[Fluff] Microsoft FrontPage ad

[Phester]

Apologies for the fluff post, but I thought you all would get some
amusement out of this...

A banner ad from Microsoft just came up as I was browsing a popular news
site. (I can't do a screenshot on this machine, so I'll just have to
describe it.) In the first frame, they show a gnarled thicket of
illegible code next to the message, "We've cleaned up our act." Then a
hand appears and wipes the code away and this appears in its place (this
is an exact quote):

<p>FrontPage 2003 now has built-in professional coding tools
that help you produce <b>clean code</b> faster.
That's right. We said FrontPage</p>
Phester

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Thu, 23 Oct 2003, Phester wrote:

is an exact quote):

<p>FrontPage 2003 now has built-in professional coding tools
that help you produce <b>clean code</b> faster.

The correct markup for strong emphasis is <strong> , so they must
have had some *other* reason for wanting bold text.

SCNR

[William Starr Moake]

On Thu, 23 Oct 2003 18:54:35 GMT, Phester <ph*****@fakename.fake>
wrote:

Apologies for the fluff post, but I thought you all would get some
amusement out of this...

A banner ad from Microsoft just came up as I was browsing a popular news
site. (I can't do a screenshot on this machine, so I'll just have to
describe it.) In the first frame, they show a gnarled thicket of
illegible code next to the message, "We've cleaned up our act." Then a
hand appears and wipes the code away and this appears in its place (this
is an exact quote):

<p>FrontPage 2003 now has built-in professional coding tools
that help you produce <b>clean code</b> faster.
That's right. We said FrontPage</p>

Guess I'll have to rush out and buy a copy of FrontPage. Right after I
see those pork chops in my fridge sprout wings.

[e n | c k m a]

> The correct markup for strong emphasis is <strong> , so they must

have had some *other* reason for wanting bold text.

Maybe they were being bold? :)

[Philipp Lenssen]

Phester wrote:

<p>FrontPage 2003 now has built-in professional coding tools
that help you produce <b>clean code</b> faster.
That's right. We said FrontPage</p>

For several years now I'm giving every new FrontPage a regular try-out
to see if it's capable of doing things good. So far there's nothing
close to it (above sample shows they still got the wrong attitude to
content-layout separation).
But I have to give them credit 'cause their editor was a reason in '96
or so that got me started on learning HTML.

--
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[e n | c k m a]

> But I have to give them credit 'cause their editor was a reason in '96

or so that got me started on learning HTML.

Same.

[kayodeok]

"Philipp Lenssen" <in**@outer-court.com> wrote in
news:bn************@ID-203055.news.uni-berlin.de:

For several years now I'm giving every new FrontPage a regular
try-out to see if it's capable of doing things good. So far
there's nothing close to it (above sample shows they still got
the wrong attitude to content-layout separation).
But I have to give them credit 'cause their editor was a reason
in '96 or so that got me started on learning HTML.

Same here. These days, I use EditPlus.

--
Kayode Okeyode
http://www.kayodeok.co.uk/weblog/

[CJM]

To be honest, there is no reason why a good developer can't build a good
site in Frontpage...

If you disable the code-rewriting features, you are left with a souped-up
text editor...

Ok, so I don't think that is MS's sales angle, but it's true!

Maybe that should be their next advertising slogan.

"Marginally better than notepad..."

Chris

"Phester" <ph*****@fakename.fake> wrote in message
news:Lt********************@typhoon.sonic.net...

Apologies for the fluff post, but I thought you all would get some
amusement out of this...

A banner ad from Microsoft just came up as I was browsing a popular news
site. (I can't do a screenshot on this machine, so I'll just have to
describe it.) In the first frame, they show a gnarled thicket of
illegible code next to the message, "We've cleaned up our act." Then a
hand appears and wipes the code away and this appears in its place (this
is an exact quote):

<p>FrontPage 2003 now has built-in professional coding tools
that help you produce <b>clean code</b> faster.
That's right. We said FrontPage</p>
Phester

[Philipp Lenssen]

CJM wrote:

To be honest, there is no reason why a good developer can't build a
good site in Frontpage...

