[WEB4LIB] Re: FP2000

[Dan Lester]

At 12:15 PM 12/27/99 -0800, Gary E. Masters wrote:

>It seems that many think it should be FP2000, but never give a reason.
>
>Can you help explain why it is the first choice of so many?

I'm not a major MS fan in general.  We are a Win9x and NT shop for a 
variety of reasons, with one Sun box on Solaris.  Why are we on MS so 
extensively?  In 1990, when we had eight computers instead of over 200, we 
made a conscious business decision to go with PC boxes instead of 
Apple.  It was, and still is, the right decision for us.  That of course 
led us down the path of Win3.1, Win95, Win98, and WinNT.

All of our new PCs come with MS software on them.  The university has a 
license for reduced prices on MS software through the campus bookstore.  We 
pay $59 for FP2K, and $39 for a license for FP2K (i.e., minus the "book" 
and the CDROM).  We can't get software for comparable prices elsewhere.

I won't consider a non-GUI web editor for the majority of our staff, nor 
will they.  There are probably two people outside of the computer group who 
can successfully deal with HTML, and that only because they were early 
webpage developers.  I personally use ColdFusion Studio 4 (HomeSite 4 on 
steroids and customized for CF) and FP2K, depending on what I'm doing.

Other reasons:

FP2K is much like Word 2K.  All of our staff use Word, and thus the 
transition to FP is simplified.  Forms are very easy for folks to 
create.  Yes, there are lots of goofy bells and whistles, but they're easy 
to avoid, and that's true of every other program around, whether web or 
otherwise.

Site management capabilities.  People can run their own linkchecks in 
FP2K.  If you have several folks working on the same site, you can setup 
document checkin/checkout to keep people from stepping on each others toes.

FP2K is the only web editor officially supported on campus.  It is rare 
that we need any outside help, however.

The FP2K extensions install easily and are administered fairly easily.  You 
don't have to use IIS.  We run O'Reilly WebSite on two physical servers, 
about twenty virtual servers.

Just a few thoughts off the top of my head.  I'm not an FP2K evangelist, 
and I definitely like Dreamweaver, and Adobe GoLive is OK too.  Sure, none 
of them produce beautiful, handcrafted, super-lean code, but for the real 
world in a production environment, I just don't care.

cheers

dan




--
Good, Fast, and Cheap: Which two of the three would you like?
Dan Lester, 3577 East Pecan, Boise, ID 83716 USA 208-383-0165
dan at 84.com   http://www.84.com/  http://www.postcard.org/