explaining web standards to clients

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, TJ quothed:

Travis Newbury wrote:



Then you're as big a fool as the OP.

You're asking me to believe that you'd deliberately throw away money over
"web-morals" = nothing?

What the hell? If you're not trolling this group is more f-ed up than I
thought.

You would have made a good Nazi.

It's like some kind of Televangelist thing with bits of useful info thrown
in for distraction. LOL!

Y'all GO!

Please! You ALL keep fighting the "good fight". PLEASE!

Y'all just keep making sure your sites are drab, dull, W3C compliant, and
boring.

Meanwhile? I'll keep giving my clients all the purple, spinny-things they
want, snatch tips from this group, and continue taking $ out of your
collective pockets.

Sheesh! For folks that are so obviously *very* intelligent, most of ya
sure are stupid in your own special ways.

Money isn't everything. To some, moral fiber is more important.

 

[tm]

Money isn't everything. To some, moral fiber is more important.

Fiber is key. Money can't, ferinstance, buy you a new colon.

 

[Travis Newbury]

Then you're as big a fool as the OP.

How so? Because I would tell the client that I though "something"
was dumb, but when he disagreed with me I go ahead and do it for
them? How is that dumb?

You're asking me to believe that you'd deliberately throw away
money over "web-morals" = nothing?

No, read what I said. You have to both READ and UNDERSTAND what
you read or your reply makes you sound really stupid.

What the hell? If you're not trolling this group is more f-ed
up than I thought.

Bummer you think that way. Well it was good knowing you, have a
safe trip...

Y'all just keep making sure your sites are drab, dull, W3C
compliant, and boring.

You really should lurk a while so you understand the personalities
here. I am probably the biggest proponent for Flash and non-dull
sites. Which can only make me believe that it is you that is
trolling...

Meanwhile? I'll keep giving my clients all the purple,
spinny-things they want, snatch tips from this group, and
continue taking $ out of your collective pockets.

1. Read the post.
2. Understand what you read.
3. Make your reply.

(You seemed to have missed step 2)

Sheesh! For folks that are so obviously *very* intelligent,
most of ya sure are stupid in your own special ways.

Are we now?

 

[Travis Newbury]

Fiber is key. Money can't, ferinstance, buy you a new colon.

Acually the University if Arkasas has created one, so you can in-fact
buy a new colon.

 

[Travis Newbury]

You are a disgraceful
trollop Travis, a taxi for hire, a mercenary with no morals...

I am a taxi for hire in the sense that I will tell the customer the
road is bad,but if they insist on driving down that road, I will
guide them.

I want that you should attend my Thurs evening Ethics classes...
(Credit card details please?)

visa 4560 1000 1645 1071 4181

(Do note the smiley Travis, and you also take a couple of chill
pills, I took mine as you suggested!)

If one gets upset over something writen in alt.html, they really need
to move on.

 

[Travis Newbury]

No, Parry has hit the nail on the head about stalling,
influencing etc. That is the real world. You have a fantasy
picture of a hard bitten remorseless uncompromising world. Don't
be so cynical.

Interesting, I see it differently. I see Parry as the cynical one by
leaving his client in a lurch if the client does not do what Parry
says.

Tell me again, who's website is it?

 

[Travis Newbury]

I like this. I like it a lot. Travis, you are facing a solid
wall of integrity here. Stop fighting, You are lost.

Na, we just disagree.

 

[Dylan Parry]

Using a pointed stick and pebbles, Travis Newbury scraped:

I see Parry as the cynical one

I see you two as really pissing me off calling me by my surname.

 

[tm]

tm said:

Acually the University if Arkasas has created one, so you can in-fact
buy a new colon.

Please post a link. Not that I need one right now, but you can never
be to careful.

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, Dylan Parry quothed:

Using a pointed stick and pebbles, Travis Newbury scraped:


I see you two as really pissing me off calling me by my surname.

But "Dylan" is so avante garde. IOW, weird.

 

[Neredbojias]

With neither quill nor qualm, tm quothed:

Fiber is key. Money can't, ferinstance, buy you a new colon.

No, but it can buy a lot of shit. (Yuk yuk yuk.)

 

[Travis Newbury]

Using a pointed stick and pebbles, Travis Newbury scraped:
I see you two as really pissing me off calling me by my surname.

