Overview

Web development incorporates all areas of creating a Web site for the World Wide Web. This includes Web design (graphic design, XHTML, CSS, usability and semantics), programming, content management, marketing, testing and deployment. The term can also specifically be used to refer to the "back end", that is, programming and server administration.

ref: Wikipedia: Web Development

• Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Japan Division
  This all-Japanese site is slated for a mild content reorganization and 'engine swap', moving it to the ExpressionEngine platform for content management.
• Christ Memorial Church of Holland, MI
  This project - complete site makeover, also moving to the ExpressionEngine platform - is currently under development.
• Haven Church of Kalamazoo, MI
  Haven Church has engaged Boyink Interactive to perform some research and internet ministry strategy development to define goals for their presence on the web.

Overview

When web site is published on the Internet, the web site need to be monitored, evaluated, reviewed and updated. Maintenance of a web site starts with the owners intention to publish a web site, then it focus on its users needs, habits and preference, which is why the web site is published in the first place, to give its visitors useful information. A web site also promotes image and reputation of its owner whether it is a company, a brand name, a product or service, an individual or a community. Having to stumble into an out-dated information on a web site will, more often than not, frustrate a visitor. An out-of-date web site, be it for its content or design speaks for itself about its owner.

A couple of days ago I had thehonor to attend at a lecture given by Jim Coplien about organizationalpatterns. The lecture presented the concept of organizational patterns and gavesome example of such patterns from an upcoming book by Jim Coplien.

One of the patterns presented was“Engage Customers”, which states that the customer needs to be approached bythe development team in order to understand the requirements better. Iimmediately thought of the eXtreme Programming approach in regard to the customer.According to XP the customer should be part of the development team. He shouldbe available on the development site, even in the same room, and constantlyanswer the developers questions and give them feedback about how thedevelopment is progressing towards the product he needs. I couldn’t helpwondering whether the pattern presented by Jim Coplien is indeed equivalent tothe XP implementation…

As it happens, the answer (in myopinion) was not late to come in the form of another pattern: “Fire Walls”. Theconcept in the basis of this pattern is that the developer should be shieldedfrom most external roles during development. The rational is that the developershould be disturbed as seldom as possible, since she is the one playing themost important role in the development process.

It is easy to see how the conceptof “Fire Walls” (assuming you agree with it) contradicts the notion of anon-site-customer who sits in the same room with the developers. XP merely tooka basically good idea (engaging customers) and put it under an extremeinterpretation. As in many other cases, taking a practice to its extreme couldeasily lead to the opposite results (or at least it has a price in regard tosome other good practice). In this case, bringing the customer to thedevelopers sanctuary could easily lead to a situation where the productivity ofthe developers is damaged, due to the constant involvement of an outsider.

The lesson, in my opinion, issimple: good practices should work together and not against each other. Youcan’t just “turn all the knobs to maximum” and still hope to get the benefit ofall the good practices you know. Noise is bound to be introduced wheneverything is being done the extreme way.

Justto make it clear… the views expressed above in regard to XP vs. theorganizational patterns are merely my thought and they were not part of thelecture ;)

In October 2006 Google extended their Co-op platform with Custom Search Engine, which lets anybody create a specialised search engine (and earn money from it if they want to).

I'm aware of three custom search engines of interest for Web professionals:

• Eric Meyer's CSS Search
• Sébastien Billard's Ergonosearch
• Scott Bernadot's Sparkl

While custom search engines are an interesting concept I find myself somewhat wary of using them. Not because there's anything wrong with them, but because I can't help wondering if what I'm looking for is on a site that the custom search engine has not added to its index.

Only Ergonosearch has a list of indexed sites. You can see which sites are indexed by CSS Search, but only by creating a Google account and logging in. I can't find any way of finding out which sites Sparkl indexes.

I think giving visitors easy access to a list of indexed sites would remove most of that feeling of uncertainty and make me trust specialised search engines more.

Are you aware of any other Google CSEs related to Web development?

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Posted in CSS, Web Standards.

By know it is well established that bugs should be identified as soon as possible in the development process. The cost of fixing a bug during development, is by far smaller than fixing the same bug after the product is in QC, and even more negligible when compared to the cost of fixing it when the product is already released to the customer...
The next logical step is to take this argument to the next level. If the cost of a bug is smaller the earlier it is identified and fixed, wouldn't it be even more cost effective to avoid the bug in the first place? If the defect could be prevented altogether, there will be no overhead caused by doing things twice in the development process...

Read the article...

Looking for a book that will bring your level of CSS knowledge from newbie to intermediate or advanced? This is it. I would actually say that the title is slightly misleading as there is plenty of good stuff in the book for people who would never consider themselves CSS beginners. Only those who really know CSS will read this book without learning something.

The book's author, Simon Collison, has published many helpful articles on CSS and other web design and development stuff on his personal website, Colly Logic. In this book he shares his experiences from working with the Web in the hopes that it will help readers avoid some of the confusion and frustration that is often associated with learning CSS (or anything new, for that matter).

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Posted in CSS, Reviews.

To the average, non-tech individual, finding a solid software or Web development company to work with can be quite mind-boggling and even overwhelming. Therefore, the chief mission of your Web site copy and marketing should be to alleviate any confusion the reader may experience during the course of his meanderings. This is typically achieved by answering the questions he may have before he even asks them. Some questions your tech expert-seeking guests may have while…

Web design Web marketing Web develop reader question site guest Wordfeeder com Dina Giolitto

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