Do pro web developer's use web authoring package?

5 points by Huzi94 ↗ HN
Hello, I am new to web developing world and I was just wondering if popular websites such as Google, Facebook etc use web authoring softwares such as Dreamweaver to design their websites?

4 comments

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I've worked as a webmaster for 10 years. I used notepad for years but finaly switched to Dreamweaver. The code isn't all ways clean but it gets the job done. If I have trouble I can edit the code as needed.

Since you're new, I think it's best for you to stick with a text editor for a while so you can get a strong hold on the code. It will come in handy later. But once you have a true hold, switch to something like Dreamweaver.

They use tools to help them, but WYSIWYG design tools like Dreamweaver tend to be strictly amateur-level. Once you know what you're doing, Dreamweaver doesn't make things that much faster, and it does produce a vastly inferior product (from a standpoint of code quality and maintainability).
On some of my freelance work I've worked with people who used Dreamweaver and, how can I put this, I wouldn't consider their code to be very professional.

Dreamweaver might be alright for developing simple, static websites but for anything dynamic I can't see a professional web developer using it.