Comments on: Faint praise for Expression Web http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/12/16/faint-praise-for-expression-web/ The blog of John D. Cook Sat, 31 Jul 2010 07:45:27 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Geoff Chappell http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/12/16/faint-praise-for-expression-web/comment-page-1/#comment-14029 Geoff Chappell Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:33:51 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=1109#comment-14029 For what it's worth, you are not alone with your experience of Expression Web crashing frequently in ordinary use, with no obvious cue from which to try reproducing. By frequently, I mean that I've had well over a dozen crashes in six months - which is very many more than I have ever had with any other program. A recurring cause is of accessing memory (often to call a virtual function) that has been released. Another, which I have debugged (and explain at my website), is a deadlock from doing too much in a DllMain function. I suspect that both types of trouble are much exaggerated by multi-processor execution, which does bring very much more opportunity to expose synchronisation bugs. Why Expression Web should be more susceptible to this than are other programs, I don't know. Since Expression Web has so many features which are clearly buggy even if they don't crash, I incline to dismiss the thing as bad software that ought never have got as far as a commercial release. For what it’s worth, you are not alone with your experience of Expression Web crashing frequently in ordinary use, with no obvious cue from which to try reproducing. By frequently, I mean that I’ve had well over a dozen crashes in six months – which is very many more than I have ever had with any other program.

A recurring cause is of accessing memory (often to call a virtual function) that has been released. Another, which I have debugged (and explain at my website), is a deadlock from doing too much in a DllMain function.

I suspect that both types of trouble are much exaggerated by multi-processor execution, which does bring very much more opportunity to expose synchronisation bugs. Why Expression Web should be more susceptible to this than are other programs, I don’t know.

Since Expression Web has so many features which are clearly buggy even if they don’t crash, I incline to dismiss the thing as bad software that ought never have got as far as a commercial release.

]]> By: John http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/12/16/faint-praise-for-expression-web/comment-page-1/#comment-11185 John Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:20:35 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=1109#comment-11185 I use Visual Studio 2008 regularly, but I haven't tried it as an HTML editor. I was irritated by how an earlier version of Visual Studio handled HTML, but that's been a while and the product has changed quite a bit since then. I need to give it another chance. I use Visual Studio 2008 regularly, but I haven’t tried it as an HTML editor. I was irritated by how an earlier version of Visual Studio handled HTML, but that’s been a while and the product has changed quite a bit since then. I need to give it another chance.

]]> By: Gene http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/12/16/faint-praise-for-expression-web/comment-page-1/#comment-11163 Gene Fri, 19 Dec 2008 04:33:02 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=1109#comment-11163 I've found that Visual Studio 2008 is a much superior (X)HTML development environment in general than Expression. I'll bet one of the free Express products would probably fulfill your needs. I did my whole web site with 2008. It happily handles .html pages properly, supports java very well and has excellent style sheet tools, including a css mapper that displays which style(s) a component is using. I honestly haven't found any function that Expression performs better than VS 2008. (I'm sure someone will prove me wrong.) I’ve found that Visual Studio 2008 is a much superior (X)HTML development environment in general than Expression. I’ll bet one of the free Express products would probably fulfill your needs. I did my whole web site with 2008. It happily handles .html pages properly, supports java very well and has excellent style sheet tools, including a css mapper that displays which style(s) a component is using. I honestly haven’t found any function that Expression performs better than VS 2008. (I’m sure someone will prove me wrong.)

]]> By: Daniel Lemire http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/12/16/faint-praise-for-expression-web/comment-page-1/#comment-11101 Daniel Lemire Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:50:49 +0000 http://www.johndcook.com/blog/?p=1109#comment-11101 How can a Microsoft product generate XHTML when IE does not support XHTML?????? How can a Microsoft product generate XHTML when IE does not support XHTML??????

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