Web development software - Split from another thread

twisty said:

You dont like flash? 80% of the web runs in flash.
Click me!!!

Some people use IDIOT software like Front page and IBM WebSphere Studio Homepage Builder that allows a 12 year old to build a working website. But then once you get your site working in the train wreck of software app you notice scripting is shady, so you use a site like CodeLifter.com that steals other peoples hard work and allows the hacks that run this software to make their website look and act like they know what they are doing.

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I don't like flash when it is overdone, which a lot of people do. As I stated, Kneedraggers did a great job with theirs. It's very tasteful.

As far as our site, the normal HTML pages are done by me...a NON-web person. So yes, I use Web Sphere because it allows us "normal" people to be able to build a web page. As far as the cart and all of the backend, that is hand coded by Roach, who was a software engineer for AOL for seven years. I wish I was as savvy as he is with 'puters, but I am just a college graduate of journalism and marketing. Not computers.

As far as "codelifter.com". I have no clue as to what the heck that is, and there is no reason to steal other people's code when you can write your own. And trust me, after seven years at AOL, Roach has no problem writing his own code. :dthumb:

Kneedraggers.com has been open for four years now, and spends a ton of time on their site...actually has a dedicated person to work on it. Unfortunately, we are just not at that point, but hopefully we will get there in the future. For right now, the updating is done by me so Roach has time to work on the back end and continually work on improving our site, and unfortunately, I have to use IDIOT software like Web Sphere. I do the best I can.

Laura

twisty said:

Some people use IDIOT software like Front page and IBM WebSphere Studio Homepage Builder that allows a 12 year old to build a working website. But then once you get your site working in the train wreck of software app you notice scripting is shady, so you use a site like CodeLifter.com that steals other peoples hard work and allows the hacks that run this software to make their website look and act like they know what they are doing.

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Or, like Amazon.com (the worlds largest e-tailer), you don't use use things like flash that alienates the millions of people still on dial-up that will instantly leave your site when it takes longer than 20 seconds to load. Or not work correctly on the 18% of the market that isn't using MSIE and flash is either painfully slow (still a problem with some flash animations in firefox/mozilla) or not render correctly (Mac and Linux/Unix systems). I will not use MSIE on my windoze machine, and none of my other machines can even run it if I wanted to, so I see this a lot when visiting heavy flash sites (speedtv.com is a prime example ... their main page does not render correctly in Firefox).

A pretty website with animaitons often isn't the best way to do things If everyone was on a broadband connection and you knew the pages would render exactly the same for everyone ... then, it wouldn't be a concern. A mixture generally isn't bad, but in many cases it doesn't really add much to the presentation unless you've got a graphics designer doing your animations for you.

I tend to do layout in a WYSIWYG tool to get a feel for how I want things to look, then hand-code everything. I think flash is cool, but I don't want the problems I outlined above when trying to reach the broadest audience possible. I sometimes use javascript for dynamic stuff like populating pull-down menus, but that's about it. Pure HTML is the only way you can guarantee fast loadtimes and cross platform and browser compatability, which is really important for a business site. For a personal site ... eh, I'd probably have a cool flash thing

EDIT: I have seen a few sites done entirely in flash that actually have a very good UI, load fast, and render correctly on all my machines. They are few and far between though, and you'd need a REALLY good flash designer and do a lot of testing to achieve it.

- Roach

bumblebee said:

And I thank-you for it...Since I moved out to the dirt road...my dial up has gone from avg of 48 - 52 K to 24K... :yikes: No cable :yikes: :yikes: ...am investigating satellite ISP's that will be compatible with Direct TV. Direct wants over 100 bucks... :nonod: :cursin: ...Any Ideas?? may need another dish??

Oh, Yeah... :jacked:

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You are SO screwed

The reason your dial-up is only running at 24k is because you're beind a lovely piece of equipment the phone companies were deploying in the '80s (and even through the '90s in a lot of areas). It's called a lightspan unit and it chanelizes fiber to analog phone lines running over copper ... giving each channel only 28k of bandwidth. A 56k modem will only connect at 28k (which after overhead, leaves you at 24k). Oh, and it's not compatable with DSL either. The only high-speed technology that will run over it is ISDN (or iDSL which is a DSL technology using ISDN signaling) running at a symmetrical 128k for an obscene amount of money.

(This was all learned the hard way after purchasing a *brand new house* in '98 in the DC metro area that was behind one of these frigging things. I paid $120 a month for a year for iDSL (had to have it for work). They (Verizon) later deployed remote terminals to these areas to allow DSL to work over fiber).

Satellite is expensive because they have to reserve a lot of satellite bandwidth for it. Cheapest I've seen is about $85 a month (we looked into it for having internet at the track with the RV).

- Roach

twisty said:

I thought you said you didnt know what codelifter.com was. I found in you coding!!! Please explain?

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Considering I can't remember last week, never mind a year and a half ago, I'm going to assume that when I wanted to pop a browser window that showed a jpg for alternate images in the catalog using javascript ... I used google, typed in "javascript image pop up window", and that's what I found. (I just tried it ... yup, comes right up ... first result. Check the code). I couldn't even tell you what "codelifter.com" is, does, or anything else.

And the problem with this is? I mean, I suppose I could have walked over to the bookshelf, grabbed my O'Riley Javascript book, and used their simple example code ... but typing it into google was even easier. Or I guess I could have used any of the other 836,000 results that google presented ... would that make me more |eeT?

I wrote C/C++ code for years on the server side ... these goofy web scripting languages are cool and all, but I really have no interest in spending any amount of time learning them as I have little use other than the one or two functions I use them for in the catalog ... I google for examples, I copy and paste (and modify as needed). I see little use in re-inventing the wheel

- Roach