I’m struggling with how to actually phrase this question because I’m really not versed enough in the alternatives to know what to ask. I’m only familiar and comfortable with FrontPage and basic html.

I work as a consultant to a state government, and there appears to be two factions of web developers: those who insist on JAVA and IIS stuff using WebSphere (a product I find overblown and cumbersome), and the other few of us who feel that anything you can do, we can do better (and easier) with FrontPage. My capacity here is not really web development (I do that on my own at home), but more of management advisor.

So, I don’t know if there is some limitation in using FrontPage.

The JAVA crew consists basically of newbies that have recently received some limited training. Quite frankly the results of their feeble development so far are puny and paltry. And they’ve been developing stuff for almost a year. It takes only hours to develop and deploy much more functional stuff in FrontPage.

I’m inclined to think that they don’t really understand object orientation, use cases etc., and any type of information engineering whatsoever. And I’m also inclined to think that if one needs applets, they should buy them from someone who really knows what they are doing.

I’ve been in the Info Tech industry for over thirty years and in the “web world” for about 3-4 years. Over that timeframe, one rule has always stuck out to me…. KISS ! So, when it comes to code development, I tend to not try to re-invent things or waste any more energy on a task than it deserves.

At this point, I really don’t see why anything could be simpler or easier to use than FrontPage, or for that matter, better. I’ve not yet seen any real limitations.

I realize I’m asking for an answer that depends on some set of circumstances and needs. But I’m also looking for some definitive statement to quell the stampede into JAVA coding here at the state. As most everyone knows, bureaucracies can really muddle up the obvious and the simple. I fear that is what is happening here.

Oh, and by the way, they do not have NT servers here.

[This message has been edited by Bill Nicol (edited 06-05-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Bill Nicol (edited 06-05-2001).]

I have recently had peripheral dealings with two web sites, one as a project advisor on the content side and the other as a sort of general 'wise head' (hmmm) when things started to go radically wrong. Both were extremely expensive, took months to produce, use 'cutting edge technology' and both are an unqualified disaster.

Now I am not saying that FrontPage alone could have created either in full with the required functionality. What did happen in both cases was that the developers decided to use cutting edge stuff just because they could. Sort of.

In one case the site is simply over designed from a technology point of view and not a single thought seems to have been given to usability. This one is entirely Java driven. It looks pretty but it is impossible to find anything at it, its structure is extremely rigid and inflexible. There is a very untidy and complicated backend which will not allow editing of any submissions, they have to be deleted and resubmitted and the are automatically at the bottom of a list with no option to move them about or decide what gets prominence.

The other was done by a guy who 'discovered' PHP, found a few free scripts but never really learned how to use them. Course he never told the owners it is based on a free script and charged them for 'developing' the code. He also worships at the altar of the God Flash so the site is, in it's entirity, invisible to search engines. Again it has a backend - supposedly for ease of updating - which has baffled everyone who is expected to use it. This was, incidently, the site I was asked to look at only to FTP it and find I was able to roam around the server at will popping in and out of the 'secure' directories of about 30 other sites.

Both of these sites could have been produced to a considerably higher standard for a fraction of the cost in quarter the time by sticking to the basics and with more time spent on designing in usability for both site visitors and owners.

The first is now going back to the same company for a total redesign - at even more cost but it is coming off a broad back. The second have fired their designers, are sticking with the disaster for now due to lack of funds but planning to scrap the lot and redesign as soon as they can afford to.

This is no critisism of either Java or PHP, both excellent techologies. Problem is the temptation to take a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Neither of these sites needed the treatment they got, and they certainly didn't need to pay for technology while functionality was ignored.

To put this in context, one of these sites cost over £50,000 (about $65,000). The other was a bit less, but still well into 5 figures.

BTW in both cases the designers are thrilled with their work and baffled by their clients' ungrateful responses. They keep pointing, like excited kids, at the bells and whistles.

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Katherine

InKK Design
LinKKs - Kilkenny's Online Magazine

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"Dogs have owners, cats have staff!"

[This message has been edited by abbeyvet (edited 06-05-2001).]

