Move Over Dreamweaver…Welcome Visual Web Developer
April 26, 2007 by Jason Bean
Filed under Computers
I’ve finally done it. I’m squarely heading down the path of forsaking the 10+ years of experience I have with Dreamweaver and migrating my skillset over to Microsoft’s Visual Web Developer application.
With more and more of my clients needing solutions based and operating with other Microsoft technologies, this just seems like the clear cut path to begin traveling down at this point in my efforts. If Dreamweaver had worked more easily and “out-of-the-box” with more .NET controls and resources, I probably would have stayed with it. However, they haven’t, which I believe is directly related to the purchase of Macromedia by Adobe. If Adobe weren’t at the helm, I’ll bet that Dreamweaver would have more support with, from and around the .NET community.
Alas they don’t and I need to move forward with being able to more quickly deliver applications and websites to my clients. I’m sure there will be more stories and questions to come from me as I continue to learn more and more about this new tool and all the capabilities that are before me.
One thing that has impressed me tremendously is the sheer volume and vast resources that are available to me in learning this stuff myself.
i had a stressful week last week trying to do some page in dream weaver that required one to create a data sheet.being a beginner web developer,it was very difficult for me but now i am looking forward to using visual web developer.i am sure it wont dissapoint me.
So HOW is Visual Web Developer 2008 better then Dreamweaver?
The biggest thing is that it has allowed me to build ASP.NET applications in an environment that was designed for it from the ground up. There are a few things that I miss from Dreamweave (like the integrated FTP client), but for the most part VWDE has given me everything I had in Dreamweaver, but it’s free compared to $399 for full version. There are some frustrations of course, but all and all it’s been good for me.
I was just wondering, Do most companies that hire web developers require more skill in visual basic or Dreamweaver.
It depends on the company. You can do ASP.NET and dynamic websites in Dreamweaver, but it’s a bit more challenging than VWDE. I still use both depending on which client and what my needs are for each client.