus far have been in HTML
with some use of CSS and
Java scripting.
My view is that a good grounding in HTML is essential
first and that the
learning of the use of WYSIWYG  editors should come
later as an "aid" in
building web pages.

I am interested in the groups feelings about the pros
and cons of use of
WYSIWYG editors.




__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere!
http://mail.yahoo.com/

HTML: hwg-basics mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA