Don't use Word for editing Webpages!

[dknv]

Originally Posted by nKoan

Its actually above both the solo and the trials headings, as it encompasses both.

This is what my screen looks like. It shows the link under the heading "Trials".

[Dean]

Welcome to different interpreters (browsers) handling even hand coded HTML differently....

It is fine in Firefox, but Debbie's version is how it displays in IE...

Maybe he should have used Word and then it would be right in IE...

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Dean

This discussion started because you couldn't be bothered to put the schedule in a web friendly format that would have taken 8 seconds. Would it have been perfect, probably not, but that is what translators, exporters, compilers, etc. do. That is my point.

What you put in one end may not match what comes out the other side and is bound to be less than optimal. Heck, since you can't control the "interpreter" or browser that "runs" the "binary" that is the HTML, you have no prayer of ensuring reliable output without quite a bit of testing. And by the way, I retract my earlier concession. HTML is still code, not a "binary". HTML is an interpreted language with browsers being the interpreter.

What? If a browser doesn't output what the html tells it too, it's a broken browser. And yes the HTML is a code that will be interpreted, but it needs to be efficient because it's transmitted over the line. Because the interpreting happens at the end user, as a developer one should strive to generate efficient HTML, just in the same way one should strive to generate efficient binaries.

Originally Posted by Dean

Bloat is bloat, whether it is created by you choosing to put remarks in your hand coded HTML or it is created by the word HTML export translator.

Sure, I comment my HTML in order to make it easier for me to update later on... it's bloat. But I'd never embed the state of my spelling and grammar check engines in my output HTML. Take a look at that Word output I posted earlier. It's *ridiculous*.

Originally Posted by Dean

OMG. I deal with developers using modern tools every day. I am using generic terms. What would you prefer I call the tool that creates your binaries? A "Studio", "Project builder"? Whatever....

Oooh, you can use big acronyms like SOAP, and XML... I architect multi-platform, mutli-site, highly available, highly integrated systems using modern and legacy systems / protocols, N tier applications, middleware, etc... Don't even start throwing around acronyms with me.

I apologize for not placing a "Visual" in front of my C# reference. I don't write code for a living, but work with people who do every day and often have to explain how things really work. I have been moving bits since the 8080 processor and before, so please don't presume to tell me how computers work.

If you can't tell the difference between a development tool and a compiler I fell sorry for the programmers that worked under you. I'm not dropping acronyms to impress you, I'm mentioning the technologies that are revolutionizing the way distributed systems are being developed. They're not programmed the way you seem to think they are (circa 1995), they're build out of tools and building blocks. It's the difference between building a house out of pre-fab modules, and grabbing an axe and heading into a forest for logs. You make know how a computer works, but you're astonishingly out of touch with what it takes to build large-scale software.

Also, if you don't have to tell your "Studio/Bulder" how to find 3rd party and external libraries, you are either writing very focused "native" applications, or having very little interaction with other diverse systems. But again, my point is made. You have absolutely no visibility to the code you are calling, and have no clue to what extent it is bloated relative to your actual application requirements. How much memory is used, or how many extra branches are taken in that external code in the final binary?

I don't have to tell the development environment how to use external libraries because they're all included in the environment, and when the compiler is run, I'm linked against only the ones that I used. Again, welcome to modern software tools. Other tools we use in this century include code profilers, optimizers, unit testers, etc. We know what's going on in the code, how much memory it's using, what we're calling, etc.

Originally Posted by Dean

How is that different than the bloat that Word, Front page, etc. add to HTML?

Aside from the fact that there's very little bloat (when compared to the massive gains in development efficiency), the difference is that we're not transmitting our binaries over the network. 10k of bloat in a binary that's loaded into RAM once during service startup is a hell of a lot different than 10k of bloat in a file that's downloaded 100,000 times a minute.

Originally Posted by Dean

I work with modern developers who have no clue how their application actually executes on a machine, or how jobs, threads, etc impact the system the code is executing on much less other dependent systems.

You work with crappy developers apparently.

Originally Posted by Dean

Windows is compiled, and so is LINUX, why is one faster for some applications vs. the other. Must be compiler optimization.

What's your point?

Originally Posted by Dean

Word is a terrible tool to create HTML, but an average user like Dave Deborde can click save to web page, and get results they can live with, especially on MS browsers in seconds. Why should they learn DreamWeaver or even Front Page, etc. if they don't need to?

Maybe they shouldn't... but their ignorance to technology and tools isn't an excuse for you developing and attempting to maintain a website with Word and Excel, and arguing that it's a good/acceptable idea in general. You're supposed to know better, you know with all that "multi-platform, mutli-site, highly available, highly integrated systems using modern and legacy systems / protocols, N tier applications, middleware, etc..." architecting you do.

[MikeK]

Originally Posted by dknv

This is what my screen looks like. It shows the link under the heading "Trials".

I want to punch IE in the nuts, it almost drove me insane when I was working on scoring software.

This is what I see in firefox:

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Dean

Welcome to different interpreters (browsers) handling even hand coded HTML differently....

It is fine in Firefox, but Debbie's version is how it displays in IE...

Maybe he should have used Word and then it would be right in IE...

I missed a '>' on a <td> tag. IE decided in its infinite wisdom that meant that it should move text up in the document rather than simply display it as it was received.

Either way, the fix took a whopping 2 seconds, including the uploading of the fix.

[ScottyS]

Originally Posted by nKoan

No, he's like any programmer and hates badly generated code.

