> Brett, I suggest either you get on the Homesite beta team or wait until the
> product comes out before getting afraid of the direction it's taking. If you
> don't like some things in version 3, then by being on the beta team you can
> supply input for v4. If you don't want to add to the development project and
> you don't like HS3, then just stop using it.
Agreed. And if I had time, I might. By the time I have to make the
final decisions, though, they'd barely have gotten my login set-up --
the projects won't sit while Allaire finishes the software. Must
admit, this is annoying as all heck.
As far as "just stopping using it" goes, I *just* converted a dozen
personal sites from HotDog project management mode to HS projects six
months ago because it looked like HS was headed in the direction of a
manageable piece of software (from their website info) and everyone
using it gave great reviews, while Sausage is taking HotDog god knows
where with all of the tools and toys they're building into it (I
definitely don't want my software barking at me when I start it up, and
it ought to run efficiently on something less than a PII300 with 64
megs, especially with 90% of the "new and improved" features turned
off). On personal sites, I now have some stuff "hardwired" or
structured to make best use of HS features that I'll have to
reconvert--a waste of time.
I'm now faced with having to spec out a very complex, nearly portal-like
site that has to be managed by a small team and be capable of
replication around the world, and have to tell the developers what to
develop the initial stages for as far as long term management tools. If
I tell them HS is going to be used on this end (and eventually
replicated in other countries) and they code management macros and tools
to HS, and the new version turns out to be a resource hogging,
unneeded-feature-laden toybox, then I'm screwed. The platform is
decided (Win95, not NT, with Linux possibilities preferable). The
maintainers are fixed (not hard core designers, not people who are going
to make much use of floating palettes--everyday citizens with basic HTML
knowledge). The systems are bought. The decision has to be made in the
coming month.
I have had HS in the specs as the likely tool, because I sort of
expected that before they made these big jumps and made the same
mistakes HotDog did, they might actually fix version 3 properly,
eliminate resource conflicts, and get us a stable product (3.1, IMHO, is
not *nearly* as stable as it should be). That would be a damn fine tool
if they fixed the bugs properly before running off to the next version,
and maintained long term support (i.e., full support for about three to
five years after version is retired)--and a perfect tool for the type of
job we need it for (though still a little bulky on the file size),
especially when combined with specialized clipboard sets and Win95 macro
packages.
My gripe isn't really that I think HS is taking bad direction--they can
go wherever they want. It's that you can't accurately determine this
direction from the website or the marketing materials, and if I hadn't
been on this list (or around a beta tester) I would never have seen this
coming. The floating palette issues weren't clear in the website three
months ago when I spec'd things, and possibly have been added since.
The NT recommendation I didn't see in repeated visits until this week.
I can go to mozilla.org and get a damn near daily update of the status
of projects and features, at worst have to peruse one or two newsgroups
that are open to the public to gather this knowledge, and see issues
being discussed long before marketing gets their hooks in them. I know
where that software is going, so I can plan around it, and new things
are clearly identified. I don't have to give them input to get current
feedback to get that, I don't have to spend time working on the project
to determine whether it fits into our plans, and I don't have to worry
about locking myself into a format over the long term (whether via
software file format, or management macros, OS, special tags and related
things). That's a good model for decision making support.
IMHO, this "features for the sake of marketing more features"
development process these companies are running on is as bad as the
browser war itself. Not only do I have to design for multiple
platforms, I have to be more and more careful about what software I
commit development to because it, as well, is becoming over-loaded with
specialized stuff that is either making it undesirable to use, difficult
to convert from, or outright impossible to run on the hardware
available. The attitude the Allaire site portrays just makes it worse
for them in this case. If I'm deploying 300 copies of a piece of
software, and their "suggestion" to make it work properly is to upgrade
an OS at $135 increase per seat plus hardware costs . . . well, it
assumes their customers are pretty darn loyal and comes across as a
little smug to me (that is, quite literally, a 180% increase in the
working budget for this part of the project).
Guess this is one of the hazards of moving out of the $50K project range
and into the million$+ range--many more variables to consider. No
wonder IT managers are always so grumpy and stingy all the time :P The
frustration is that I almost committed to Allaire on this, and probably
would have been badly burned a year from now had I done so.
As far as a solution and a choice? The one thing I did learn searching
the Allaire Forums again this morning is that there is now an official
company line--and it is that they will not be porting anything to Linux
(unless they decide to change that on the fly as well, though that does
officially remove CF from the potential tool list as well). This is
disturbing for our projects, as I have to be able to emulate a lot of
what we're doing here in other countries two or three years from
now--and I can't even get the software required to run HS3 *into* those
countries, let alone the hardware required to run it and its progeny
(and this won't change in near future, except I will be able to get
working copies of Win95 through if necessary). 486's I can almost
universally count on being able to put anywhere on the globe without
serious export hassles, and Linux can help make that work as a viable,
powerful platform for development-perhaps the only one I can count on
being available. My gut feeling is to start looking at what Adobe
offers--they're showing Linux interest, old versions of their software
are supported, new versions are carefully considered, and, as any mac
user knows, they stick with the platforms they choose ;) They have a
good history (with me, at least) in these important areas. That, or
commit the software money to basic HTML2.0 training for everyone, write
the architecture and maintenance manual from scratch, and look at the
types of publishing systems Mike has been building to somehow centralize
this system and drive it with PERL and our own specialized tag and
script sets, and hope the increase in complexity and training efforts
balances out with time . . . maybe plug and play was just unrealistic to
start with.
On the personal side for other sites? I might follow that later
approach as well . . .. Relying on things I can control makes me feel a
lot safer about the long term project success . . . have to think about
that for a bit. Do look forward to being able to run NS4 and Eudora at
the same time again without HS3 bringing the system down (as much as I
still think HS3 was headed on the right path) if I do convert . . ..
Anyway, enough ranting about software companies . . . back to working
around them :)
Thanks Jack for the exchange and info.
Brett
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