You've heard of them Way-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) Editors for web development. Some common WYSIWYG editors include Front page, Dreamweaver, and so on. For beginning designers I think trying to create websites with them is quite an excellent source especially if your savvy enough to be able to look at the code a WYSIWYG editor produces, interpret it, and in the end understand what it is doing.
This method of developing websites is something I had been doing some 7 or more years ago. It taught me the hard way, by learning that spending 50+ hours on developing a garbage newbie site in Dreamweaver could look immensely better in only 15 hours tops. One thing that makes Dreamweaver unique to other WYSIWYG editors is it writes xhtml and css; the standard for compliant web design.
The learning curve with one of these editors is also awesome, it's a point and click type of deal almost like Windows (and yes, it runs on Windows).
In my own personal experience as a web designer, I found in the early days of my web development that a program like Dreamweaver where you can point and click and are then able to view the code that edited a certain region of the site was tremendous, it was something that taught me so much in so little time. I think any new designer can benefit from using a program like dreamweaver or frontpage to make a basic, basic website to create something that they can then learn from. Good luck in your future ventures!