Sorry Dylan, I was not sure if we were on a first name basis or not...

 

[Andy Dingley]

I too get called back on a regular basis.

I don't. This just doesn't seem to happen on the web. You build it, it
works, off you go. At best you might get a recommendation for another
site, but there just doesn't seem to be a _need_ for re-work in this
way.

Years ago I worked in car factories, instrumenting big machine tools.
2/3 of the work for about 10 people came from the same handful of
factories, often the same machines. We'd be back in there every month or
so on some of them, as soon as we had a new idea to improve the process.

Oddly though this contract was a call-back. They have a rather arcane
CMS they've developed in-house and as I was there last year on a
different project I'm one of vey few people (6 worldwide!) who had any
experience of it.

 

[Dylan Parry]

Using a pointed stick and pebbles, Travis Newbury scraped:

Sorry Dylan, I was not sure if we were on a first name basis or not...

Heh. There is a "first name basis" now? Perhaps I should avoid all
confusion and not use my surname at all?

 

[Dylan Parry]

Using a pointed stick and pebbles, Neredbojias scraped:

But "Dylan" is so avante garde. IOW, weird.

Then call me something else then. I don't mind what you call me really
Actually, I kinda like the idea of being avante garde!

 

[Andy Dingley]

"*only* a contract"?

Indeed. There's plenty of them out there. This question is all about
accepting one, probably short, contract. The big picture is about the
next contract too.

In the mid-90s (pre-Web commerce) I worked on M$oft tools. Big systems -
big server farms of SQL and DCOM. In '97 I went into ASP from the first
launch. Around 2000 though I was fed up with M$oft's trampling of
standards (particularly SOAP) and I didn't like how .NET or BizTalk were
shaping up. So I switched to Java.

Now what do I do if an ASP contract comes up? I've got plenty of ASP,
I've got huge past experience with DCOM that's still very useful for a
big M$ back-end. But any time I do more ASP it makes me less of a "Java
guy" and more back towards being a M$oft peon. If there's a new Java
buzzword around (Struts was probably the most recent) then the
recruiters will be looking for that in the near future and it's much
more important for me to get some visibility with it, rather than to
take something back with ASP that's perhaps a commercially better
one-off deal, but not such a good long-term investment.

Exactly. Your boss want's what HE (and likely HIS boss) wants, NOT what YOU
want.

It's not about what anyone wants, it's about what they _need_. I know
what they need, they frequently don't. I'm the consultant, that's what
they're paying the money for. They pay the big bucks because I'm right,
ad the historical evidence of how my recommendations worked on past
projects is the justification for this.

Hopefully he fired your ass right on outta there. I would have.

You probably would. Then you'd be left holding a site with inaccessible
text sizing. Would that benefit you?

You should quit if they ever ask you to make a purple, spinny-thing.

Depends on why they want it. If it's for purplespinners.com, then it
might be just what they want. I've put background music on sites before
now, because some sites (for musicians) can actually benefit from it.
But it's one of the worst thingsyou can do to most sites and I'd
usuaally be vehemently against it.

 

[Travis Newbury]

In the mid-90s (pre-Web commerce) I worked on M$oft tools. Big systems -
big server farms of SQL and DCOM. In '97 I went into ASP from the first
launch. Around 2000 though I was fed up with M$oft's trampling of
standards (particularly SOAP) and I didn't like how .NET or BizTalk were
shaping up. So I switched to Java.

I took a very similar journey (though it started in 81 with COBOL), but
mine ended up with Flash for application development. I too, have left
Microsoft development and have never turned back. (I still write a few
specialty application in VB and/or VB.net but only to allows the Flash
to integrate with the OS)

Now what do I do if an ASP contract comes up? I've got plenty of ASP,
I've got huge past experience with DCOM that's still very useful for a
big M$ back-end. But any time I do more ASP it makes me less of a "Java
guy" and more back towards being a M$oft peon....

I turn down recuiters looking or VC++ or .net development all the time.
I turn them down for similar reasons. I am a Flash/graphics guy now
NOT a VC or Vb developer.

If there's a new Java
buzzword around (Struts was probably the most recent) then the
recruiters will be looking for that in the near future and it's much
more important for me to get some visibility with it...

