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Guest Impulse

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Guest Impulse

Hi, my Dad is building a website for work related things and he had a little issue today. He's not very experienced with website building in the first place so he asked me if I could give him a hand with it. Problem is, I'm no genius when it comes to that stuff either so I figured I would ask someone here for help. The problem on the site is, my Dad tried to put an HTML code on to a text box on his website so when he published it, it would come out looking normal. When he published it, the code still looked like a bunch of gibberish. I'm not sure if I'm explaining that correctly but if someone could tell me how to make the code come out looking like it's supposed to, I would appreciate it.

 

Thanks,

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Guest SoundOfDeath
Honestly Impulse, you should set your dad up with a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor. Which is pretty much like microsoft word but it gives you the HTML code to use on your website. It's great for unexperienced people.
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Guest MAJ.Kaossilator=US=
Looking at the source on that page... is your dad using a web dev tool (dreamweaver, front page, etc.)? If he is, make sure he's got options set to show improperly opened/closed tags. On that source it's doing some funny stuff with the comment that begins the form (""); it's just showing the HTML character code for the "<". Not sure if that's it, but it is behaving like a malformed tag.
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Guest Ret.Maj.Xander=US=

He could also try putting an iFrame there and have it point to that code as a separate html page.

 

As a developer I discourage against Dreamweaver/Expressions. These tools end up ruining websites. When people don't actually know the procedure and how web pages work they tend to try and just make stuff "pretty" instead of "functional". No professional web developer uses those editors. I would highly suggest he go to a site like http://htmldog.com/ to find out how to do just about anything in HTML. (w3schools is NOT a legit source)

 

After looking through your dad's source code he REALLY needs to learn how to use CSS. A good chunk of the code is formatting using HTML. Thats a no-no in todays standards. HTML builds the frame and you use CSS to decorate it.

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Guest MAJ.Kaossilator=US=
With respect, they can be helpful in identifying malformed tags. No programmer uses Notepad to write a .c file and then uses a 3rd party compiler. They use Eclipse because the IDE makes it easier to look at the code. Granted, Dreamweaver does insert its own crap in there, but you can easily turn all that off.
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Guest SoundOfDeath
I would agree with Xander except I don't think his Dad has the time to learn how to code a professional looking website.
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Guest Impulse
I would agree with Xander except I don't think his Dad has the time to learn how to code a professional looking website.

 

Yep.

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Guest Ret.Maj.Xander=US=
No programmer uses Notepad to write a .c file and then uses a 3rd party compiler.

 

My whole part of my senior design project I coded in C and I used basic text editors. I used Notepad++ when i was in Windows, TextMate in OSX, and gedit in Linux. I always compile via the command line as well.

 

There are some higher level languages like Java, C# where IDEs are helpful. But even my cousin who works on the Windows team at microsoft does a lot of his programming in notepad (mostly C#).

 

Look around at hardcore developers you will see them using vi, vim, nano, or emacs for programming. All are command line editors.

 

DW and Expressions make people think they know how to develop in reality they are just making a really crappy site that looks nice as long as you don't touch anything. Its better to understand the framework than to look for a quick fix. Because when you run into problems you will have a much better idea how to fix them.

 

And Sound that may be the case, but you can't build a professional looking website without actually knowing how to build one. Using DW will not give him a professional website. He either needs to decide if he wants a professional looking site to either learn how to program it, or hire a professional (not cheap). Otherwise he can stick to DW and have a much lower quality site.

 

One of the reason the web is so full of security holes and the like is because anyone thinks they can become a web dev with those tools and then leave massive gaps in the site. I had to explain to one of my friends why his site wasn't working was because DW couldn't do what he wanted, he looked dumbfounded, "No man, the tool has to be in Dreamweaver" I explained to him the part of the code he needed to change but he was set that the software could handle all that. Its frustrating from a developers perspective.

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Guest RET.Maj.SKI=US=

A good programmer/developer will use whatever tools he is comfortable using and are available. It is better to learn what is happening, then just trust that the IDE you are using is going to take care of whatever you want.

Every time I work on something, I learn a little bit more about programming and if possible try to figure out better ways of doing things with my newly acquired knowledge.

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Guest Impulse
Thanks for all the responses. My dad has decided to give up on the godaddy one and use a new one that 2 of his friends already know how to use. I really appreciate you guys helping me out though.
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Guest MAJ.Kaossilator=US=
A good programmer/developer will use whatever tools he is comfortable using and are available. It is better to learn what is happening, then just trust that the IDE you are using is going to take care of whatever you want.

Every time I work on something, I learn a little bit more about programming and if possible try to figure out better ways of doing things with my newly acquired knowledge.

 

+1

 

I agree whole heartedly that you need to know what you are doing before you do it. However, I refuse to not use an IDE simply because I want to label myself a hardcore programmer. If I know how something works and a tool will automate a process for me, I sure will use that tool and save time without any gaps in knowledge.

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Guest RET.CW4.ThievingSix=US=

I'd have to agree with Xander fully, using Dreamweaver you end up with tonnes of bloat code, code you don't really need or than cancels the effect of another piece of code. My coding is no exception and it takes a long time to remove things like that. A page without bloat code will load faster than a page with bloat code.

 

I find dreamweaver handy because of the code highlighting, i don't use any of the inbuilt functions. It makes it 100x easier to see where code blocks start and end.

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Guest Ret.Maj.Xander=US=

Yea thieving I agree, it is one of the better HTML editors due to syntax high lighting and showing code blocks.

 

And Kaos don't get me wrong I do like a few IDE's. The problem with them (and it has screwed me) is that you become too reliant on the software and forget how to actually program. You can just type something then a "." and see whats possible. You learn much more by using command line tools and basic editor's by having to actually know what you are doing. Down the line there are plenty of good reasons to use IDE's but especially for learning purposes you will learn 10x more and 10x faster using simple editors.

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Guest MAJ.Kaossilator=US=
Yea thieving I agree, it is one of the better HTML editors due to syntax high lighting and showing code blocks.

 

And Kaos don't get me wrong I do like a few IDE's. The problem with them (and it has screwed me) is that you become too reliant on the software and forget how to actually program. You can just type something then a "." and see whats possible. You learn much more by using command line tools and basic editor's by having to actually know what you are doing. Down the line there are plenty of good reasons to use IDE's but especially for learning purposes you will learn 10x more and 10x faster using simple editors.

 

+1 to that, too. I definitely used nothing but Pico when I was learning C++ so I definitely appreciate that. I think if anything had helped me out to "shortcut" learning pointers I woulda been screwed later on haha.

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Guest Ret.Maj.Xander=US=
Yeah my current project currently uses a lot of pointers and I know way more about them now than before. I actually tried finding a decent C IDE for Linux but was disappointed by what I found, Mono Develop, Qt creator both fell short. And in the end I normally just end up SSH'd into the server and doing my programming remotely. Since I can execute it and test it via the command line i never have to have any physical access to the computer. Its awesome.
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