Re: FN-FORUM catalogue questions.

date posted 16th August 2000 10:24

At 09:01 16/08/00, you wrote:
>I am interested in the development of this idea. I have a client that wishes
>to update their site on a monthly basis using a web interface. (I don't know
>who span this idea out to them). They're only updating once a month so it
>seems crazy to create a full ColdFusion database driven site when all we are
>doing is keeping the html up to date/ not including the amount of hassle to
>program it.

Believe me - a content management system (and you seem to be talking
about a simple one) gets very important very quickly. Static sites *are*
unmanageable beyond a fairly small size, and they're not *that* hard
to write.

Think of it this way - when the client realises that the navigation doesn't
work anymore (which it will at some point for any growing site) and you
have to merge two sections (did that for one client and it took me a week),
or they want to change the design (which they will at some point) and
you have hundreds/thousands of pages to update, you will wish that
the site were running on a data & templates basis.

Also, workflow for a site is becoming more and more important; even
something as simple as maintaining an audit trail of signoffs becomes
important. And do you *really* want to be a typist all your life? (Yes,
if there's no other work there).

Have a look at http://evolt.org/index.cfm?menu=8&cid=1449 for more.

Cheers
Martin
________________
Martin Burns, Content Management Consultant
tel: +44 (0)778 068 6418
PGP fingerprint: A9B9 101F 55F9 40BE 5E00 98E7 71E8 1E70 A835 CCCB