In the case of building a Web server, is the situation the same, i.e., is it better to start out by hand, and then perhaps combine with a visual tool like iTools? In the field of UNIX networking administration on, I haven't done any more difficult task than setting up UUCP on a couple of NeXT machines, but I found it useful to gain some understanding of how the configuration files actually work, setting up permissions correctly etc.

Also, iTools do a lot of things one may not need initially, like eCommerce stuff. So perhaps hand coding is not too bad a path to tread even for a beginner, looking to set up a Web and ftp server? (I also want to do streaming QuickTime stuff)