OT: Inexpensive Web Authoring Tools (Long)
Robert Hutchins
>With all the talk lately about web sites, coding, and tools, I thought I'd seek the assembled wisdom in regard to web authoring tools . . . primarily web design and code generating software, but also editors and code mergers, release managers, et al. I spent hundreds of thousands of corporate dollars on software development and maintenance tools before retirement. I understand from hard-won experience what productivity gains in this sphere are worth when supporting critical applications and large user bases.
First, let me say that I cracked my knuckles on code back in the mid '60s on an IBM, transistor-based, mainframe. I wrote code (Autocoder, BAL, COBOL, PL1) for a few year then moved on to project management and overall IT management which means that I gave up the ability to maintain programming knowledge and skills. Fast forward to a year and little ago - I was asked to develop a web site for my high school class (the men, geezers all and the women still hotties). That put me back into learning mode, but retirement income severely restricted my budget for classes and software tools. Most of what I've learned has been from books and from the web - especially forums dedicated to specialty subjects. I'd say I'm an advanced beginner now (certainly far from being ready for prime time) with HTML (and variants), CSS, PHP and a smattering of javascript and VBscript thrown in. I've not spent more than $30 for any software tool - most of them have been freeware/shareware.
With all the talk about the inefficiency of writing files by hand, I became curious about web authoring tools. Pagemaker and Dreamweaver are far to expensive for me. I've downloaded several trial-packages but find the learning curves to be onerous. I also found a need for tools that allow one to compare files and to merge files or to do multi-window cut and paste to be useful. Lastly, I wondered about tools for managing the version, updating, uploading control process.
What web authoring tools do you use? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What can you not live without and what do you find just nice to have for when you need it?
