Ravings of a Textual Deviant

Dorothea is taking some eminently undeserved heat for teaching hand markup instead of Dreamweaver. She contends that “Dreamweaver skills become obsolete as fast as any other single-program skills.” I’m not going to argue that point, as she’s right. The value in hand markup is like the value in knowing how to change the oil in your car. You may not want to do it yourself all the time, but you understand the process and expected results.

That said, single-program skills are useful, in that once you understand the use and functionality of the single program in question, it’s easier to learn similar and related programs, not to mention the acquisition of peripheral knowledge related to, but not specific to, the program. And there is that pesky job-market angle to consider–eventually, most of us are going to have to take that into consideration. Just to remove markup from the debate, let’s talk about Photoshop for a moment. I started learning Photoshop 4 or 5 years ago. In the process, I learned an awful lot about digital imaging and image editing in general, a smidge about digital cameras, and a good deal about scanning, which are not Photoshop-specific bits of information, but are very useful when one’s goal is to end up with a spectacular digital image. Furthermore, because I understand what Photoshop is intended to do and how it does it, I can go into another photo-editing program and learn my way around fairly quickly. I also have a head start on Illustrator, because even though the programs are intended to produce different kinds of graphics, they use some similar tools and techniques.

Going back to markup–personally, I like Dreamweaver, especially in comparison to say, FrontPage. I enjoy using it, and I like the results that I get. However, I know that I wouldn’t get nearly so much use out of Dreamweaver (or troubleshoot my markup as easily) if I didn’t understand what was going on behind the scenes. So, nuts-and-bolts knowledge is indeed valuable. However, there’s nothing wrong with learning automated tools to make the process easier. Personally, I think one is better off acquiring the nuts-and-bolts knowledge first, if one intends to be more than a casual user. It saves un-learning bad habits later.

And I shouldn’t have to say this, but–there’s no excuse for rudeness, especially to someone who is donating her time, effort, and knowledge for your benefit.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2003 at 11:11 am and is filed under What It's Like To Work in IT. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.