I have a workmate with access to a very good IDE. He wants to use Microsoft FrontPage to write his jsps.
I know exactly what I want to say to him, but what would you say? I need a concise reason why a professional web app developer would never consider FrontPage.
Because it's supposed to be catered to the crowd that isn't familiar at all with web development, mostly novices. To an experienced web developer it's fairly restrictive and limited, as is any WYSIWYG editor.
Personally, it bugs me seeing the extra bloat (unnecessary HTML structure, non-semantic use of HTML tags, embedding CSS directly in HTML) that Frontpage generates. I also dislike use of proprietary, non-standard HTML and CSS. Frontpage's code bloat is bad enough to have inspired such programs as Frontpage Code Cleaner. Here's another Stack Overflow question that deals with removing Frontpage bloat: FrontPage tags - Pain in da HTML.
You might also check out Why I do not use Frontpage by Greg Moreno.
It's an unnecessary abstraction for professional web developers, who need very tight control over the HTML and CSS generated.
It would be like rally car drivers using an automatic transmission. They need to know exactly what their car is going to do, and web developers need to know exactly how their code is going to act.
Professional web developers should really avoid Frontpage and use Microsoft Expression Web instead. It's the replacement for Frontpage and is fairly good, actually.
For one, FP isn't really supported anymore. The FP extensions honestly suck, they break quite often on the server side. But just as HTML editor, when the latest FP version is used and the settings are right (correct browser version and no server-side FP extensions), it's quite OK.
However (if staying on MS products), I'd rather use Visual Web Developer 2008 (o1 2010 when it gets out), it's free and has more recent technological support.
I haven't used it lately, but it used to rewrite a file with it's own garbage, even if you didn't save the file.
The same reason a professional artist doesn't use a coloring book. You're being paid to bring your skill and expertise into creating a product — using only FrontPage is essentially shirking that duty. I'm not saying it's never OK to touch it, but you need to take responsibility for the code you ultimately produce.
Frontpage leads to bad habits for some of the same reasons Sarah Vessels lists. I used to use it myself. I was one of those who liked to design in design mode and refine in HTML. The problem was that switching between "design" and "html" views would cause FrontPage to change my precious HTML. And at some point I got fed up with it destroying my markup (something the newer tools are better about not doing).
When I began hand coding every site I worked on from scratch I learned so much more about HTML and CSS in general and how to make lightweight, efficient pages. And at that point I also realized that the markup FrontPage would generate was really old-fashioned with lots of tables and inline CSS. As I learned to do it right I also learned how to make my sites cross-browser compatible on the first try. In the end this allows me to design and build a better site, faster.
Frontpage itself has been discontinued. Using it simply as an HTML editor with syntax highlighting is a bit silly given how heavyweight it is.
That being said, if he's producing good code and delivering on time, it doesn't really matter what he uses.
...the same company that brought you IE 6. I bet your site will work with IE 6, but will it work with Safari and Firefox and Opera equally well?
And if it doesn't, what are you going to do about it? You didn't want to dig into the code, remember?
Great web developers build sites that:
If any GUI can do all that reliably, great. But I haven't seen it yet. And by the time you build one, the competition will be hand-coding capabilities that the GUI doesn't know about yet.
I personally haven't used Frontpage all that much, but I feel that you should really learn to use HTML and CSS and not rely on an application to do it for you. You really learn how things work and you have more control over what goes on.
This is going off topic, but when FrontPage first came out, it was groundbreaking in how easy it was to create websites at a time when the web designer title was nowhere near fruition, but of course, FP has (de)volved into producing bloat.
The original company that created it was named Vermeer, after the Dutch painter and the story of how FP was built and how Vermeer got bought out by Microsoft is an interesting read, giving you insight into startups and Microsoft buyout tactics back then.
The same person who founded the company produced the movie, "No End in Sight", a documentary about the escalation into Iraq. Interesting segue, from software company to documentary movies.
Anyways, I think the name is Charles Ferguson. You can probably find a used version of the book on the cheap in Amazon. Definitely a worthwhile trip in the way back machine.
Frontpage produces terrible code that won't be maintainable by other developers not using frontpage, meaning almost all web developers with common sense - especially since Frontpage got discontinued.
As mentioned - FrontPage became Expression Web. I hated FrontPage, but I think Expression Web is fantastic. I'm a programmer with deliverables, I don't have time to mess arround writing HTML code myself.
I suppose it depends what market your friend is in. If he wants to make shiny, glossed up websites with custom features & CSS - use a HTML/CSS syntax editor.
If he just wants to make quick, nice looking, clean corporate sites and have a high turn-over of generic sites, Expression Web is great. (The HTML isn't very 'pure' thought - but honestly what client would care?)