No matter how many fancy tools we get in the world, some web developers like myself still love the basics. Sometimes I wonder what it is that others are using, if they are taking the easy way out?

Ahhhhhhh! ASP and Exchange! is this really the screenshot I picked??!?


I look back 20 years ago when doing HTML was a hard-coded art. We didn't have much back then, nor could most of us even afford what was on the market as time grew, until shareware and freeware began to form. Heck, HTML wasn't even mainstream for most until near 1995 when Microsoft FrontPage (Vermeer FrontPage 1.0 actually. Remember, Billy G. buy's things and improves them, he doesn't make the recipes) was first introduced. I remember I learned HTML by doing the simple task of View Source. According to about.com, this may have even been one of the first HTML editors, by one of it's first authors, Tim Berners-Lee.

Needless to say, we all pretty much used notepad back then to start out. Now we have a plethora of options and I wanted to put together an updated list for us old-schoolers.

Notepad++
http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

This program I can say is at the top of most peoples list, and I honestly live by it. I have a lot of time not been connected to any internet while working on some code. Notepad++ is perfect for straight forward coding for the hardcore scripter. It has wonderful syntax highlighting and supports many languages (programming languages that is). The only thing it lacks is a library. But it has great searching, excellent plug-ins and you can do macros! Even if you already have multiple editors, you should still just replace your regular windows notepad with this. For you Mac Users, Use Text Wrangler: http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/


Microsoft WebMatrix 2
http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/

So I first downloaded WebMatrix 2 expecting it to be a WYSIWYG editor, in classic Microsoft style. However this is not what I got. Instead I was greeted with package after package being installed. Once it was all done I had a nifty little demo lab running on my pathetic laptop. On first launch this baby installs a lite version of SQL and IIS for all your playing needs. Now this program was a bit more confusing to get started with than other programs, but then proved itself pretty powerful. I love how if you don't know of a framework out there it will offer you some to work with, or you can just jump right into a working directory and get ripping through some code. I keep the bad part as Hard to use, but man this thing has one heck of a built in Library. Honestly combined with Notepad++ you can do some lethal coding. Or I could finally write that macro to take over the world.

NetBeanshttp://netbeans.org/

So, if you don't know, NetBeans = Oracle. Basically that means it's one powerful yet confusing program. It took me a long time to get the hang of NetBeans. But it is true what they say, once you use it you will never go back. I am horrible at Java, I can do it, but it requires one hell of a memory to program right in it. We all want to be amazing at JQuery, however not many can do it without cheating at it. Here comes NetBeans to save the day. It is for programming Java Web Applications and JEE. We use it for writing easy and wicked JQuery parts. It will support all your code and syntax everything, but don't expect it to mash all your PHP together. If you are cool with doing your PHP blindfolded, but need to peek for the Java stuff, then this is your program. Your desktop should not be without it. Grab a coffee and get ready for a long but satisfying installation. The netbeans.org community has plenty of tutorials, starting guides and plugins to get you rolling around in your freshly brewed code.

Hopefully you have a better artillery for getting your web programming done and these applications bring some amazing things from your mind to keyboard to the web.

Happy Coding!