{"id":11,"date":"2005-02-18T08:52:09","date_gmt":"2005-02-18T13:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/?p=11"},"modified":"2017-02-23T10:03:34","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T15:03:34","slug":"beware-exotic-tools-can-kill-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/2005\/beware-exotic-tools-can-kill-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware:  Exotic tools can kill you!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A lesson in Real-World web design.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I wanted to let you guys in on a lesson I&#8217;ve learned more than once:<\/p>\n<p><strong>DON&#8217;T BE SEDUCED BY AN EXOTIC TECHNOLOGY NOBODY USES!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Once and a while you may come across, what would seem to be a &#8216;killer&#8217; piece of software, or maybe a cool new programming language &#8211; something in that would appear to give you some advantage. <\/p>\n<p>That <strong>MAY<\/strong> be the case, but many times, it isn&#8217;t really so &#8211; think twice before your leap!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Consider these points:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You will have to learn this new thingamabob &#8211; that takes time.<\/li>\n<li>Often, new thingamabobs excel in one area and stink in others &#8211; problem is that it can take time to figure this out.<\/li>\n<li>Listen to the king: &#8220;Wise men say, only fools rush in.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Do you notice a pattern here?<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it&#8217;s all about <strong>time<\/strong>. All this junk (software, programming languages, markup languages etc&#8230;) have one purpose in the end: <strong>to save you time.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> Keep that in mind when you approach things &#8211; ask yourself:<\/p>\n<p><em> &#8216;Will using this save me time?&#8217;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; &#8211;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--> <\/p>\n<p><strong>A case in point: Web Objects<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Web Objects is a program\/software framework designed to make database driven web sites &#8211; for the non-nerd, it&#8217;s like PHP on steroids &#8211; or so they would have you believe &#8230; <\/p>\n<p>I found Web Objects several years ago during a time when I was looking at every dynamic-website-tool known to man and beast. <\/p>\n<p>My goal was to find the best way to create database driven websites &#8211; I wanted that &#8216;killer&#8217; program\/language that would give me an advantage over my competition and allow me to easily conquer nations &#8230; or at least pick up good looking college chicks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The point:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It looked really good, Apple&#8217;s magical marketing department had me sold. So at the bargain price of $500 (it used to be $50 000! I&#8217;m not kidding.) I ordered Web Objects direct from that fruity company with drool running down my cheek!<\/p>\n<p><strong>But like that beautiful someone you meet in a darkened nightclub &#8211; all wasn&#8217;t as it seemed:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As it turned out, everything that was promoted about Web Objects was correct &#8211; and in <strong>THOSE<\/strong> areas, it kicked ass. <\/p>\n<p>BUT &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The dirty secret was found in the things that the marketing department did not talk about &#8230; let me just say that Web Objects had weaknesses in areas where the competition (PHP, JSP, ASP.net) kicked its&#8217; butt.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; &#8211;<\/p>\n<p><strong>LESSON 1: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>May times, things that are strong in one area, can be very weak in others. So often the perceived advantage is nothing more that just a wonderful dream<\/p>\n<p> In this case, Web Objects had very powerful way of &#8216;talking&#8217; to a database. But on the other hand, its built-in development tools sucked in ways I did not think was possible. And even worse, simple things like creating HTML forms was a very buggy process. <\/p>\n<p><strong>The bottom line: <\/strong>Web Objects was better than say PHP in some areas but PHP kicked Web Objects ass in others.<\/p>\n<p><strong>LESSON 2:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Exotic tools will have exotic requirements.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The deal-breaker for me was simple:<\/strong> Web Objects hosting was rare and PHP was not. That meant PHP hosting was much cheaper, had better support and was MUCH easier to find people who knew PHP. <\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why I don&#8217;t get into things like Ruby On Rails, Cold Fusion (both are languages\/tools for for building dynamic websites,) &#8211; because you have so few hosting choices and the communities are relatively small by comparison. <\/p>\n<p>You can&#8217;t underestimate the importance of a strong community in this nerd-centric field.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Consider this:<\/strong>  how many companies do you think want people who know Ruby On Rails &#8230; uh, two? How many want PHP programmers: 150 000? You get my point.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>LESSON 3:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Many times new stuff is put out simply because a company wants to push a new product &#8230; they want to get in on the market and make a few bucks &#8211; nothing more. <\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong, there are technologies that come out that DO make a difference (like: PHP, Blogs, CMS) but they are the exception.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Consider this: <\/strong>If you jump on something too soon and it dies (as most do,) you will be left abandoned with some next to useless technology and\/or skill sets.  <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s like being an expert in caring for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.davidreilly.com\/dodo\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dodo birds <\/a>&#8211; they&#8217;re all dead.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CONCLUSION:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Every other day I hear somebody raving about some new technology and how it will change the world &#8211; maybe, but probably not. <\/p>\n<p>Being practical people that we are, we know better than to jump on some exotic train that will likely lead to nowhere.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PLEASE NOTE: <\/strong>I&#8217;m not trying to pick on Web Objects &#8211; it may be a solution for some people &#8230; people in denial! Just kidding. It may work for some projects, but I would not recommend this tool for most. <\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Stefan Mischook<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every other day I hear somebody raving about some new technology and how it will change the world &#8211; maybe, but probably not. <\/p>\n<p>Being practical people that we are, we know better than to jump on some exotic train that will likely lead to nowhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4739,"href":"https:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/4739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.killersites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}