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Advice Archive: Web Site Development (p. 1 of 3)
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Subj: How front- and back-end developers should work together

Amy asked "How much should the front-end and back-end designers be connected during the testing? How involved should the front-end designer be during the process?"

All I can say is the sooner front- and back-end developers work together, the better. For example, we recently built a site where the front-end designer built the initial 'core' site using frames. No problem, until it was time to add on the back-end e-commerce element. Guess what? Frames don't work well with ASP on the back-end--you lose the 'padlock' icon that is supposed to display in the browser frame, because of the frames.

We came up with some work-arounds, but we lost development time and money not having our front- and back-end people work together to learn this sooner in the development phase.

I'd say no developers should be working in a vacuum--you can't create a 'functional design' and useful graphic elements if you don't know what the site 'does' on the back-end. Front- and back-end people need to work together to build a site that works, is graphically appealing, loads fast, etc.

As for sources for more information, I recommend www.webdeveloper.com and our old friends at www.internet.com.

--WebGunForHire, 04/00

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Subj: E-Z Web Site Development Tools

Dear Roy: Frankly I think that based on the evaluation criteria you presented--ease of use, ease of maintenance, and popularity--Microsoft's FrontPage is the clear winner, particularly FrontPage 2000.

BUT--and it's a big 'but'--are those really the only criteria you want to use to evaluate a Web development tool? It is indeed very easy to build a Website with FrontPage, but if you're lazy about it you'll end up with a very unattractive site that looks like one of the thousands of FP template-based sites out there, which all tend to look a little flat and somehow 'unpolished'. It's also easy to maintain a Website with FrontPage, as long as you have a host that has the FP server extensions installed.

In sum, FrontPage may be the most popular mass-market Web development tool available, but it is certainly not the best. Depending on the ability of the tool's user and the requirements for the Website back-end (databases, commerce capabilities, etc.), you may want to use a product expressly designed for building an online storefront or use a different and more open-ended Web development tool such as NetObjects Fusion, Macromedia Dreamweaver (be advised that code written with Dreamweaver does NOT work and play well with ASP on the back-end), or similar tool.

--WebGunForHire, 04/00

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