| Using Dreamweaver is fine. I have no idea where these critics get the idea that Dreamweaver writes bad code. My guess is that they don't know how to properly use the program or don't know what they are doing, and find it more convenient to blame the program than themselves.
If you keep your copy of Dreamweaver patched, it will generate perfectly fine HTML and JavaScript.
XHTML is not that difficult to learn. For most intents, it boils down to three key differences from HTML:
1. You don't use tables, attributes (e.g., align, border, etc.) or tags (e.g., <font>, <center>) to format how things display in XHTML. You use CSS instead.
2. You have to close all tags.
3. If you really know what you are doing, you can make up your own XHTML tags.
If you use the latest copy of Dreamweaver or the latest update of Dreamweaver 8, it will write XHML 1 Transitional or XHTML 1 Strict for you. It will also validate XHTML right within the program.
Also, again, the JavaScript that a properly patched copy of Dreamweaver writes works perfectly fine, so long as you provide proper information to the program when trying to use its built-in Behaviors.
In re: Learning CSS, that's tough. It takes a while to get the hang of it, especially when you are trying to use DIVs to lay things out.
My recommendation would be to learn it in a hands-on classroom, since a book simply isn't going to cover all the nuances. However, if you do decide to go the book route, I am very fond of the For Dummies series and the Sam's Teach Yourself series.
Again, don't pay attention to noobs who blame the hammer for their numb thumbs. Any WYSIWYG editor is going to need to be babysat to some degree, but there's a reason professionals use Dreamweaver almost exclusively: it works fine.
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