peterdaly - 10:14 pm on Jun 29, 2003 (gmt 0)

There are two type of people who make web pages (for this discussion at least).

1. Web Designer - This person is very big into DW. They are usually a "graphics artist" by trade, and are or have moved into the web world. They view a web site as a bunch of static pages, with at most minimum server side dynamic logic. The site is usually viewed as a dynamic brochure. Function (many times non-existant) Follows Form.

2. Web (Application) Developer (I'm in this camp) - This person thinks of a website as being a server side dynamic application with static elements. Most have been developing web sites for years with a text editor. Tools like DW are seen as a rapid prototyping tool. They usually have a very firm grasp of HTML. They use the WYSIWYG GUI for the comlex layout portions of a site in the begining of the development, then move the project into a high end text editor, or programming language centered IDE for the rest of the development cycle. The site is usually though of as window to content, manytimes coming out of a database, or dynamically generated by some other means. Form (sometimes ugly) Follows Function.

For people of type 1, they manytimes view Dreamweaver as the only relevant tool. For hardcore dynamic site development, DW is a tool in the toolbox, which is of helpful, but limited use.

There is a third type, "Web Programmer", who I left out. These are historically computer programmers by trade, now using a web browser as their interface. I ignored them for the purposes of this discussion. Same thing with people learning web development, with no other related background.

-Pete