Web-site Development Tools

[Peter C. Gorman]

Luisa -

I use BBEdit (Mac) almost exclusively for all Web development projects: for
Perl, JavaScript, HTML (for an example, see
http://www.library.wisc.edu/etext/Jonas/), and other SGML document types.
I've found that for complex markup (e.g., lots of attributes), it's *much*
more efficient to copy and paste markup fragments than to use "visual"
editors, especially when you also have sophisticated search/replace tools
at hand. You do need to have a fairly good understanding of HTML, but if
you're obsessive about validating your code you'll learn fairly quickly.
Relying exclusively on visual editors' "features" makes it hard to produce
valid markup; with some packages it's actually impossible to do so.
HotMetal Pro is one of the few editors that does syntax checking, but its
internal rules don't correspond exactly to the W3C DTDs.

>I was wondering if any web librarians on this list could recommend any web
>development tools that they use.  I would especially appreciate hearing if
>anybody is still just hand coding, and their justification for doing so.


PG
_______________________________
Peter C. Gorman
Automation Librarian
University of Wisconsin-Madison
General Library System Automation Services
pcgorman at facstaff.wisc.edu
(608) 265-5291