“Don’t you dare load Dreamweaver”

I remember the days at college when my lecturer said “Right, none of you even dare to open Dreamweaver! We’re using Notepad!”. We all glanced around at each other with shocked expressions on our faces at the time but I later came to appreciate this early lesson. I, like most other developers, use Dreamweaver on a regular basis. It is, afterall, the defacto standard in web design and development tools amongst most designers and developers. But that early lesson stuck in my mind and I soon realised that learning HTML the hard way soon began to pay off.

“The lessons that the notepad lesson taught me”

Looking back on that important lesson I realised that I had become much less reliant on (and sometimes even annoyed by) software aids such as auto code completers such as tag finishers. There is a certain benefit in having that low level, detailed view of the code that you are developing. Having the ability to switch in a out of design and code views in Dreamweaver is equally, if not more useful, because it provides the designer or developer with that holistic viewpoint that we so crave. New developers on a shoestring budget who cannot afford to purchase expensive (and frequently updated) software now have the benefit and being able to get down and dirty with code with Notepad but, ultimately, every good developer should be able to develop in either way. Dreamweaver is quicker though and, professionally speaking, just more fluid to manage multiple projects on simultaneously. And let’s face it, the real world of the web design business demands this.

But Notepad is nice for those nifty little changes right?

Here’s a little video clip that I found on YouTube which shows a quick example of scripting HTML in notepad. This is similar to the first lesson that I had at college when I was learning to script. Enjoy!

This video tutorial provides a good start to medium skill leveled web designers and a useful refresher for intermediate practitioners but remember you will need to have a sound foundation is many related disciplines before you begin to work in the web design industry.

Remember if you’re a newbie web designer – learn from the best or your business will die like the rest. Don’t even attempt to work with real clients until you get good, real good! Or you’re just going to make yourself look silly now aren’t you?

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