HTML part 2—It's such a drag on design

I started Module 3 with some anxiety as I've been meaning learn html for quite some time now but as usual something always gets in the way. I have several books on the subject along with CSS, PHP, MySQL and Flash Action Script so I have read lots but I've only gone backwards. The main reason I'm trying to complete this Uni stuff is to broaden my skills from just a graphic designer for print. However, I see this as a major stumbling block because of the vast amount of change in technology. Once I have learnt html and CSS then what's next, there's just too much to learn and not enough time.

Anyway, getting into it.
I can see the value of learning code to find errors, but with W3C validation service and applications like Dreamweaver that validate code, this has become less of an issue. The tutors tell me there's a reason for learning this, so I'll have to believe them for now. The whole process is such a drag learning code that won't even do the job. The control I have placing text on a web page is just about nonexistent when you compare the amount of control I have in page preparations for print. I can control the juxtaposition of text to graphic to within 0.01 mm, but with html it's raw, it's either left, center or right and it drives me crazy (It's like trying to remover a splinter from a finger with a circular saw).
I can knock up a design for print and barely think about the process of assembling the parts onto a page, this leaves me free to concentrate on the design, not the process. I can work in Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator without ever going into the code (with the exception of using GREP expressions—a search tool within InDesign) and yet, to built ever a simple web page you must have a sound understanding of HTML. And then there's the problem of browser compatibility. It completely baffles me why in the early days of the web, developers such as Microsoft and Netscape would implement different code structure that renders pages differently on screen. This will force me to write code that circumnavigates quirks in browsers—designes can't be just designers, they have to be engineers too.
I give thanks the the great work at W3C and Web Standards for standardising code at will one day make my life easier. (If I could only shoot Microsoft Word.)

Thank god for WYSWIG. Now I know the tutors said to write this code in a text editor application and so I did, but I can't see why I would normally do this when there are those wonderful people a Adobe, developing applications like Dreanweaver to make life simplier. Isn't the reason inventors invent to make life easier?

Now I can give you a direct comparison between developing a blog page to a web page—or at least some idea of the differences. See next entry