Where to start with ASP.net in C# and Dreamweaver?

Question

I am looking to start working on a personal site using C#. I work as a web developer and have used VBScript previously and am using Coldfusion now at work. I use Dreamweaver for development in these languages.

I have read a lot of people recommending that you should use a MS IDE to develop in .net and that C# is the way to go in terms of the language. I would like to stick with Dreamweaver as I feel I would be taking on a bit too much to learn how to use a new IDE and a new language at the same time.

Will using something like Visual Studio help with developing in .net so much that it is worth the effort of changing from Dreamweaver? If so which IDE would be best to learn with?

If I choose to stick with Dreamweaver is there any recommendations you can make as to how to best setup Dreamweaver for easy development?

Answer 1

Yes, coming from the exact same situation I can tell you now it will help a great deal to walk away from Dreamweaver for your .net work. The intellisense for C# is not super great in Dreamweaver. You will find features you miss a great deal from Dreamweaver though, specifically code completion on the HTML side is much better in Dreamweaver then in VS.

Answer 2

As someone who formerly coded PHP in Dreamweaver, I would strongly suggest the use of the Visual Studio IDE for C# ASP.NET applications. The benefits are numerous:

• Intellisense - where any object, property, method, etc. that you create will automatically appear in an auto-complete box, drastically reducing syntax errors
• Project templates - starting a web application from scratch is going to be very very tricky if you have to do it all via source code
• Debugging - errors can be caught and debugged directly in the source code
• Add-ins - my favorite being the Configuration Section Designer

I'm sure there are even more reasons, these are just the biggest ones.

Answer 3

If you feel comfortable using Dreamweaver for design, you can still continue to use it, but I would strongly recommend you familiarise yourself with Visual Studio Express however (it's free). Trying to learn .NET and C# using a text editor or an application like dreamweaver is feasible, but you would be making the learning process unnecessarily difficult. Visual Studio gives you syntax highlighting, intellisense, debugging, and many other features that you just aren't going to get in another IDE targeted at web design. VS is really very strongly coupled to .NET development.

I started my career as a web designer many years ago using Dreamweaver, and have gradually made the transition to software developer. Leaving tools like Dreamweaver behind has actually given me a lot more freedom in terms of working as a designer, and I find that I don't in fact need any tools for markup and css other than a text editor. You may find that abandoning a design tool like dreamweaver actually makes you a better designer; and just as well - the "design" tools in Visual Studio are absolutely useless :)

If you do decide to continue using Dreamweaver for markup, be aware that things may render differently in Visual Studio. Ignore the Visual Studio design pane entirely and just check your design in the various browsers (I'm sure you already do this).

Answer 4

Another vote for Visual Studio, with the addition that you don't have to give up Dreamweaver. You can use Dreamweaver to build a basic layout and interface design. Then use Visual Studio to realize the implementation of that design.

You will find building ASP.Net without a purpose-build IDE painful.

Answer 5

I believe not. Dreamweaver is not a good tool for developing code. This is what you need in ASP.NET. You'll need debugging. You'll enjoy IntelliSense, and you can always open single files in Dreamweaver occasionally (which I doubt you would, anyway).

Grab Visual Studio Express 2013 for Web (which is free) and enjoy. It's a Windows app, like many other Windows apps! You don't need professional training to use it.

Answer 6

I'd really like to point out that "IntelliSense" is nothing new and nothing Microsoft invented by any means. IntelliSense IS code hinting with links to the Microsoft help page, which I've never needed personally. Please see that Dreamweaver does have code hinting exactly the same as Visual Studio, however is not designed to develop C# and similar languages, and for that reason alone I would not recommend trying to develop with it. As for developing purely in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, a plain text editor is a better choice than Visual Studio granted you don't change any of the settings. There are so many things I hate about how VS behaves while I'm writing HTML, but that's another thread. On another site.