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With that being said...
I have always ran into those few arrogant hand coders who always say it is a lazy way of doing things when I tell them I use DW. Sorry I'm being a little passionate. I say arrogant, because when they say that they hand code they say it in such a way like it's better than how I do it. But I can say this, I DO get my hands dirty every day and I can create pages by hand coding. Using DW is just my preferred way of creating sites.
So I say this. You may have knitted your hat and I may have used the "easy weaver 2000" to make mine. But we still both have made some really good hats.
Just venting. What do you think.
But if the weights and quality are similar, then I'd say (wait for it) "hats off to you!" :)
What it comes down to for me is that I will use dreamweaver to build the basic page and then I will eye scan the code and check each line for accuracy. Then, for future edits, I certainly open my dreamweaver files and edit in code mode mostly but while I use the WYSIWYG Design screen just to quickly locate something...(I'll highlight it, flip to the code view and make my changes).
So, I use it but dont reply on it for SEO.
Lets face it, no matter how your webpage is built, your going to manually do your SEO anyway so human eyes are going to review the code.
I always have preferred a plain text editor (vi is my weapon of choice).
I do own a license of DW in my CS2 bundle (+upgrades to CS3 and CS4), but never used it. I did see demonstrations by Adobe staff at events to promote their software and never had a "I need this" moment while sitting through it.
Why ?
First of all, I can code it by hand, and it gives me the control I like.
Secondly learning just one of the CS packages takes time (a lot more than I really care to spend), and things like Illustrator, PhotoShop etc are hard enough to master and I'm still working on grasping Flash (a very strange beast).
So why would I submit myself to the learning curve of something I don't need?
The other side is that if something goes wrong, and you hand coded it, you know you'll understand the code more than well enough to fix it. It reduces the time you need to learn during emergencies.
Finally, as to things like global replacing, templates etc: I have that using SSI already, create xml so I can parse it if I ever need to, ...
But does that mean that I dislike DW made stuff: as long as the code is solid, can be understood and maintained by humans, there's no reason to dislike it at all.
In the end, a code generator is as good as the code it generates, and it's all about the code, not the way you got to it.
Note that I'm not saying how it looks in browsers is all that counts. Cause there I don't agree: one might end up using office to create megabytes of nonsense and call it "html".
I have always ran into those few arrogant hand coders who always say it is a lazy way of doing things when I tell them I use DW.
HEY! We're not all arrogant! :-)
Well, if someone assigns diminutive terms like "lazy," I guess that qualifies.
However, back atcha' bud - I often encounter many developers who are also arrogant - "I'm a DESIGNER, not a GEEK like you." Grins and bears it . . .
This comes up with DW, FrontPage, any other "WYSIWYG" program. The largest objection is it's abuse, or use with limited knowledge. The majority of users are using the program in such a way that it bloats the code and requires major cleanup. A large portion of my projects are this work; last week I reduced a DW-generated page from 379 lines to 98 lines.
The second objection I raise is that ofttimes it's a crutch, one that eventually catches up with most developers. I often use the metaphor of a driver by the side of the road with the hood up, when all that's wrong is they need to let the engine cool and fill the radiator. Too often developers are clueless as to "what's wrong" when, if they understand the code they are creating, is a simple fix. I have one developer that uses DW to upload his entire site, and gets really defensive when I suggest he might consider learning how to use basic FTP as a way of transferring files. He won't hear if it. "This works, why would I?"
I am gathering by default any new documents are created as XHTML documents, when all they are outputting is HTML. Most developers have no clue as to why they are doing this, and what consequences it holds. If you're not actually using XHTML in your document output, don't create an XHTML doctype with all it's restrictions and features (well discussed here.)
The last, and probably most defining for me, is the way DW generates Javascript code for it's actions (actually this applies to Flash publish methods as well, and is still rampant in CS3/CS4.) This stuff is by far the most antiquated and outdated Javascript ever; bloated, using browser identification methods to do it's dirty work, which is long known to be inefficient and unreliable, it's a total mess. Most of the time I can reduce 50-100 lines of auto-generated JS to under 20 lines. Any time I see "MM_ 'anything' " I cringe. :-)
I have DW here with CS3. I've launched it, I think, three times, to help a customer figure out how to do something. That's about as much time as I'll give it. :-)
An aside,
I have used it ever since it came out.
If you got the CD version of this program, dig around the CD for Extras and you will find an editor called HomeSite, the leanest, meanest text editor I've ever found: color-coding for many languages (html, perl, php, ASP, CF), auto-complete capabilities, internal validators, superman level search and replace capabilities, auto-complete capabilities, and tons more. I don't know what I'll do if it ever breaks because IMO it's the ultimate editor and was eliminated when Adobe took over. It was distributed free with Macromedia's major web products.
But when I first started designing (notice I didn't say programing) web sites I had an HTML and JavaScript book and did a lot of snatching from "view source" and changing the code in notepad. Then I moved to FrontPage...Don't ask why. That didn't last too long. Then onto HomeSite and DW.
Now I mostly use DW combined with NotePad++ (Which I absolutely love for some reason).
I don't know what I'll do if it ever breaks
Eclipse