Corporations (especially learning services and training) are making a
HUGE paradym change moving to Flash. And the buzz words are flying...

It's not about what anyone wants, it's about what they _need_. I know
what they need, they frequently don't.

Do you take the time to understand their business? (I mean really
learn it so you truely DO know their needs)

We are not un-alike. As a matter of fact, I think most in this group
have enough common sense to know that there are no absolutes. (though
you would not know it from reading this group)

<flash back>
I remeber someone named Jim (from spain), about 3 years ago was a HUGE
poster and a HUGE advocate of never using Javascript for anything
essensial. After looking at one of the websites he created (worked
on) I questionsed him via email why when he was such a non-JS advocate,
why did his website use Javascript for essensial items.

His reply was "Becuase that is what the customer wanted, even after I
told them the reasons not to have it."
</flashback>

Common sense is the key.

 

[Tony Cooper]

Interesting, I see it differently. I see Parry as the cynical one by
leaving his client in a lurch if the client does not do what Parry
says.

Tell me again, who's website is it?

If I was in the market to purchase website design, I can't imagine
hiring a designer that would argue with me about the content, visual
aspects, or sound aspects of the site. If my intent is to put up a
website to sell lawn ornaments to trailer park residents, and my sense
of the market tells me that an animated windmill and the automatic
playing of "Farmer in the Dell" will appeal to my target market, I
don't expect argument from the designer.

How the windmill is made to appear on the site, and how the sound is
embedded in the site, is the designer's business and I should not
argue with that.

Commercial sites are there to sell products. The site owner should
know what his or her market responds to. The site owner should not
have to look for a website designer that is knowledgable about what
appeals to the market or shares the same aesthetic tastes of the
market segment.

The problem is when neither the site owner nor the site designer knows
that "Whose website is it?" should be written rather than "Who's
website is it?".

 

[Travis Newbury]

If I was in the market to purchase website design, I can't imagine
hiring a designer that would argue with me about the content, visual
aspects, or sound aspects of the site.

We are not talking about designers

If my intent is to put up a
website to sell lawn ornaments to trailer park residents, and my sense
of the market tells me that an animated windmill and the automatic
playing of "Farmer in the Dell" will appeal to my target market, I
don't expect argument from the designer.

But do you want the developer (not designer) to tell you about the
problem your design might cause? (maybe dial up customers can't see the
windmill correctly) "I" sure would want to know that information if it
were my website. Then after I weight it, I may decide to do it anyway.


So I want a developer that will tell me things I may not know or
understand, then follow the directions I give.

 

[Tony Cooper]

We are not talking about designers

I'm not sure what the difference is between a website designer and a
website developer. When I use the word "designer", I'm referring to
the person that does all that stuff that shows up when you "View
Source". Sorry if I'm using a word incorrectly in your field.

But do you want the developer (not designer) to tell you about the
problem your design might cause? (maybe dial up customers can't see the
windmill correctly) "I" sure would want to know that information if it
were my website. Then after I weight it, I may decide to do it anyway.

Not really. I'm hiring you because I think you should be able to
figure out how to make the windmill appear to all that view the site.

So I want a developer that will tell me things I may not know or
understand, then follow the directions I give.

I don't have any experience in hiring website developers/designers.
Having owned some companies, I am familiar with dealing with people
who provide custom computers and software programs. Same tree,
different branch.

The problem the average purchaser has is that the average provider of
the product or service insists on going on at length about the
technical way that this is done or that is done. We - the average
purchasers - don't give a rat's ass how you get the windmill on the
page. We just want it there.

People selling products - from computers to programming to website
development - seem to feel that it is important to impress the client
by using every technical term in the books. It's almost a
one-upsmanship thing where the provider says "You want a
JavaScript...?" hoping the purchaser will expose his ignorance by
asking "What's JavaScript?" so the seller can establish his expertise
by going on and on about something the client has no interest in.

A quick anecdote: When I was buying my first computer system for a
company that I owned in the 80s, a salesman asked me if I wanted a
"vanilla system". I'd never heard that term before. I thought he
meant some system made by Vanilla, Inc. or something. I told him that
I didn't care who made the system and he laughed at me. I was so
embarrassed that I bought a system from someone else. Had the
salesman asked me if I wanted a basic, pre-packaged system, I might
have worked with him.