PHP vs ColdFusion/Editors

Picking the right editor is essential for web designers. Here we will cover some of the pros and cons of working with certain editors.

Studio 8

Studio is a software suite from Adobe Systems that includes Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks 8, in addition to Contribute 3 and FlashPaper 2.

Cost: $900 US

Pros

Easy to Use: Simple, some more complicated functions in Flash, but no coding necessary.

Standards Compliant: Complies with W3C

Frontpage 2003

Frontpage is a very neat and handy utility. It offers people to create websites who know zero HTML.

Cost: $199 US

Pros

Easy to use: Anyone who can use word, can use Frontpage.

Projects: You can create projects and Frontpage will automatically re-link documents when filesystem changes occur.

Cons

Doesn't play nice: Frontpage has a tendency to re-write your document to structure code. This usually wipes out PHP code in the document.

Overly Re-writes: I dont know how many times i've looked at code by Frontpage to only see a plethora of CSS styles. Can get annoying if you are used to a certain way of coding.

Poor Design: Code is non-W3C complient and hard to use.

Lack of Support: No longer supported by Microsoft.

Notepad

Notepad requires you to know pretty much every aspect of HTML, however a wise choice for people who dont like to be told how to code.

Cost: Free

Pros

Runs fast: No matter what the system (Windows), notepad always performs.

No Re-writes: Notepad doesn't re-write anything, because it can't.

Cons

No Projects: No way to manage your documents without external applications or by manually re-writing.

No Indent Holding: Notepad does not keep your indents, making you tab in over and over.