Women in Technology

Article:		Apache Web-Serving with Mac OS X: Part 1
Subject:		Why not iTools?
Date:		2002-01-04 01:29:03
From:		hanske
Response to: Why not iTools?
That's interesting! If one compare to HTML, I think it's safe to say that it's good to start out with simple hand coding (and simple pages) to learn what's going on, but at a certain point a visual tool starts be more practical for the lay out, and BBEdit or the like is better for polishing code, the two working in tandem. In the case of building a Web server, is the situation the same, i.e., is it better to start out by hand, and then perhaps combine with a visual tool like iTools? In the field of UNIX networking administration on, I haven't done any more difficult task than setting up UUCP on a couple of NeXT machines, but I found it useful to gain some understanding of how the configuration files actually work, setting up permissions correctly etc. Also, iTools do a lot of things one may not need initially, like eCommerce stuff. So perhaps hand coding is not too bad a path to tread even for a beginner, looking to set up a Web and ftp server? (I also want to do streaming QuickTime stuff)

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• Why not iTools?
  2002-01-04 06:50:39  Morbus Iff | [View]
  
  
  Well, it depends how you look at things. I can sorta agree with your HTML thing, but I *still* use BBEdit to hand code and hand design all my pages - and my first site appeared in 1997. I've never used a WYSIWIG editor for layout - may have used Photoshop once or twice to quickly jot an idea, but I never depend or trust on a WYSIWIG's ability to create what I mean.
  
  >In the case of building a Web server, is the
  >situation the same, i.e., is it better to start
  >out by hand, and then perhaps combine with a
  >visual tool like iTools?
  
  Depends on the purpose or mission. If I'm building a webpage for my dog, I don't really care that it won't show in IE 3.0. But if I'm building an Amazon, then yeah, it better work in Mosaic too.
  
  Same thing with webservers - if I'm going to build a tiny testbed for my PHP coding, or just to sample some CGI or SSI code before I make the junk live, then yeah, a visual editor will save you some time. But if you're actually going to build a webserver that needs to be good at what it does, then I definitely lean toward "learn everything there is and baby it with loving care".