Visual Web Developer

CaptainComedy · 16 Sep 2008 at 19:38

Ok so I know how to hand code asp.net but came across this the other day and in all fairness once you get to grips with the structure of the program Im finding myself tempted to use it instead of hand code as it generates a lot of repetative code for me... although I do wonder if it also generates the **** frontpage did too which made me never look at this program...

what do you guys think about it?

Dj_Jestar · 16 Sep 2008 at 19:40

Without using it myself, but judging by Microsoft's attitude to web development and standards, I'm satisfied in assuming it will be/is pants.

philjohn · 16 Sep 2008 at 21:04

Not pants at all; it's the cut down "express" version of the Web Development mode of Visual Studio 2008.

If you're developing sites in ASP.NET you should be using an IDE IMHO - it's just too painful not to, decent debugging, tracing support, drag and drop for controls - plus you can do that all in code perspective rather than visually. 2008 is a great improvement over 2005, which was itself leap years ahead of .NET (VS 2003).

Sarduk · 16 Sep 2008 at 21:10

Dj_Jestar said:
Without using it myself, but judging by Microsoft's attitude to web development and standards, I'm satisfied in assuming it will be/is pants.

Why would be so narrow minded as to brand all of Microsoft's approaches to standard 'pants', just because of a couple of their areas? Do you have any idea how big they are?

Microsoft's recent web development tools (including Expression Studio) do very well at producing standards compliant code. In fact, Expression Web is far more stricter in this regard than Dreamweaver is.

Inquisitor · 16 Sep 2008 at 21:11

Dj_Jestar said:
Without using it myself, but judging by Microsoft's attitude to web development and standards, I'm satisfied in assuming it will be/is pants.

It's actually very good in this regard.

Dj_Jestar · 16 Sep 2008 at 23:22

I welcome anyone who can/has correct(ed) me, I'm just going by Microsoft deciding to call compliant code "IE8 Standards Mode" (i.e. try and twist that it is they who invented the standard) and in general their lack of tools and extensions to IE; VS has "view" mode but it usues a different engine to IE so it was/is pointless. (This may have changed, I've not bothered to find out.)

I'm even against proprietry IDE's and libraries (which pretty much equates to just VS/.NET..) as it it just so restrictive compared to the likes of Squeak Smalltalk - which is so much more than an IDE and is actually written in it's own language (except for some C primitives to get the ball rolling.)

Basically, I find MS to be patronising to developers. Bias I may be, but I get frustrated at the restrictive nature of .NET, and it's comparatively primitive nature. Flames in bound, I can tell.

CaptainComedy · 17 Sep 2008 at 00:05

Dj_Jestar said:
I welcome anyone who can/has correct(ed) me, I'm just going by Microsoft deciding to call compliant code "IE8 Standards Mode" (i.e. try and twist that it is they who invented the standard) and in general their lack of tools and extensions to IE; VS has "view" mode but it usues a different engine to IE so it was/is pointless. (This may have changed, I've not bothered to find out.)

I'm even against proprietry IDE's and libraries (which pretty much equates to just VS/.NET..) as it it just so restrictive compared to the likes of Squeak Smalltalk - which is so much more than an IDE and is actually written in it's own language (except for some C primitives to get the ball rolling.)

Basically, I find MS to be patronising to developers. Bias I may be, but I get frustrated at the restrictive nature of .NET, and it's comparatively primitive nature. Flames in bound, I can tell.

Not at all, if you have your own preference to scripting with certain applications - it would be nice to get a list to check them all out

I love to test the latest programs and see where its all going.

got a list?

Inquisitor · 17 Sep 2008 at 00:27

Dj_Jestar said:
Basically, I find MS to be patronising to developers. Bias I may be, but I get frustrated at the restrictive nature of .NET, and it's comparatively primitive nature. Flames in bound, I can tell.

It's a fair enough criticism and everyone's entitled to their opinion

Dj_Jestar · 17 Sep 2008 at 01:07

codec said:
Not at all, if you have your own preference to scripting with certain applications - it would be nice to get a list to check them all out I love to test the latest programs and see where its all going.

got a list?

Smalltalk is the bomdiggity.

(Squeak is the dialect of my choice.)

Seaside is also the ultimate web framework in my opinion.

Stelly · 17 Sep 2008 at 06:20

its not actuall that bad

Stelly

kkbigal · 17 Sep 2008 at 09:21

codec said:
Ok so I know how to hand code asp.net but came across this the other day and in all fairness once you get to grips with the structure of the program Im finding myself tempted to use it instead of hand code as it generates a lot of repetative code for me... although I do wonder if it also generates the **** frontpage did too which made me never look at this program...

what do you guys think about it?

It's a superb program and absolutely nothing like Frontpage, plus it's completely free! It's much more geared as a tool to develop your own apps, rather than have something that does it for you, so you won't have any ridiculous html spam code all over the place and the intellisense editor for .NET is great.

On a side note, I hear that the Microsoft Expression web dev program is also very good and the new version even has intellisense/support for PHP built in (although this prog isn't free).

CaptainComedy · 18 Sep 2008 at 01:42

kkbigal said:
It's a superb program and absolutely nothing like Frontpage, plus it's completely free! It's much more geared as a tool to develop your own apps, rather than have something that does it for you, so you won't have any ridiculous html spam code all over the place and the intellisense editor for .NET is great.

On a side note, I hear that the Microsoft Expression web dev program is also very good and the new version even has intellisense/support for PHP built in (although this prog isn't free).

Im checking all their 2008 apps out at the moment (c++, c#, web dev, sql server, j# - although not too good with that and smalltalk) sql server was being a pain to install with the frame works and windows installer 4.1 (I think its 4.1) but all working now.

riddlermarc · 18 Sep 2008 at 10:49

philjohn said:
If you're developing sites in ASP.NET you should be using an IDE IMHO - it's just too painful not to, decent debugging, tracing support, drag and drop for controls - plus you can do that all in code perspective rather than visually. 2008 is a great improvement over 2005, which was itself leap years ahead of .NET (VS 2003).

Seconded, 2008 is a lot more user-friendly (which is not always a good thing is it) that 2005 which as you said was a good deal better than 2003.

I still hand code a lot of stuff but for the main work I do it's maintenance and a lot of Master page stuff, easier to manage through VS2008.