Ewwww. Vim is all you need! On Sun, Dec 10, 2000 at 09:32:17PM -0600, Randy Rathbun wrote: > I agree. PHP rocks. Big time. That is what I run astrodot.org and > quitequitefantastic.org on. Granted, I did not write the underlying code, > but this thing is just so simple to fix problems on it is not even funny. > Just now I fixed some errors that were causing web browsers to be > misnamed - it thought Konqueror was Netscape. Simple fix! And ya gotta > like dynamic web sites. They are just too cool. > > But I disagree about designing. This is probably going to start a flame > war now :). Actually, I like the web page maker in Star Office. Another > good one to look at is Amaya from www.w3c.org. Both of those do a nice > job, though they can be a total pain to use at times. When I am in a real > hurry I boot my laptop into Windows and run Macromedia Dreamweaver, which > is the best WYSIWYG page creator out there, imnsho. Hopefully this new > version of wine will fix my "have to use windows" thing and just let me > run DW from Linux. > > On Sun, 10 Dec 2000, Tony Hammitt wrote: > > > Yes, use a text editor and a couple of different web browsers. A good > > text editor like nedit is much more flexible than anyone's integrated > > development environment, which constrict you to using their style of > > code, etc. You can also use more than one kind of technology, like > > Perl along with PHP if you aren't stuck with an IDE. Speaking of PHP, > > I've found that web development with it is extremely rapid. You lay > > out the page how you need it to look then stick PHP code in where > > needed to customize the page. So you usually have some working code > > that is easy to hack on, even just after you have started building the > > page. As you go on, you have more code to steal from your old stuff, > > which is one of the things that an IDE isn't good at; swiping code from > > old projects. > > > > There is also the intangible benefits of knowing exactly how your site > > is put together so you can always fix it if there are problems. It's > > more about maintainability than speed of development. Anyone can hack > > together a website, but adding features is going to be easier if you > > write the code yourself. > > > > Not to say that all IDE's are bad. They often provide workable starting > > points from which to build, but once you get past that stage, most have > > problems doing advanced functions. Also beware of using things like > > FrontPage, which require propreitary server extensions that lock you into > > using just their server. If you want to change providers, you may be > > out of luck. > > > > My personal opinions about web standards: > > > > If you have a windows box handy, you will probably want to use explorer > > and netscape or mozilla to check whether your site looks the way you > > want it to look for all users. Also check your site using Lynx to make > > sure that people using text-based browsers can use your site, too. Too > > many sites forget all about web standards and just use Flash or some > > other non-portable tool that leave the visitors with nothing to fall > > back on if they don't have that plug-in. > > > > Also remember that quite a few people have JavaScript turned off, so > > get familiar with the