Re: Choosing the web designer.

[Donovan Rebbechi <elflord@pegasus.rutgers.edu>]

On Thu, 10 Jun 1999, JF Martinez wrote:

> This is matter where Donovan (elflord@pegasus.rutgers.edu) is far more
> competent than me so he is more qualified than me for choosing the
> right person.  Better negotiate with him.

I think the best approach is to choose everyone who is willing to step
forward, and we can split the work. 

It involves the following: 

-	Editing HTML by hand. WYSIWYG tools do everything "their own way",
in particular, they break pages. WYSIWYG tools are only good if everyone
is using the same tool or if the site is fairly small.

-	Setting up a webserver on your computer and mirroring the site. I
talked about this in another post. The recommended way to do it is to
precisely mirror the way the site is done ( create a user called "indy"
and put it in ~indy/public_html ) 

-	You'll need to get familiar with the way the templates /
stylesheet works. This is relatively easy, but will take a little time if
you're not so familiar with unix/linux

-	THe /software section is my job. You don't need to understand the
perl script that generates it, or edit it.

-	ideas are good, but suggestions like "lets redo the whole site
using foo" will be treated with caution, because I don't want the site
redone in ways that make it difficult to maintain, and then have the
person with the ideas leave us with a mess. 

Good Ideas that make life easier (or at least no more difficult) for the
authors and visitors will be enthusiastically embraced.

Anyone who still feels they're up to this email me directly, and
meanwhile, grab the tarball of the website, and set up your personal
webserver.

-- Donovan