If you disable the code-rewriting features, you are left with a
souped-up text editor...

Ok, so I don't think that is MS's sales angle, but it's true!

But that's exactly the point. I often hear the argument "this or that
editor will now leave your code intact". Duh. I don't need an editor to
do that. I can just leave the file on the hard-disk and throw the
computer out of the window if I don't want to change my files. The
point is that "marginally better than Notepad" would still mean they
leave _every_ little thing intact, plus some color hilights, plus the
same start-up time. Sorry, but they change things like &copy; to (c)
(as character) and so on, and the start-up time is also not the same.
Personally I use Netpadd which I consider to be "marginally better than
Notepad" (e.g. color highlighting, auto-completion, and _definitely_
leaves the code intact).
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[CJM]

"Philipp Lenssen" <in**@outer-court.com> wrote in message
news:bn************@ID-203055.news.uni-berlin.de...

CJM wrote:

But that's exactly the point. I often hear the argument "this or that
editor will now leave your code intact". Duh. I don't need an editor to
do that. I can just leave the file on the hard-disk and throw the
computer out of the window if I don't want to change my files. The
point is that "marginally better than Notepad" would still mean they
leave _every_ little thing intact, plus some color hilights, plus the
same start-up time. Sorry, but they change things like &copy; to (c)
(as character) and so on, and the start-up time is also not the same.
Personally I use Netpadd which I consider to be "marginally better than
Notepad" (e.g. color highlighting, auto-completion, and _definitely_
leaves the code intact).

OK, now I think you are taking this a little too seriously...

The point was, for all it's faults.. FP doesnt *have* to generate crap
code... It *can* be turned off.

I'm not sure what you are on about with &copy; - My version of 2002 doesnt
do that. This the appropriate options set, my code is never changed.

If you want to use another editor (or Notepad) feel free... You use Netpadd,
whereas I would recommend HTML-Kit. Horses for courses...

Ironically, FP will have a few features that Netpadd (and others) don't...
but this thread wasn't about comparing editors - the fact is that many
editors can do naughty things, not just FP.

And I'm not sure where start time comes in... another editor comparison
perhaps?

Look, I'm not going to advocate people rushing out to buy Office/FP... but
it's just too easy a target. Microsoft is crap, FP is crap etc... Yes, we
know... but 95% of everything is crap...

Chris

[Philipp Lenssen]

CJM wrote:

Ironically, FP will have a few features that Netpadd (and others)
don't...
Of course it will. The question is whether or not they're helpful to
anybody who knows HTML, and who also knows more than HTML, server-side
scripting, databases etc. are used for doing bigger websites. And
someone who also knows ASP or FP-Extensions are not cross-server.
but this thread wasn't about comparing editors - the fact
is that many editors can do naughty things, not just FP.

And I'm not sure where start time comes in... another editor
comparison perhaps?
They all suffer from one basic misconception though if they're
graphical, i.e. pseudo-WYSIWYG... they make you think the Web can work
that way (or that a programming language can, which basically is needed
for many bigger sites, as opposed to just plain HTML).

Look, I'm not going to advocate people rushing out to buy
Office/FP... but it's just too easy a target. Microsoft is crap, FP
is crap etc... Yes, we know... but 95% of everything is crap...

Actually, I was serious when I said I give FP a try whenever a new
version comes out. I have this hope they put a lot of effort into it
and a lot of money so there must come out some value. And I do see
serious possibilities for an editor to do something useful. E.g.
something like a graphical CSS designer, which respects your
class-names and doesn't add inline-styles. Unfortunately, FP does just
that. I was thinking about doing it myself as part of a CMS I wrote.
For me it would need to be browser-based. I want to view my page, grab
a div-block, reposition it one pixel to the left, save, and only the
CSS media screen gets changed. Something like that I would definitely
give a try. Not that I would really use it.

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