Professional Web Designers - Tools and techniques

I would like to hear from the professional web designers and web application designers out there. I guess I am probably focused on the PHP world more so than the ASP.NET world.

Many start out using something like frontpage or another tool as they start learning html / php / and so forth. I would like to understand what techniques, tools, and processes you have put into place to make you a lean, mean, coding machine. How do you get more work done than the average beginner that simply starts creating web pages in something like Frontpage, Dreamweaver, or other html editor. What are the tools of the expert web developer? The techniques?

You can think of me as more of a Director of IT type person. I can do just about anything, but that means I am not proficient in everything as I can only master a few things. I ultimately oversee others that should be the master of their domain. Anyway, I am looking to do some more web development, but I want to do it as effeciently as I can. Almost all of the development will involve dynamic websites using PHP. I may take a look at ASP.NET when time allows, but that's a whole different ball game.

Thus far I have been using Dreamweaver, a number of open source classes to help speed along development and some of the 3rd party extensions out there to assist developing under Dreamweaver. Most of my development experience comes from the Delphi world so I am use to the RAD type environment.

Anyway, I look forward to your feedback and thank you in advance.

i am a web developer and the main program i use is dreamweaver + the other macromedia products. I find it easy to use with really good builtin functions and the experience that macromedia carries with it. Dreamweaver can intergrate with ASP.net Framework, PHP, ASP, Javascript, Coldfusion + many more. So wot ever language u choose dreamweaver will most likely cover it. I'm sure that others may have a different opinion's on this but for me that wot i use.

i am a web developer and the main program i use is dreamweaver + the other macromedia products. I find it easy to use with really good builtin functions and the experience that macromedia carries with it. Dreamweaver can intergrate with ASP.net Framework, PHP, ASP, Javascript, Coldfusion + many more. So wot ever language u choose dreamweaver will most likely cover it. I'm sure that others may have a different opinion's on this but for me that wot i use.

Thanks for the reply... I'm also looking for any techniques used to make your developoment process streamlined and efficient.

Do you have a bunch of templates set aside that you can quickly go to to get a framework up and running quickly? I know there have got to be folks out there that have something like this setup so they can generate a proof of concept or get a basic site up and quickly.

I don't image the professional developers are starting every site they do from scratch... they probably have something in place to get them going quickly...

Anyway that is the sort of thing I am looking for.

I like dreamweaver as well... and I am sure I am only scratching the surface.

Thanks again for the reply and I look forward to more replies!

This is also my topic. I have been insterested in web development for long time but did not pay attention to it when I was in school until now I picked up web development as a hobby by starting it with Front Page 2002. I begin to like php a lot. Because Microsoft is ending FP this year. I am looking for a new tool that would be something that one should invest in. Micro Soft is releasing the new version of Front Page callled something like Expession Web Desinger as CTP. I am yet to download and test it. Anybody has tested it. Is there any test version of Dreamweaver? Goog topic, please keep discussing.