It's clear I've reached a kindred spirit in all of this techno-babble. Thank you for your comments.

This installation, a state bureaucracy, is charged with handling millions of dollars of tax money each day. Yet the system that "runs" it all is COBOL/IMS on an antiquated mainframe. I might add that some of the original code that I developed way back in the dark ages, is still in there somewhere. However, the programs have gone through so many evolutionary steps over the years, they're barely recognizable.

So there is a sizeable staff of dinosaur programmers here to maintain this mess. None of which, I might add, can tell you exactly what these programs do. There's been too much turnover and brain drain.

But that is not the main problem here. The main problem is exposure to these newer PC-based technologies and a scant brush, mind you, with the WEB. They are not web-savvy but absolutely running like lemmings toward this newer technology. They are ill-prepared and have no basic concepts.

Still, I remember the feeling back in the old days, when finding a programmable solution to a logic problem was fun and enjoyable (my roots go back to Basic Assembler). However, I left those dalliances long ago, following a more business-oriented career.

You and your colleagues have heard from me only in the past couple of weeks, and you've seen a fairly nice website developed and deployed in that short of a time. There is more to come as soon as I can devote some time to it. The reason is greatly due to you folks at OutFront, but there has to be something said about the simplicity of using basic FrontPage techniques.

I may be a contractual employee, but I'm also a taxpayer. So it is imperative to me to get the most "bang for the buck" from any system of this magnitude.

When you break down business into it's smaller sub-processes in a disciplined way, you ultimately drill-down to the very core of the business. It's at that level that you understand exactly what's going on, what's necessary, what's not.

Here, I'm afraid, they don't much care as long as everyone has something to do, and that some level of progress can be reported upwards.

I apologize for this tome, but I've been searching for a solid argument to present to these people as to why it is such a folly to pursue this high-tech dream, when simpler,less costly, more useable alternatives exist.

This probably isn't the correct forum for such a rambling treatise, but it's doing me a great deal of good to research this subject and vent..

Thanks again for all your help.

However, there are some areas where FP is not the best tool out there. Sometimes Frontpage does things that it shouldn't do (like point automatically change hyperlinks from relative hyperlinks to point at pages on the local hard drive when you change the <base> tag).
And there are limitations to what Frontpage can do. FP is not a total solution to web development.

But alot of the bugs that gave this product a bad name was fixed in FP 2000. Frontpage still suffers from a stigma of being unreliable (at least among people I know). Some of the criticism is substantive, but alot is no longer valid.

FP is a good developer's tool.

One of it's primary drawbacks is the need to learn the programme, and to be honest at least a modicum of HTML, in order to be able to update and maintain. There are a lot of clients who couldn't be bothered, for whom it's impractical or who, frankly, would never learn it - I have clients who think that collecting their e mail is a feat of technological brilliance. Not all of them can afford to pay someone to do regular updates or want to so do.

I have a warning I issue regularly to people - if someone offers to "Facilitate transaction based processing in a vertical B2B environment" when what they mean is they will provide an online order form - RUN!!

The only thing that matters is that the site works - that the target users can use it and do. If that needs serious technologies then fine - but far too many really clever developers are simply looking for a chance to strut their stuff and forgetting to look at what it was the client wanted in the first place.

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Katherine

InKK Design
LinKKs - Kilkenny's Online Magazine

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"Dogs have owners, cats have staff!"

[This message has been edited by abbeyvet (edited 06-05-2001).]

[This message has been edited by abbeyvet (edited 06-05-2001).]

Front Page has been given a bad name - and usually by those that have recently promoted themselves to the rank of 'professional'.

The principles that make a site 'good' are based not on the bells and whistles, but on the usability and content. KISS is an excellent standard to follow for most things in life, including web site development.

If you've not had the chance, you might be interested in reading through the material here:

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com

Nancy

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Wrinkled is NOT one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up!

FP2K Themes and Templates
DreamweaverSites

I am developing a solution for some marketing and newspaper people. This is an early start up and I have taken equity in exchange for 50 cents and hour (you know what I mean).

