web design/development vs double glazing?
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As a devoloper working since '98 and having had good contracts for the BBC, Independent newspaper and major I.T. companies; I feel like web development is now like the commercial throng of double glazing during the eighties!. Any old half wits with a little design ability and html knowledge are putting out generic templates for the masses: like double glazing salesmen of the eighties; earn a buck quick and rip people off, website development has attracted any old double glazing twat for a fast buck. Although I love web development, esp Django/Python: why is PHP so putrid? I am thinking now it is oversaturated by too many twats.
It makes me sick. Good designs are personal and not generic.
I am now looking to continue in a different direction and thinking of studying HCI.
Any opinions/feedback appreciated.
It makes me sick. Good designs are personal and not generic.
I am now looking to continue in a different direction and thinking of studying HCI.
Any opinions/feedback appreciated.
omg!
was that me?
I must have been having a bad day.
I'll say something positive now. I have been setting up a site re-build with Concrete 5 and it is easy, intuitive for clients and web developers alike. The last site I did using Joomla, which compared to the likes of Concrete will quickly look like an ageing dinosaur and retreat down the path of languages like Coldfusion, and god what a nightmare to hack.
Concrete 5, and python/Django make me smile :), and a thumbs up to wordpress too.
Another site I'm building with Concrete 5 requires a blog and a forum. So I will be using a combination of Concrete 5 for static pages, and Wordpress with simple forum extension. I did look at the C5 demo blog plugin and it follows the same layout page construction
as C5 which I think is wrong and confusing, I think blog functionality should follow separate Dashboard system like Wordpress. It also makes sense to seperate the systems.
was that me?
I must have been having a bad day.
I'll say something positive now. I have been setting up a site re-build with Concrete 5 and it is easy, intuitive for clients and web developers alike. The last site I did using Joomla, which compared to the likes of Concrete will quickly look like an ageing dinosaur and retreat down the path of languages like Coldfusion, and god what a nightmare to hack.
Concrete 5, and python/Django make me smile :), and a thumbs up to wordpress too.
Another site I'm building with Concrete 5 requires a blog and a forum. So I will be using a combination of Concrete 5 for static pages, and Wordpress with simple forum extension. I did look at the C5 demo blog plugin and it follows the same layout page construction
as C5 which I think is wrong and confusing, I think blog functionality should follow separate Dashboard system like Wordpress. It also makes sense to seperate the systems.
Hi! Glad to hear your good mooded today, really :)
Well, that's actually not related to your concern, but I think a seperate dashboard is something you might love to have, but clients want it simple. And in-context editing is "the" easiest way. Just edit what you see, instead of seeing complicated options.
I would even go so far and say tha it would be good if some or modification options of the blog block are disallowed for clients, so that they can't mess things up. It's about easyness, not about managebility.
regards
Fernandos
Well, that's actually not related to your concern, but I think a seperate dashboard is something you might love to have, but clients want it simple. And in-context editing is "the" easiest way. Just edit what you see, instead of seeing complicated options.
I would even go so far and say tha it would be good if some or modification options of the blog block are disallowed for clients, so that they can't mess things up. It's about easyness, not about managebility.
regards
Fernandos
the original blog package has a dashboard based interface for adding postings:
http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/blog...
http://www.concrete5.org/marketplace/addons/blog...
hi Tony!
I just wanted to say you thank you very much for your contributions, keep up the good work.
warm regards :) you really deserve that respects! I learned a lot from your packages and the code. Good coding style btw.!
I just wanted to say you thank you very much for your contributions, keep up the good work.
warm regards :) you really deserve that respects! I learned a lot from your packages and the code. Good coding style btw.!
thx Fernandos, glad it's appreciated. (i wasn't involved in making that blog package though, that's jeremy and scotts' doing)
I hear ya man. I feel the same way about BBS's. We had it figured out in the 80's. I'll never get the same spirit of camaraderie out of facebook that I did out of an old Telegard BBS. I'll never ever be interested in 'tending my crops' on farmville, but I really loved Tradewars 2000...
I dunno. I can certainly be grumpy old man with the best of them, but I take a few lessons learned from the last 15 years of web development.
I've been there, done that - I've seen the same ideas come and go so many times, it is easy to see that as depressing, but its also easy to see that as a sign that there's something worth shooting for there.
Life really is cooler. My Dad ran a software shop from the late 60's through early 90's before he passed from cancer. We were deeply connected around technology and sci-fi type issues, and while I'm sure he'd be really confused and disappointed that we haven't got people living on the moon by 2010 - I think he'd be pretty impressed with the way the iPhone Maps changes the way you can travel or find a place to eat. The differences we dream and write about through technology tend to be revolutionary, the differences we get tend to be evolutionary - this is the nature of things, we're blind to progress.
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/02/so_amazing_but.php...
I dunno. It's hard to operate in a industry where there are STILL lots of businesses that have no real revenue model and are raising VC on the expectation of being bought by another business. It's hard to both see that fail for the obvious reasons and then occasionally succeed for rare understandable ones. I believe there's an ancient Chinese curse of "may you live in interesting times" and we are certainly changing the world with the internet.
