I have never created a website before. I am trying to teach myself to code by hand. Float positioning my elements is turning out to be much more challenging than I had anticipated. I have no intention of using software to create my site but I would like an enlightened perspective of what others are doing. Are some of the more popular and complicated sites coded by hand or do they use software such as Dreamweaver? Also do they float their elements or position them absolutely? Thanks for your council.
They websites are mostly coded by hand. It depends what you would like to do? For some things floating is better and for other to position them. If I were you, I would also look into content management systems.
I have never heard of content management systems. I just spent some time at Wikipedia and other places trying to learn about this. It almost sounds like dream weaver is used replace coding HTML and CSS by hand and CMS is used to replace coding PHP or some server side language by hand. Or maybe it works with a server side language but does not replace the need to hand code it.
If you actually want to know what your doing you'll code by hand. If you just want the site to run and not care about the where's, why's or how's you can use a program. Any of the larger sites and you can be sure that they are coded by hand - or to be more precise, they are coded by someone who knows how to code by hand! Start with your basic HTML. Move on to PHP. Whether you use a ready made script, code one yourself, or use a program to help all depends on how much you want to know the basics.
Learning to code by hand is by far the best way. You have the most flexability and it will be much easier to identify and fix things should a problem arise. I would recommend visiting the website www.w3schools.com if you are looking fo an online resource.