PHB: But, since computers are so fast now, and storage so cheap, and everyone's on high-speed, more code is good. Besides, IE loves it, and we don't want to be left behind.

[Dean]

Scott, I do not claim to know what you do on a daily basis, but I work with developers on at least 5 different platforms probably using 10+ thing I generously call "languages", and god knows how many different development environments. Those environments run from good old text editor - compiler, to pure object oriented GUI with no access to the actual underlying code and everything in between including .net. So what exactly is your current experience with development outside of .net in the '00s?

Based on my experience in the gaming industry as well as working with major consulting groups and vendors of middleware, hardware, and applications on a daily basis, the .net environment continues to gain traction, but is not the dominant solution for enterprise applications. It is obviously the major player in the Wintel space, but despite Bill's wishes, the majority of enterprise applications do not run on his products.

I find it hard to believe that your "development tool" already has all the "libraries" you might need to build an application that uses for example, say... EMS or Rendezvous messaging? And how does it know if you need to use the PGSQL DAL? Clairvoyance?

The right tool for the right reasons... The SCCA web site does not need a $100,000 content management system, utilization analysis, or intrusion detection.

Front page and NVU which are what most of the old web site was created in are perfectly acceptable tools for developing and maintaining small web sites, and Word and Excel are perfectly acceptable tools for text and spreadsheet types of content. Just because you don't like those tools doesn't make them unsupportable. Attempting support them in a raw text editor may be near impossible, but so what?

You just can't admit that for the purpose of publishing the bloody schedule on the "temporary" web site, Word's HTML output would have been perfectly acceptable and taken you those same 2 seconds you took to make the fix in your hand coded HTML "index" page...

So be it.

I'm done with this topic.

[Nick Koan]

Originally Posted by dknv

This is what my screen looks like. It shows the link under the heading "Trials".

Wow

Yeah, I figured something was up. I know you know your way around computers to not miss something that obvious. Well, another mystery solved.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by Dean

Scott, I do not claim to know what you do on a daily basis, but I work with developers on at least 5 different platforms probably using 10+ thing I generously call "languages", and god knows how many different development environments. Those environments run from good old text editor - compiler, to pure object oriented GUI with no access to the actual underlying code and everything in between including .net. So what exactly is your current experience with development outside of .net in the '00s?

Based on my experience in the gaming industry as well as working with major consulting groups and vendors of middleware, hardware, and applications on a daily basis, the .net environment continues to gain traction, but is not the dominant solution for enterprise applications. It is obviously the major player in the Wintel space, but despite Bill's wishes, the majority of enterprise applications do not run on his products.

I find it hard to believe that your "development tool" already has all the "libraries" you might need to build an application that uses for example, say... EMS or Rendezvous messaging? And how does it know if you need to use the PGSQL DAL? Clairvoyance?

The right tool for the right reasons... The SCCA web site does not need a $100,000 content management system, utilization analysis, or intrusion detection.

Front page and NVU which are what most of the old web site was created in are perfectly acceptable tools for developing and maintaining small web sites, and Word and Excel are perfectly acceptable tools for text and spreadsheet types of content. Just because you don't like those tools doesn't make them unsupportable. Attempting support them in a raw text editor may be near impossible, but so what?

You just can't admit that for the purpose of publishing the bloody schedule on the "temporary" web site, Word's HTML output would have been perfectly acceptable and taken you those same 2 seconds you took to make the fix in your hand coded HTML "index" page...

So be it.

I'm done with this topic.

I'm not going to bother to re-write my resume just so I can reply to this post, but I'll tell you this: the .NET 3.0 technologies like WF, WCF, WPF, Enterprise Library, etc, are going to *crush* Linux/Unix based systems in the next 5 years unless they get on the ball 2 years ago and come up with something better.

And it's true, if I need access to something like PGSQL (though it'd be a massive step backwards from the ORM tools we're using in conjunction with MSSQL) I'd just pick it off the list of supported DALs. And for something that's not supported, I just get the installer and add it to the environment because 9 out of 10, the tool supports Visual Studio 'cause if they don't, they'll be out of business in 5 years.

And you're right, the SCCA website doesn't need an expensive CMS, it needs one person with a text editor and knowledge of PHP/MySQL. Frontpage would be a minimally acceptable means for maintaining the site if FP extensions were installed on that server... but considering the number of documents that are carrying the MS Office icon headers in them, I'd say you weren't maintaining it w/ FP, you were using word and excel, and bloating the site as a result.

As far as publishing the schedule on the temporary site... you just nailed it... it's temporary. If I wasn't waiting around for the DNS change, this page wouldn't even have existed. Like I said, at 1am when I was finishing up, I didn't feel like doing *any* file conversions, I just uploaded everything I was given as is. I'd much rather be in bed w/ my GF than freezing my ass off in the kitchen opening up word to save off a bloated .html file. Plus if I'm going to spend time on it, I'm going to do it right, because I take a little pride in the work that I do and don't feel good about half-assing things if there's a better solution out there.

[cody]

I was just kidding about the OCD thing.

[AtomicLabMonkey]

The level of argumentation in this thread has moved the board up to an Orange Alert.

[Double Phister]

This discusion is similar to the ones I have with people who put images in their email signatures. They don't get why it makes me pull my hair out.


MS should add '...in case of emergency only' after the save as web page option. Multiple animated character popups confirming this and trying to steer you to better ways should be there too.