Kartooner—I’m feeln’ like your distant shadow or something. I am a print designer…dabbling in web, with hopes of becoming more proficient in web. If it werent for Dreamweaver though, I would have absolutely no desire to do web design.
Hello…my name is mike.…and I am a wissy wig junkie. I realize my addiction and with the help of great sites like this, I hope to eventually call myself an actually web deigner someday. Thanks for the references as I’m now reaching that point of striving to better myself in the world of code.

I’m also your neighbor here in Rochester. Although, I haven’t been to Palmeros yet.

I started to learn web page styling using CSS from the very beginning. In fact, I found CSS to be much easier than table-based layouts from a code perspective. It’s easier to type and markup. However, I must say that WYSIWYG editors, especially DWMX/MX2004 are very helpful in churning out the markup code for certain documents. If I have a series of list items and paragraphs I don’t have to write the tags (or select and assign tags to them using custom shortcuts) myself. I can just keep writing and give the code a once-over for semanticity and accuracy. And in all fairness, DWMX is very good code at churning out good code.

There are more lightweight options, but when I’m writing a forty page report in XHTML, one that consists of basic typographic effects, a WYSIWYG editor isn’t that bad. (As a side note I’ve grown to write a lot more written work in XHTML and plain text nowadays than using a word processor. Let’s just say it’s grown on me.)

Rob: I think children inspire adults in different ways, but in this case it just so happened to coincide with the birth of my daughter so it sticks out in my mind. As for daughters (or sons) making a better designer, it worked for me mostly because my overall outlook on life changed dramatically, for the better.

Beto: 10 years, you old fogey. Yet, I understand where you’re coming from. It’s just unfortunate that Zeldman’s book didn’t arrive earlier (at no fault to Jeffrey of course) because then we might’ve avoided the clusters of stale designers out there, who as you described considered themselves web designers because they could work with Dreamweaver.

It’s much more than that when you take into account web usability and a solid understanding of markup, not just being able to throw your weight around with CSS. We wear many hats but also it’s advisable, from my standpoint, to avoid overspecializing. Otherwise you’re dipping into too much and your focus should be on doing a few great things instead of several okay to mediocre skills.

As for the CSS Reboot, I think I’ll take the challenge considering that’s when I hope to finish this design.

See, my incursion on CSS, web standards and all that was perhaps less of a “pinnacle” than in your case, in no small part ’cause I was early in turning my initial addiction to all things Internet into a way to make a living. We’re talking 1995 here (10 years in October — suddenly that date makes me feel just… too.. old :S ). Which was intended to be just a two-year stunt turned out to be my way of putting food on the table, well into this day…

Back in ’95 then, you had to know your code — Dreamweaver, Scheamweaver. If you wanted to make it as a web designer, you had to get your hands dirty on code or else. I think that’s where I got used to do things that way ever since. Then, of course came Macromedia with DW 1.0, corrupting thousands of minds and companies into making believe that “using DW” equaled “knowing HTML”. Still does, and to a sadly big degree.

Don’t get me wrong — DW has always been a kickass piece of software — when used by the right hands and know-how. Trouble is, when everybdy and his mother got sold on DW, they missed the forest for the trees and began proclaiming themselves “HTML experts” with reckless abandon. It hasn’t been until now that we are –in a way– getting “back to basics” that they are finally being proven wrong.

Anyone that has tried his or her hand at XHTML and CSS knows that it’s far from being a walk in the park. Only God knows how many times I have cursed and kicked my monitor due for yet another IE CSS rendering bug or a hideous tag that keeps hiding from me. But as they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and the lots of experience I have gained over the years with CSS has taught me a lot of what is possible with it and what isn’t, what works and what doesn’t.

I’ve read Zeldman’s book. Probably one of the best for the budding web designer out there, however I feel it was written ten years too late for me. It’s the kind of book anyone wanting to start the right way on this should read, though. I’m really interested on Dave Shea’s, especially since it focuses on the design aspect of CSS rather than on the techical side of tags and such.

And while you are at this, how about thinking on a new site design for May 1st CSS Reboot? (Yeah, riding on the coattails of May 1st Reboot). In any case, I’m in. Should be fun. See you there.