On Fri 18 May 2007 00:16:59 NZST +1200, Steve Holdoway wrote: > I fail to see why people *shudder* at using any tool that directly > affects the content of a web page. To some extent, what's the > difference between your favourite html generator and frontpage?
The former outputs standard-compliant, universally useful content. The latter outputs proprietory vendor-lock-in turd which only works on one particular web server. Sure, a paper with your name on it is important. So is understanding how things work. Someone pointed out already (I think) that the NZ education system focuses on how to use program X, with no regard for understanding what's going on. That's still useful to some extent, but "some width, no depth" only goes so far. I would question the competence of the teachers here very carefully, there is a high probability that they don't know anything beyond the surface of the application either. "We're a small polytech, we make money be selling courses, we have a copy of program X, oooh, let's offer a course on Xyz." In the case of Frontpage, the outcome is entirely predictable: a large number of graduates who think all the "cool" proprietory extensions are a universal part of the Internet and that a hosting company without InsecureInfoServer is broken. What are the chances that the teachers, who btw primarily learn how to teach and not the depth of their subject, have a mental horizon larger than 3 (98 minus 95), and therefore would be capable of imparting understanding as well as how to push the controls on the surface of a particular program? > the design. However, the last thing I do is to denigrate the designers > - they have skills (aptitude?) that I dont have, and vice versa. In many ways, yes. But especially when it comes to websites, there is a lot of, to paraphrase an old programming adage, design which should be indented six feet and covered with dirt. Yesterday I tried to use a website of a parts manufacturer, where the designer put the parts into categories (good) but then ensured that each category and all its sublevels, ie individual parts pages, only ran in a restricted javascript popup window of which there can only be one total so one can't compare in two windows - doh! I call that designer an idiot, overpaid, and a few other things. Volker -- Volker Kuhlmann is list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
