Tony said:
No, my argument is that it's pointless for someone running a small
personal or hobby site to resort to full-blown logging.
That logging does not need to be "full-blown" (whatever you want to
imply with that), it can be reduced to what is needed and still provide
reliable unbiased data, i.e. which document has been accessed when and,
following from that, how often it has been accessed within a certain
span of time.
Good point. I wouldn't "make" business with someone who tried to
sell me a Ferrari when a Geo Metro suits my needs.
Exactly.
The first aspect of good business is to understand your customers
needs - NOT to sell them what you prefer. Just because full-blown
logging systems are good for some businesses doesn't mean that
they're even appropriate for other applications.
Do you disagree with that?
Yes. You have a misconception about who is the customer here.
Hint: it is _not_ the author/Web master.
I see, so my personal site with pictures of my kids, that I want to
get a ROUGH idea how many different people check it out, and how
often it's visited, should use a full-blown logging system instead
of a simple hit counter?
As I said, a) your data is biased for several reasons (including the
until now not mentioned fact that client-side script support and image
support can be disabled or not even present) and so can *not* even
provide a rough idea of what you seek to determine. Instead, it
additionally annoys visitors. b) Logging can be easily configured.
Now what would be the more reasonable approach, provided that you want
to attract *more* visitors rather than less?
And you are assuming that I don't?
Well, if you maintain at least one Web site not constisting of only a
single document you would need to add an annoying counter to every
document for an supposed-to-be equal result and still collect biased
data.
But, since Web counter back ends are not implemented using client-side
scripting and seldom, if ever, using server-side JS, I suggest we either
continue discussion elsewhere (comp.infosystems.
www.authoring.misc?) or
end it.
PointedEars