Why would I NOT want to use Adobe Dreamweaver as a simple code editor? [closed]

Question

I am an applications developer for a for-profit college in Virginia. At this point I could code all of what I do in notepad if I wanted to, or had to, but I prefer to use an IDE for speed and organization. As a Mac user, I've used such IDEs as NotePad++, Coda, TextMate, TextEdit, NetBeans, and of course Dreamweaver.

At work my company owns licenses for the Adobe Suite that includes Dreamweaver and I enjoy the code hinting, the grouping of related files, the built-in FTP, the code snippets and custom keyboard actions. I get flack from other developers when I mention that I use Dreamweaver.

Is there a reason why I should NOT be using it...or is it just a case similar to people who think only black and white tattoos are cool and anything else isn't?

Answer 1

The people who object to you using Dreamweaver probably mean the WYSIWYG part which is known to produce tag soup.

By the way, NotePad++, Coda, TextMate and TextEdit are just editors, not IDEs, because they don't integrate build automation or debugging tools out of the box.

Answer 2

The issue most people have with Dreamweaver is that it's a code generator, and code generators are renowned for producing poor-quality HTML. (the main issue with that - other than pride in one one's word - being that it causes cross-browser compatibility issues)

if you take away the code generation aspect, it's a straight fight between any other IDE, and other IDEs are just as good or better.

That said, I haven't used Dreamweaver in a long time so I can't really comment on its current version. Maybe the code generation has improved massively (but I doubt it). Maybe it really is a better IDE than all the rest. In the end, the choice of IDE is a personal one; if you're comfortable in Dreamweaver, then it's a good choice for you.