I make my living doing web development and my primary tool of choice is Dreamweaver. What you use to create your site is not as important as it's functionality and design. Sure, you can't use iWeb for professional results... but Dreamweaver CS4 and 5 are professional products that work very well. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
And it's not always about WYSIWYG interface. I use Dreamweaver because I can knock out a website fast when needed. I do a lot of freelance work where other designers hand off page design templates to code. Then their client sends the written content and I have to put together a 60-100 page website in a few days. I wouldn't want to do that by hand. Using a CMS would be better, but often the client doesn't want that or can't afford it. Dreamweaver also works well for maintenance. I can launch Dreamweaver, update and upload a page in just a few minutes. Again, coding by hand would kind of suck. Time is money!
Use the tools you need to complete the job and don't worry what about what others think unless your work is crap.
The problem with most WYSIWYG editors is that they don't churn out very neat code, though they are getting better. There's nothing wrong with using them, as long as you also know how to do the same things by hand with nothing but a text editor. I guess the "looking down" part comes from seeing people who only use WYSIWYG editors claim to be professional web designers yet they don't know the languages they're working in properly.
I prefer working with Textmate since it has many features that make it easier to write code or markup.
If I needed to hire someone and had the choice between two people - one who codes by hand, and the other who knows Dreamweaver really well - who do you think I would hire? That's easy... the Dreamweaver guy. Why? Because clients don't care about pretty code from a purist point of view. They just want their website yesterday and Dreamweaver will get you that result quicker. Sure you need to know the technology and be able to work in code view, but to rely strictly on hand coding is ridiculous nowadays. Most professionals use a combination of a WYSIWYG type application, a bit of hand coding, and maybe a script editor. I've worked freelance at a lot of studios that were doing major development and none of them were coding strictly by hand. There simply isn't enough time to work that way.
thanks for all your replies about this. I guess i'm not doing it bad, but should still learn the codes.
You can't do or fix what you can't understand. You don't have to write it by hand, but if it's not working, you need to be able to see the code and know what it's doing. Coding by hand is a great way to learn, but once you know what your doing, take time to learn a faster way. Unless it's just going to be a hobby.
