Hand coded XHTML is typically authored with text editors such as vi, emacs, pico, notepad.exe, etc. You type everything for maximum flexibility. I'm asking you to do it this way early in the course, since you will have to write programs that dynamically generate XHTML later in the course. If you become dependent on more automated tools too soon, you may have difficulty later when writing JSP, PHP, or Perl/CGI programs later in the course.

XHTML editors provide help typing the "boilerplate" code with the use of menus, templates, etc. Some of the WYSIWYG tools also provide this mode for authoring XHTML.

WYSIWYG Tools hide the XHTML coding and details from you and let you concentrate on "the design". Good looking XHTML documents can be generated quickly, but you lose flexibility. Some examples are Dreamweaver, Frontpage, GoLive, RapidWeaver, Mozilla Composer, SeaMonkey Composer, and many more. -- g/madey