# What web design software should I buy? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 29, 2007, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-web-design-software-should-i-buy/390017 "2007-01-29T21:42:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2007, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-web-design-software-should-i-buy/390017/21 "2007-01-30T20:50:31Z")
**Jennshark,** take advantage of **ZipperJJ!** He’s even got a brand spankin’ new [“Ask the…” thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=406168) ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2007, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-web-design-software-should-i-buy/390017/22 "2007-01-30T20:50:36Z")
I still hand-code. I have HomeSite on my Windows machine, and Smultron on my Mac. One of the reasons I stayed with hand-coded HTML+CSS instead of switching to NOF when I had the opportunity is that NOF could only handle fixed-width designs. Did they ever fix that? And if I may add yet another question to the thread, I need to put together a very simple database-driven site (membership information for an association). In the past, I’ve always done this by writing a server-side program in Perl and having it plug in data to templates. There must be a better way now. I do the design on a Mac and the pages are hosted on a \*nix box, so no Windows-only solutions, please. ---
**Author:** ![wasson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@wasson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wasson)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2007, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-web-design-software-should-i-buy/390017/23 "2007-01-30T21:10:07Z")
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat] And if I may add yet another question to the thread, I need to put together a very simple database-driven site (membership information for an association). In the past, I’ve always done this by writing a server-side program in Perl and having it plug in data to templates. There must be a better way now. I do the design on a Mac and the pages are hosted on a \*nix box, so no Windows-only solutions, please. [/QUOTE] Not many people use Perl for web solutions anymore… it’s just kind of dated. These days, PHP and mySQL databases rule the land, both are free to install and use, and quite common on any paid hosting (and even a lot of free hosting). ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2007, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-web-design-software-should-i-buy/390017/24 "2007-01-30T21:16:10Z")
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat] I still hand-code. I have HomeSite on my Windows machine, and Smultron on my Mac. One of the reasons I stayed with hand-coded HTML+CSS instead of switching to NOF when I had the opportunity is that NOF could only handle fixed-width designs. Did they ever fix that? And if I may add yet another question to the thread, I need to put together a very simple database-driven site (membership information for an association). In the past, I’ve always done this by writing a server-side program in Perl and having it plug in data to templates. There must be a better way now. I do the design on a Mac and the pages are hosted on a \*nix box, so no Windows-only solutions, please. [/QUOTE] I use BBEdit on a Mac and have never been able to give up control over HTML for WYSIWIG editor, even DW… I have coded sited in dhtml, CSS, etc and hand-code everything myself… once you make a front page, interior page template and navigation system, it is all self-plaigiarization anyway. Wombat, how dies Smultron compare to BBEdit? As for db-driven, PHP can handle what you need to do, and runs native on OSX. You can branch beyond simple arrays into MySQL which also is native. The learning curve is not that steep. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2007, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-web-design-software-should-i-buy/390017/25 "2007-01-30T21:40:42Z")
[QUOTE=Hey you!] **Jennshark,** take advantage of **ZipperJJ!** He’s even got a brand spankin’ new [“Ask the…” thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=406168) [/QUOTE] she ---
**Author:** ![B.Serum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/b.serum/32/14266_2.png) [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2007, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-web-design-software-should-i-buy/390017/26 "2007-01-30T22:39:09Z")
[QUOTE=ZipperJJ] she [/QUOTE] :smack: Oops! I though Zipper was a boy’s name. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-web-design-software-should-i-buy/390017.md?page=1)