Hi Clark,
As I mentioned, FrontPage has had some fairly simple and basic tools for
doing some fairly simple and basic ASP and ASP.Net database-connective
stuff. You might compare what FrontPage wizards can do with ASP and ASP.Net
to the difference between being able to automatically write any of a couple
of dozen exact sentences, compared to the ability to write any and all books
in the Library of Congress. Because ASP and ASP.Net (and other web
application development technologies) are just that - programming
technologies, the limits of what can be done with them are virtually
non-existent. Writing a wizard that does everything for you without having
any programming knowledge, you're going to limit yourself to only a very few
of the most common tasks, and limit the configurability of those tasks.
Still, Microsoft included Wizards and some primitive tools to enable just
that.
The problems that people using FrontPage run into occur because they want to
step "just barely outside" of what these wizards can do, and without knowing
anything about programming. But guess what? As soon as you do, you have to
write your own programming code. You can certainly use the code generated by
the wizard as a starting point, but how will you expand on it if you don't
understand any of it? Answer: you don't. It seems that users in general
don't have a clue as to how much work, study, and knowledge is required of a
person that writes software. They think instead that it must be just as easy
as *using* software. That's about as far from the truth as it gets. In fact,
there is a correspondence between the user-friendliness of software and the
programmer-UNfriendliness of software. This is because in order for software
to be "user-friendly" it must do more of the work that the user does, and
must be increasingly intelligent in order to make the sort of decisions that
users have to make when using the software. So, the more user-friendly
software is, the harder it is to write that software. But software becomes
easier to use all the time, and most users have no idea how much work goes
into making it so.
Now, as to what you've heard from beta testers in newsgroups, take it all
with a grain of salt. A beta-tester is simply a person that volunteered to
use some free software in the hopes that he/she might find some of the
issues that arise from using it (bugs, usability issues, etc). There are no
qualifications or requirements for beta testers. That means that a beta
tester can be anyone. And in this world of around 7 billion people, most of
whom can access the Internet, it is a statistical fact that exactly half of
them are below average in intelligence (an below average in every other way
as well, since "average" is in the middle of the bell curve). They may or
may not know what they're talking about.
As for what Expression can do with databases that FrontPage cannot, and vice
versa, I honestly can't tell you, as I haven't used either product to write
software in years, only HTML. As I said, I use Visual Studio to write
software, and FrontPage and Expression to design HTML and manage web sites.
This is what these 2 products are best at.
I *can* tell you this: I have been using the beta of Expression ever since
the CTP came out, and have had very little trouble with it. That said, you
will have to decide for yourself whether you should install the beta or not;
beta software can do funny things (which is why it is released, and for
free!).
--
HTH,
Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
Professional Chicken Salad Alchemist
Big thicks are made up of lots of little thins.