Some people with bucks, power and no technical clue are coming closer and closer to being involved. They are already chanting, Flash, Flash, Flash. They could care less about the speed or usability of the site. If there is no flash, how can it be a good site? Where are the spinning globes and snappy graphics? What do you mean our page is too large? What does 145kb mean anyhow?

For everyone that needs a flash intro I say look at www.yahoo.com, www.msn.com, www.amazon.com, www.ebay.com, www.cnet.com, www.about.com, www.excite.com, www.altavista.com, www.google.com

Essentially, where I am at there are two camps becoming involved. Mine and theirs. In other words Microsoft based solution (ASP, SQL Server 2000, beta builds with ASP.NET) or UNIX with Informix/Oracle database.

Also the proposed solution from the "professional" development firm:
$500,000 to $700,000 @ 6 to 8 months

Our path:
$50,000 to $70,000 @ 2 months

This is a big part of why the dot coms became dot bombs.

Bill,
FrontPage can do many good things. Also, the more you play with it the more you are able to make improvements upon it. There usually comes an argument that DreamWeaver is better, but don't believe it.

Anything, that can be done with DreamWeaver, a good developer can do with FrontPage...bring on the flames!

By the way, we used LB for some page design. She does great work.

Joe

Since then, FP has come a long way, and so have I and many others in learning the ins and outs of the program.

The very first thing you need to do is plan the development of your site in advance and then determine the technologies needed for it to function and provide your visitors with the information, products and/or services they are there for.

If its mainly a brochureware site, FP is the perfect tool in the right hands. If you need to add some functionality, there are many scripts available to do so. I prefer working with FP and .asp pages on an NT server. I also work with minimal javascript and use it only for basic functions like popups.

Since my focus is designing web sites that are search engine friendly, jsp, php, cfm, asp and all the other wow scripting is a no-no! Search engine spiders (robots) typically do not read the content that is within a <script> tag and you therefore lose the power of any links, keywords and phrases, etc.

There is a way around the asp, php, jsp and other database driven pages and that is to parse the URL's. This means eliminating the ?'s that are generated in the query string.

You are correct in assuming the KIS method. I leave off the second s as there are no stupid people, just those who are not educated yet. I've used FP exclusively for the design of over 30 web sites and they have all been very successful in their environments, which are mostly brochureware.

In any good web site design, there are a number of static html pages which are entries into a dynamic environment. Those are the smart developers. They know that static html pages are the best pages for getting indexed in the search engines.

Links from those static html pages then take you into the .asp, .jsp, .php or whatever technology you are using. Anytime you start getting away from basic html, you're asking for a number of challenges. The main one being cross platformability. You've also got to realize that a majority of your audience is not as well versed as you and I may be about what is happening on a web page when we visit it. They don't know that there is javascript in them there hills! They may see an error box pop up that tells them an object was expected and not know what the heck it is!

Bottom line? Figure out what the site needs to do and then determine the environment for development. FP can be a powerful tool in the right hands and can make maintenance a breeze. Hand coding, scripting languages and all the bells and whistles become a maintenance nightmare, especially for someone who is maintaining the site and doesn't know the basics of what the code is doing and how to work around it.

Don't let the geeks touch it! Sure, give em' the power to do some of the backend database work if required. Just keep their grubby little fingers out of the core portion of the site which is what most users will be there to see anyway. Who the hell cares if there are 100 lines of javascript that just caused a rollover effect, I'm exaggerating, but you get my point!

Good luck!

[This message has been edited by pageoneresults (edited 06-06-2001).]

I too follow the KISS principle (Keep It Short and Simple) - I can't call my clients Stupid - they were smart enough to hire me in the first place.

Like CBT, web developers want to start authoring without doing the front end work - purpose, target audience, technology (at the users end), maintenance, etc.

On one project, the client had a group of bright, talented, keen young people who just couldn't imagine that visitors to the site might have only a dial-up connection or that they might be looking for information rather than 'cool animations and navigation'.

But back to your original question - FrontPage is an excellent tool for building a solid foundation and for implementing and enforcing standards. It also provides a safe environment for people with no web experience to enter content.

Bill

And I agree that this thread should become required reading. There is a lot of collective experience and wisdom here.

And more importantly, I see that the original question is appropriate as well.

