Frameworks make you forget

I’ve recently being doing a bit of “old school” web development, manually creating HTML forms and (classic ASP) scripts to validate and process the forms. I was surprised at how much I have forgotten of my basic HTML, since I have been using a framework (namely archetypes in plone) to do all the form generation, validation and processing for the last couple of years. I even had to go and view some source code on another site to remind me of the correct syntax for an HTML select element (form drop-down).

Whilst doing things manually is very laborious, it does give me a feeling of control back, and I am confident about debugging and modification in a way that I miss when relying on a framework. Wouldn’t want to go back to this form of development for any large projects though!