Matt Mullenweg has an interesting post up about the bugs in Dreamweaver CS3 hampering his productivity. I only just got this installed a couple of months back at work and I haven’t made much use of it yet due to using Eclipse for my work with the Java guys, but I figured I’d go back to Dreamweaver as soon as I’m back on a PHP project.
Back in the day, before I made the transition to Dreamweaver, I loved Allaire’s Homesite (shortly after they’d bought the rights from Nick Bradbury)- back before Macromedia acquired Allaire and sounded the death knell for the app. From mid 1998 until the whole Macromedia v Adobe toolbar lawsuit rendered it unusable, I must have opened Homesite almost every single day of the year. I even missed it while I was on holiday!
Finally I went over to the Dreamweaver camp when I couldn’t take the lack of maintenance on Homesite any longer, although strangely I did receive an email from someone deep within a Macromedia bunker who asked what I’d like to see in Homesite 6. Obviously that never seen the light of day, and I imagine the acquisition of Macromedia by Adobe all but put the coffin in the ground even if the final nail wasn’t in place by then, but I notice that at the time of writing that Adobe still has the Homesite product page up.
I now use Eclipse at work, but I don’t love using it in the way I did Homesite and later Dreamweaver. If DW is bloated, Eclipse is ridiculously obese. I’d go back to Homesite in a heartbeat if they ever did release a new one, though – sometimes the bloat of Dreamweaver just isn’t necessary when all you want is a powerful, customisable code editor.