NYCPHP Meetup

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Somehow my earlier reply to this went only to tedd instead of the list.
I guess I need to hit "reply to all" from now on. Anyhoo...

tedd wrote:
> When it comes to teaching (I do teach at college level), there are very
> few students/clients who fully realize all that's involved in developing
> a web site. Many think, as I've been told "It's easy -- my son learned
> HTML in high school" while they are totally clueless. The most
> problematic students/clients are the ones who have some experience with
> HTML and think that's all there is.

Gah! I hate hearing, "I need you to make a change. It's something
simple, so it should be really easy." Uh-huh, and you're making that
assumption based on...???

I think FrontPage, and to a certain extent Dreamweaver & other WYSIWYG
editors, have created this deceptive "it's easy" notion. MS Office
doesn't help with it's one-click "publish to web" options.

Don't get me wrong--Dreamweaver is a great tool that I use it every day
for both HTML & PHP, but I know how to hand code and I never, ever work
in design mode. I like it for its organization, synchronization, and
code completion abilities (I'm an awful typist). I also like the new
code navigation & associated files abilities in CS4 that let me work in
split view and easily jump around my code. I've never worked with the
server behaviors though--that has always struck me a a very, very bad
idea for someone who's still learning PHP.

> http://sperling.com/web-developer.php
> 
> http://sperling.com/four-things-clients-should-know.php

Good stuff, thanks!

> And lastly, none of this is static. I spend time every day learning
> something new -- the web is constantly changing and keeping up with it
> is a daily challenge. I was quoted a long time ago as saying:

Exactly. As I speak, there's a designer on one of the forums I frequent
who's insisting on letting PHOTOSHOP write his code for him, and then
trying to edit it in Dreamweaver. Naturally, his designer's eye wants
things to look a certain way and that's not happening because he has
almost no knowledge of HTML, CSS or javascript. The positively hideous
code soup that Photoshop created isn't helping. I like to "pay it
forward" and help people, but only if they're will to make an effort to
learn & practice. I'm not touching this one.

> "I've learned something new every day of my life -- and I'm getting
> damned tried of it."

LOL, nice quote.

Bev