Re: Front Page Fussy

["Huber, Mike" <mrhuber -at- SOFTWARE -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM>]

> The "FrontPage is not pure HTML" rhetoric is total bulls**t. People
> have been saying this for years and it simply is not true.

I've been saying it produces crappy HTML. I still do. The HTML is quite a
bit more pure than I had expected. But still bad. When a single page of text
contains several K of tags that turn fonts on and then off without using the
fonts, I call that bad. Not just in terms of some hacker esthetics, but also
in terms of extending load time and crashing browsers.

And that's not even getting into formatting the HTML source. I like to use
indenting and line breaks to make my HTML readable. FrontPage rearranges my
HTML.

> Front Page absolutely uses standard HTML tags.  The ONLY derivation
> from "standard HTML", whatever the hell that is, is the FrontPage
> extensions.

"Standard HTML" is defined by the W3C documents. Read them if you wonder
what they are - they are reasonably clear, as formal standards go. I haven't
done a serious comparison of FP-generated code with the standard. Just as an
author can write grammatically correct but bad text, so can a program create
standard but bad code.

>  If you don't use the FP Extensions, then the HTML
> generated is just as "pure" as anything out of HomeBlow or any of the
> other HTML generators.

I have yet to find a decent HTML generator.

...
> Nevertheless, like ALL web page tools, it does require knowing HTML.

Exactly.

> Just because the box says Microsoft does not mean the product is
> inferior.

But it's a good clue. And the box, if I recall correctly, says you don't
have to know HTML. If the box doesn't, the ads do. And it is a flat-out lie.

...
> Having used FP to generate tons of web sites, it is a fine tool. In
> fact, I used Front Page to build an HTML based help system for the Be
> Operating System (BeOS).

I use it myself, for quick first drafts. It does some things reasonably
well. As a pure tool, without the hype, it's decent. But it usually produces
code that requires significant cleanup. It is a very poor tool for its
advertised purpose: WYSIWYG web site design by people who don't know HTML.

I have a very nice hammer. But if the box it came in said "screwdriver" I
probably would have returned it, and my opinion of the vendor would be
reduced. In a situation where someone's boss is likely to buy the box, hand
it to the employee, and demand that screws be driven, I'm going to spread
the word. I don't want it said that people like me drive screws with
hammers.

---
Office:
mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com
Home:
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