--- 
canonical: 'https://mwop.net/blog/54-dreamweaver-text-editors-and-webmasters.html'
title: 'Dreamweaver, Text Editors, and Webmasters'
author: "[Matthew Weier O'Phinney](https://mwop.net)"
created: '2005-01-08T22:22:18-06:00'
updated: '2005-01-08T22:22:25-06:00'
tags:
  - personal
  - programming

---
I picked up on [this article](http://osdir.com/slash3344.html) on Friday,
glanced through it and moved on, but noticed this evening it had been
[slashdotted](http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/08/2129250&tid=185)
— at which point I realized the author is the current
[CGI::Application](http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2001/06/05/cgi.html) maintainer, so
I looked again.

At my first glance through it, it appeared the author was looking for a nice,
easy-to-use pre-processor script for generating a site out of templates and
content files. To that end, he, in the end, recommended *ttree*, part of the
[Template Toolkit](http://search.cpan.org/~abw/Template-Toolkit-2.14/)
distribution.

However, the real gist of the article — something that should probably have been
summarized at the end — is that the author was looking for a free and OSS
replacement for DreamWeaver's Templates functionality. This functionality allows
a developer to create a template with placeholders for content, lock it, and
then create pages that have the bits and pieces of content. Finally, the
developer compiles the site — creating final HTML pages out of the content
merged with the templates.

Now, I can see something like this being useful. I've used
[webmake](http://search.cpan.org/author/JMASON/HTML-WebMake-2.2/webmake.raw) for
a couple of projects, and, obviously, utilize PHP in many places as a templating
language. However, several comments on Slashdot also gave some pause. The tone
of these comments was to the effect of, "real developers shouldn't use DW; they
should understand HTML and code it directly." Part of me felt this was elitist —
the web is such an egalitarian medium that there should be few barriers to
entry. However, the *webmaster* in me — the professional who gets paid each pay
period and makes a living off the web — also agreed with this substantially.

I've worked — both professionally and as a freelancer — with individuals who use
and rely on DW. The problem I see with the tool and others of its breed is
precisely their empowerment of people. Let me explain.

I really do feel anybody should be able to have a presence on the 'net. However,
HTML is a fragile language: trivial errors can cause tremendous changes in how a
page is rendered — and even crash browsers on occasion. The problem I see is
that DW and other GUI webpage applications create, from my viewpoint, garbage
HTML. I cannot tell you how many pages generated by these applications that I've
had to clean up and reformat. They spuriously add tags, often around empty
content, that are simply unnecessary.

The problem is compounded when individuals have neither time nor inclination to
learn HTML, but continue using the tool to create pages. They get a false sense
of accomplishment — that can be quickly followed by a very real sense of
incompetence when the page inexplicably breaks due to an edit they've made —
especially when the content is part of a larger framework that includes other
files. Of course, as a web professional, I get paid to fix such mistakes. But I
feel that this does everybody a disservice — the individual/company has
basically paid twice for the presentation of content — once to the person
generating it, a second time to me to fix the errors.

This is a big part of the reason why I've been leaning more and more heavily on
database-driven web applications. Content then goes into the database, and
contains minimal — if any — markup. It is then injected into templates, which go
through a formal review process, as well as through the
[W3C](http://www.w3c.org) validators, to prevent display problems. This puts
everybody in a position of strength: the editor generating content, the designer
creating the look-and-feel, and the programmer developing the methods for
mapping content with the templates.

There's still a part of me that struggles with what I perceive as an elitist
position. However, there's another part of me that has struggled heavily with
the multitasking demands made on all web professionals — we're expected to be
editors, graphic designers, programmers, and more. In most cases, we're lucky if
we're strong in one or two such areas, much less passionate about staying
abreast of the changing face of our medium.