Microsoft Expression vs. Dreamweaver

An anonymous reader writes "Informit has a quick look at Microsoft's Expression suite consisting of Graphic Designer, Interactive Designer, and Web Designer in comparison to Dreamweaver. It seems that Microsoft got tired of relying on FrontPage and is actually going after professionals. From the article: 'What designers might not realize is that Microsoft finally drank the Kool-Aid. The Expression Web Designer application walks the Web standards walk. One caution: Web Designer currently only supports ASP.NET. Microsoft built the ASP.NET platform; it isn't a surprise that Expression Web Designer was designed to support that platform. This is obviously a drawback for those designers who work with PHP, JSP, and other non-ASP.NET platforms, making it difficult for Microsoft to expand its reach beyond the ASP.NET users.'"

Comments

hmmm

[macadamia_harold]

It seems that Microsoft got tired of relying on FrontPage and is actually going after professionals. ... This is obviously a drawback for those designers who work with PHP, JSP, and other non-ASP.NET platforms

Yeah, it really sounds like they're going after professionals. (rolleyes)

Re:hmmm

[ClosedSource]

"Serves them right... The problem is that there really are plenty of Microsoft trained drones out there who have absolutely no idea what exists outside of Microsoft's nice soft world for dummies, and no interest in learning anything ourside of Microsoft either."

My idea of a "dummy" is someone who doesn't use every advantage to get it done better, faster and cheaper because they fear they might be doing it the "soft" way. You can't live on programming "manliness".

If you think non-MS tools achieve that goal better, more power to you. But if those non-MS tools start looking "soft" someday, don't let that scare you from using them unless you find a more effective alternative.

Re:hmmm

[guibaby]

Umm....I can program in perl, C++, TSQL, and C#. I do 99% of my programming in C#/TSQL/ASP.NET. The reason is simple. It is the quickest way to get the job done. I like C# so much, that if I were going to do UNIX work (and I am qualified to), I would probably use mono. I enjoy bashing microsoft as much as the next guy, but they do some things right.

Difficult? For what?

[RobertM1968]

"This is obviously a drawback for those designers who work with PHP, JSP, and other non-ASP.NET platforms, making it difficult for Microsoft to expand its reach beyond the ASP.NET users.'"

I think what this is designed to do is ensure that other Open (or even not so open) standards are used in decreasing frequency as MS pushes people to this package that's designed to work with their server platforms. After all, if you are running a MS web server on Windows Server 2### or XP Pro, designing pages with this is "ideal", so why spend the time using/learning/running PHP/JSP/etc when you have an all in one app to integrate it all for you?

My opinion is its another attempt by MS to leverage their market share (in installed servers) to gain a bigger foothold in other areas (ie: kill PHP/JSP/etc).

-Robert

Re:Difficult? For what?

[mdhoover]

Most likely it is there to keep their current fanclub happy in an attempt to try to stop the developer bleed off to JSP/PHP/etc.

So In Other Words

[colonslashslash]

Designer currently only supports ASP.NET. Microsoft built the ASP.NET platform...

So in other words, it's completely useless to many of us web developers, and isn't directly comparable with Dreamweaver? Thought so.