Jon, One of the best emails I've ever read. Awesome insights that unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) most people simply don't grasp.
Thanks, Matt -----Original Message----- From: Jon Clausen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 6:37 PM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: Constructing multi-user/multi-site applications... Rick, I do, but I'm not sure it's what you want to hear - sorry. Before "retiring" and doing my own thing a couple of years ago, I spent the previous 13 years with a Fortune 100 company on the Operations end of the business. When I started with them, they weren't even in the "Fortune 5,000". They grew by going the "all things to all people" route and doing it very effectively. As a consequence, many of the competitors of my former company which existed 15 years ago are no longer in business. I learned the following from the failures and successes of those competitors: 1) The smaller company will always lose when it attempts to play the big company at their own game (i.e. - in your case, going the template route). They can only survive by creating a distinct niche that offers something the bigger guy can't provide (i.e. - in your case, a site tailor made for their exact needs, with features that aren't available to them from the bigger guy's product). 2) Sometimes the smaller company actually benefits by increasing their prices rather than lowering them. When you lower your prices to react to a competitor, you also lower the customer's perception of your product value. Charging a reasonable premium for your services also sends a powerful message in contrast to that being sent by the bigger guy. People do think that they "get what they pay for." 3) Your technology also sends a message about what you can provide. Staying with CF 4.5 limits the end product you can provide for the customer and therefore may impact their perception of the value of your services. Maybe some of your potential client's socks could be blown off by something you could do with CFCHART or CFDOCUMENT or Flash Forms, but your current technology can't provide that as quickly or cost-effectively so you won't know. I think you could certainly benefit with a variation option two - using a core set of files to drive the sites while customizing them individually to fit your needs. Until you move your technology forward, though, you may not be able to compete with the features and options that a competing Ruby on Rails or CFMX7 site can provide with half the development time. That means you can't compete in features and you can't compete in price - not a good position for you as the little guy. There are enough hosting companies that want your dedicated server business to get you in at a reasonable cost with a free upgrade to CF8 when it becomes available that IMHO, you should run, not walk, to get up to speed with CF7 - that will make CF8 a breeze. Sorry for the blog post, but it's a topic I'm relatively familiar with and passionate about. It's one the reasons I chose Coldfusion as my platform of choice when getting into web development. The up- front costs may be higher, but the reduction in time to market is worth the additional investment for me. Less is more. - Jon On Oct 26, 2006, at 6:21 PM, Rick Faircloth wrote: > Anybody got any advice or perspective on the situation below? > > Rick > > -----Original Message----- > From: Rick Faircloth [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 4:19 PM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: Constructing multi-user/multi-site applications... > > Ok.so I'm getting hammered as a custom designer/developer by sites > such as Z57.com (a real estate service/site provider) because they can > set up sites for their clients on-the-fly. > > I develop custom sites, one-at-a-time.cost is much greater, time-to- > live is longer, so some of my clients are starting to question whether > or not they should go with the template-driven, packaged solutions of > Z57.com or Realtor.com. > > There are two approaches to development at this point. > > One, build complete sites as templates and sell the templates, each as > a complete site with separate database, etc. > > Two, build one application which uses variables for everything on the > site, and store them in a database, and by using the CGI variable to > check for the domain name requested (CGI.Server_Name?), set all the > variables accordingly and have the site application load all the > appropriate content for the site. > > The question.which way is best? Will the "One Application to Rule > Them All" > approach cause a much greater drain on my server? Will the dynamic > site approach be slower in responsiveness? > > Separate sites are much simpler, but I have to get directly involved > with each client to do that. With one application to dynamically > build sites, I can set it up and watch it run, setting up sites for > clients on the fly. > > Anyone doing this kind of thing? > > Thoughts? > > Thanks, > > Rick > > PS - Remember, right now (and hopefully until CF 8 comes out) I want > to run this on CF 4.5. I don't want to through a time-consuming > learning curve for CF 7, with the release of CF 8 coming soon to a > server near you. > > I know if I build it with 4.5 now, I'll have to rebuild it with CF > 8 again > later, > but I would have time to get to know CF 8 better first. > > > > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:258204 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