One good thing I can tell you vs. our experiences in the 90s - the web is here to stay. Going to SXSW this year was interesting for that very reason. There's so many completely unique things happening "online" that it's becoming passe to even think of it as "logging in" or "surfing the web." You certainly wouldn't talk about "reading the words" when looking at a bus schedule or glancing at a newspaper. The written word has become ubiquitous, and the internet is well on its way to being the same.
As that happens, it is reasonable to expect all the d-bags and jocks who mocked us in the 1980's for bringing a massive 286 notebook to class instead of a legal pad, to now be making money on hair brained schemes in the industry we love. I'm sure the hi-fi jocks of the 50's felt that way about the boom of Stereo business in the 60's and 70's, and I'm sure the inventors who threw their souls into so many car companies in the 20's felt like the big boys were missing the point in the 40's and 50's when the industry took off.. That being said, we all enjoy driving around listening to music in 8 speaker setups today without even thinking about it.
The best thing you can do is find your corner of the industry and make it yours. Use the things you've seen fail and succeed over the years and trade in some of that exuberance of youth for wisdom of experience. Recognize you're not going to win every fight, but don't forget we are (albeit slowly) heading towards a better world through technology. Find some people who are real, and develop some relationships with them around a common goal you believe in. Join a fearless group that is eager to buck the status quo and write yourself into the story you want to tell.
Maybe you already have, maybe that's right here.
-frz
I dunno. I can certainly be grumpy old man with the best of them, but I take a few lessons learned from the last 15 years of web development.
I've been there, done that - I've seen the same ideas come and go so many times, it is easy to see that as depressing, but its also easy to see that as a sign that there's something worth shooting for there.
Life really is cooler. My Dad ran a software shop from the late 60's through early 90's before he passed from cancer. We were deeply connected around technology and sci-fi type issues, and while I'm sure he'd be really confused and disappointed that we haven't got people living on the moon by 2010 - I think he'd be pretty impressed with the way the iPhone Maps changes the way you can travel or find a place to eat. The differences we dream and write about through technology tend to be revolutionary, the differences we get tend to be evolutionary - this is the nature of things, we're blind to progress.
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/02/so_amazing_but.php...
I dunno. It's hard to operate in a industry where there are STILL lots of businesses that have no real revenue model and are raising VC on the expectation of being bought by another business. It's hard to both see that fail for the obvious reasons and then occasionally succeed for rare understandable ones. I believe there's an ancient Chinese curse of "may you live in interesting times" and we are certainly changing the world with the internet.
One good thing I can tell you vs. our experiences in the 90s - the web is here to stay. Going to SXSW this year was interesting for that very reason. There's so many completely unique things happening "online" that it's becoming passe to even think of it as "logging in" or "surfing the web." You certainly wouldn't talk about "reading the words" when looking at a bus schedule or glancing at a newspaper. The written word has become ubiquitous, and the internet is well on its way to being the same.
As that happens, it is reasonable to expect all the d-bags and jocks who mocked us in the 1980's for bringing a massive 286 notebook to class instead of a legal pad, to now be making money on hair brained schemes in the industry we love. I'm sure the hi-fi jocks of the 50's felt that way about the boom of Stereo business in the 60's and 70's, and I'm sure the inventors who threw their souls into so many car companies in the 20's felt like the big boys were missing the point in the 40's and 50's when the industry took off.. That being said, we all enjoy driving around listening to music in 8 speaker setups today without even thinking about it.
The best thing you can do is find your corner of the industry and make it yours. Use the things you've seen fail and succeed over the years and trade in some of that exuberance of youth for wisdom of experience. Recognize you're not going to win every fight, but don't forget we are (albeit slowly) heading towards a better world through technology. Find some people who are real, and develop some relationships with them around a common goal you believe in. Join a fearless group that is eager to buck the status quo and write yourself into the story you want to tell.
Maybe you already have, maybe that's right here.
-frz
<^that's a good reading^>
Novelty is something only the wise do understand and honor.
Novelty is something only the wise do understand and honor.
That's a bit harsh for my taste, but the elbow generation is grown up old men now mostly and the new generation is kind of a careless mind fiddling with the new media and posting all information into the web. Why so serious? New talents grew up as ever and they try their new media out as you and all others did. Everybody starts small and ends hopefully big, but some just get lost on the way, I quit beeing abstract now and want to ask you what it is that annoys you? Competition is kind of a virtual thing and as long as one doesn't realize that, one will have to live with it. Nothing is sad, it's good growth out there in the web and things happen much faster than ever, if you feel that things pass you and the easyness people can build stuff could harm you, then you probably should take the time and do something that fulfills you more than webdev. I'm saying that because webdev is no real profession and everyone can call himself a webdev. But that's good it's kind of anarchistic competition out there, which gives everybody who is strong enough the chance to reach another step intead of beeing stuck with an academic or financial limitations.
In short: it's a vital market as never before and I don't understand why you break your head about such unimportant things, you could create a professional website for clients in the time of writing this. just an example :)
Have a nice day
regards
Fernandos