{"id":470,"date":"2016-02-20T13:19:20","date_gmt":"2016-02-20T18:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fantastic-realities.com\/studio_blog\/?p=470"},"modified":"2016-02-20T13:19:20","modified_gmt":"2016-02-20T18:19:20","slug":"a-swords-edge-of-developer-pain-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fantastic-realities.com\/studio_blog\/2016\/02\/a-swords-edge-of-developer-pain-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sword’s Edge of Developer Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Deploy<\/a>Yes, there are people who <\/span><\/em>do<\/span> believe this exists\u2026<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

If you’re here, you likely already know<\/strong> that I am a self-employed Graphic and Web Designer. They used to call that \u201cfreelance,\u201d but the reality is that I am running a small business. And much of what I do involves matching what I do, and what I am actually good at,<\/em> to my client\u2019s, and especially prospect’s needs. As a solo creative\/consultant, my market generally is dominated by small businesses, small organizations and other individual entrepreneurs who are wanting to look better than what they can toss off themselves in MS Word, Vistaprint, and GoDaddy Website Tonight\u2026<\/p>\n

I spotted this one on a Reddit thread<\/a> and it made me HOOT.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a Joomla developer is easy! It\u2019s like riding a bike. Except the bike is on fire, and you\u2019re on fire, and everything is on fire because you\u2019re in hell.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The fellow does have a point\u2026<\/p>\n

This is coming off of a long and not terribly productive week. I showed up at Reddit essentially surfing my frustration. I have a Joomla site in development and have hit a documented and frustrating UNIX\/Apache\/PHP\/FTP users and groups bug, which prevents uploads, updates and extension installs from within the Joomla back end. It\u2019s just past MY frakkin\u2019 tech level as a Designer and Front-end guy and have called upon a Joomla con$ultant.<\/p>\n

But seriously, do the bastards have to be so complex and finicky? Quite frankly, I\u2019d much rather draw than act the Systems Admin\u2026<\/p>\n

I commonly have to match how to deploy a web project with the needs and \u201ctech level\u201d of a client. Very often they desire to do their own updates and work on the site themselves once deployed. CMS solutions, Content Management Systems<\/strong><\/em>, where content and presentation are handled separately would seem to be ideal for the task. Using PHP and Javascript, the CMS pulls content from a database, and merges it with the HTML and CSS code to generate the page. In the back-end dashboard, site owners can be isolated from \u201cbreaking\u201d the design, and manipulate their content.<\/p>\n

WordPress<\/strong> is probably the most popular, with millions of WP powered sites out there, either free blogs or hosted sites on wordpress.com, or using the open-source software<\/a> on their own hosting. Joomla!<\/strong>, another open source platform<\/a> is more technically powerful, also a major player, but definitely<\/em> more technical and complex.<\/p>\n

If a client is not planning to do their own site updates or running a blog, they\u2019re probably better off just having me code a basic HTML5\/CSS3 site\u200a\u2014\u200aperhaps using a framework for speed of deployment vs using a CMS like WP or Joomla!, and HTML\/CSS frameworks<\/a>, also mostly open source, are constantly improving. Two of the better known high level frameworks are Bootstrap<\/strong><\/a> and Foundation<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

So the absolute First Thing I try to do with a new project is pin down a client\u2019s use case and tech level and minimize my<\/em> pain. I am not always successful, since it seems like clients 3\/4 of the time\u200a\u2014\u200aDON\u2019T KNOW WHAT THE FRAK THEY WANT. I\u2019ll build them the site they ask for, and when they see it they realize that was not the site they wanted\u2026<\/p>\n

But using a CMS does<\/em> require some real investment in learning the system. This runs a little contrary to some clients belief that there is a magic software button labeled, \u201c[Design & Deploy Web Site & Fill with Engaging Content\u2026 ]\u201d \u2013 and that button for some reason is in Photoshop<\/em>. However, if a client can\u2019t handle the simplified MS Word-like interface of WordPress, there is NO WAY they are going to wrap their heads around the quite frankly insane complexities and finicky tech issues of Joomla. Thankfully for the project mentioned above, the site owners are actually focused, tech-aware and code literate; but it\u2019s still been a very real learning curve for them with Joomla.<\/p>\n

\"Joomla<\/a>If you think this should NOT be happening, you\u2019d be right\u2026<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Joomla!<\/em> back-end is murderously more complex<\/strong> than WordPress\u2019s, especially if there are extensions, complex themes, or tricky plug-ins. Try to do E-Commerce, or run a dedicated blog extension, or add any other sophisticated or specialty functionality, they can be like entire other web sites nested within sites, with their own interfaces. For instance, the JooCart extension embeds a complete install of OpenCart within<\/em> Joomla, with its own dashboard and back-end and runs an entirely separate database. Sometimes this kind of implementation will just BREAK things. Not to mention many extensions utterly ignore your themes\u2019 styling and CSS, for their own, creating ugly collisions of design that guys like me have to crowbar and blackjack into getting along. Great. Just F**King WONDERFUL.<\/em><\/p>\n

I still like what I do, and I am reasonably good at it. But I sure do appreciate a good print project to mix things up. Most clients can usually grok<\/em> print. They can pick up and handle a print piece. Fold it. Get paper cuts. When you spray ink on paper, it tends to stay there<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Most of the time. Usually.<\/p>\n

\n

Resources<\/h2>\n

WordPress.com<\/strong><\/a> (free blogs & Hosting)
\nWordPress.org<\/strong><\/a> (Open Source WP software)
\nJoomla<\/strong><\/a>
\nHTML\/CSS Frameworks Roundup<\/strong><\/a>
\nTwitter Bootstrap<\/strong><\/a>
\nZurb Foundation<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

A version of this post appears on Medium.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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And much of what I do involves matching what I do, and what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"woocommerce_thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_single":false,"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Kurt Griffith","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fantastic-realities.com\/studio_blog\/author\/admin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":2,"uagb_excerpt":"Yes, there are people who do believe this exists\u2026 If you’re here, you likely already know that I am a self-employed Graphic and Web Designer. 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