Over the past 15 or so years as I have progressed in my professional career from a lowly jr. programmer writing Lotus 123 macros to writing small one line changes that took four managers to approve before the change would ever see the light of production, I have always pushed myself to not use the type of tools that automate too much of the coding. Tools like MS Visual Studio of any other major IDE. I guess I have always been very uncomfortable no knowing what the ‘tool’ was doing inside my code.

Realize also that as I voice these thoughts to people that I consider my peers they generally look at my in disbelief or disgust. They‘re out to write the code fast and move one.

Case in point is the use of Dreamweaver MX to develop a web site. I do not use DW. I prefer to use a PHP Editor (PHPEdit) and code the XHTML & CSS by hand. Many people just don’t believe others like me exist. Why would you choose not to use DW for XHTML or CSS? Simple. Because by using these tools especially as a WYSIWYG, is terrible and does not teach the developer about XHTML or CSS. Not to mention the code bloat involved in some of the ‘rollover’ items it creates. No thanks.

It was interesting a few weeks ago when I finally found a copy of the latest Eric Meyer ‘More Eric Meyer on CSS’. (Austin lacks many books in my opinion). In reading the Foreword and the introduction from Eric he mentioned who this book is NOT suited for. Those who use tools point and click tools for web development.

I also just read a blog along the same lines. Though at Design by Fire, Andrei was speaking more on interface design and how to be a true designer you need to put forth the effort and lean the underlying mechanics of XHTML & CSS to take control of the look and feel. Don’t rely on the package to provide the style from its available templates. Very good read. Nod to Design by Fire