HTML editor: does everyone need to be on the same page?

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

didjit *** reports: <<I am working on a project where the project lead is
obsessive about making all of the writers involved use a specific HTML
editor.  While I am flexible about the tools that I use, the tool about
which this project lead is obsessive, requires me to use an operating system
I'd rather not.  Hint: it's a Microsoft product. I don't have any problems
with Windows, but if I can just abide by a set of coding guidelines that
will ensure my HTML is up to spec, do I really need to switch operating
systems?>>

There are several main reasons for standardizing on a single tool. First,
most tools have their own idiosyncratic ways of creating HTML code, and you
can run into potential incompatibilities if you use two or more different
tools. Those incompatibilities can be serious, particularly when (as was the
case for earlier and perhaps current versions of MS FrontPage) the editor
adds garbage to the code or (as was the case with early and perhaps current
versions of Adobe PageMill) deletes custom code that you've entered by hand
in its efforts to clean up your code. Worse yet if everyone but you is using
NetObjects and no HTML actually exists until the database that describes the
Web pages is compiled. If you're working as part of a team, knowing that
everyone is producing compatible code, with no surprises, is crucial.
Second, support issues rear their ugly head; if you're working in a
different tool, under a different operating system, and run up against a
problem, there's no guarantee the other team members will be able to help
you solve that problem. And if you're entering code by yourself, why should
they have to deal with the inevitable errors even the most careful typist
introduces? Third, if you're designing something based around a common
template, it's much easier to use a single tool that defines and implements
that template consistently. Fourth (and not necessarily the final reason),
if the authoring tool contains some form of check in/check out system, it
can greatly facilitate management of the overall project; it also lets you
do global search and replace operations for an entire site, test links, and
so on.

<<Would you all venture to say that if we are all supplying HTML as the
source it is the quality of the HTML source that I deliver that needs to be
accurate, and this does not have anything to do with the editor that is
used?>>

For the reasons I've already listed, I wouldn't be confident in saying that.
This doesn't mean that you can't start out writing the code in a text editor
or whatever and then import the results into the team's primary tool for
cleanup, but it's debatable whether that would cost more time than it saves.

<<I for one, think that the WYSIWYG editors just add garbage and detract
from the cleanliness of the source.>>

While there's considerable justice to your claim, it does assume that you
can consistently write cleaner code than the programmers who developed the
visual editors, and do so just as fast, which is something you'd have to
prove to your manager. Moreover, while I appreciate the merits of text
editors (having cut my teeth on IBM Bookmaster and AtariWriter), I'd have to
say that it's much faster to code things like tables and frames in a WYSIWYG
tool than it is in a text editor; no matter how fast you are as a typist,
you can't beat a single menu selection ("insert a 12 by 24 table") for
speed.

<<After all, I thought Al Gore invented the Internet so that we could all
communicate regardless of OS.>>

Don't be foolish. Our very own _Andrew Plato_ invented the Internet so he
could have a platform for enlightening us about our foolish assumptions.
Gore just stole Andrew's thunder.

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
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