Thanks to the objectivity of those who have posted to this thread, it is clear that there is no single answer (which I knew from the start) but that no matter the tool that is used, simplicity, information, and functionality are the keys that make the best websites.

I have no doubt that Flash or any other "artsy" clone or new concept will one day occupy a bigger part of websites. But the technology, transmission speeds, and general infrastructures of today's society are not yet ready for such dazzle.

We are still in the infancy of making full and good use of the web. But while we are learning to walk, let alone run, it's a great adventure. One that keeps us alive with new thought and ideas.

I'm in very good company here. And most thankful for it.

Don't let the thread stop here....

Nancy's point of knowing what to do and when is key to development. Newbies (at least the ones here) on the other hand, are totally clueless about this. I posed this simple question yesterday: Do you know your intended audience and their browsers? What I got in return was the look I used to see in the locker room at football practice in High School when the coach would say something the players didn't understand. The deer in the headlights look.

Katherine's point that it is imperative that the website works, is another thing that this team is struggling with. It isn't working properly because a.) there are too many hands in the pie, b.) there is absolutely no single direction, c.) there is no idea as to what is expected of the site. As to this last reason, that is because the team is designing a site for use by people that have no idea the site is even being developed. No user input for crying out loud....!

This also reflects Paperfish's comment about not knowing your users.

JBennett's cost comparison strikes at the heart of the point of my original question. Further, it is the essence of what I usually propose when developing any system. Model, model, model ... before ever sitting down to finalize or design. If you're building a power plant at the cost of $10M, then it makes sense to spend $100K on a scale model of the structure before commencing the construction.

Frontpage is an excellent modeling tool with which to sit down with a user and build as you go... before deploying ...as long as you have a sense of direction.

As for FP, I believe that a seriously professional site is completely within the grasp of the program. Hard-core designers may scoff and insist on hand-coding and multi-hundred dollar software solutions, but why? There's simply no time to sit and spend hours hand-writing code (there IS more to life than just code)--I'd shoot myself if I had to hand-write every page of my genealogy site, which numbers close to a thousand pages. Instead, I rely on FP2000, and now FP2002 to make my life easier. It's possible to have a good looking website up in hours, as opposed to months. FrontPage alone is good, but combined with the vast quantities of utilities, add-ons, and other time-savers, FP is truly a powerful piece of software.

For myself, my ultimate goal is to take myself to the next level using FrontPage and all the little toys out on the net... I'm getting tired of living behind a steering wheel ;-)

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Scott
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www.burnspot.com- Personal Site
www.burnspot.net- Family Genealogy

quote:

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that is because the team is designing a site for use by people that have no idea the site is even being developed. No user input for crying out loud....!

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That is precisely what happened with one of the sites I mentioned above. The result? Disaster, writ large! And it was the only possible outcome.

The staff are poorly disposed to the site 'cos they all have ideas about what way it could have been done and are annoyed they were not even asked. So you start with your staff against you.

They are then given about 20 minutes training in updating a site that is awkward and time consuming to update - so they are screaming that they want extra money as these duties were never part of their job description.

A few had a go a bit of updating, but did it poorly - not their fault, the backend is a real mess. The others are having nothing to do with it and have their unions in on the pay issue.

So the new site is already looking out of date and badly maintained, the management and staff are at loggerheads and industrial relations are going down the tubes.

In my opinion this is the fault not only of management but of the developer. He took instructions, knowing how it was planned the site would be used and knowing that it is a site where daily, even several times daily, updating was essential. And he took instructions from ONE person, a person who is not even particularly web savvy, though he is the boss .

If he (they) had been doing his (their) job he (they) would have insisted on as many staff members as possible submitting ideas, arranged meetings/focus groups whatever you wish to call them with everyone from the teaboy up. At least let people have their say. That way they would have assumed some ownership of the site.

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Katherine

InKK Design
LinKKs - Kilkenny's Online Magazine

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"Dogs have owners, cats have staff!"

Burnspot, you could not be more on target.. so to speak... Ooops didn't mean that quite as it seems. I mean, there's simply no time.....

Katherine, you're spot on again.