Any Developers? CSS/PHP/Java/C++

[Sadrad]

So do we have any computer guru's amongst us?


Got a minature project on the blend at the moment, but my limited skills have pretty much seen it come to an abrupt end. I'm trying to re-develop my website and look into the app department. Finding a developer that's skilled enough, trustworthy and likely to be able to complete the job without ripping me off has been incredibly hard. There just seems to be a lack of people into computing or with these kinds of skills to help me out, which is strange given that the online boom is probably the best 'trade' on the block with the way the world is turning.


Can anybody help me out?

If so could you please leave a message in here, or drop me a PM.

[wwharton]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sadrad

So do we have any computer guru's amongst us? Got a minature project on the blend at the moment, but my limited skills have pretty much seen it come to an abrupt end. I'm trying to re-develop my website and look into the app department. Finding a developer that's skilled enough, trustworthy and likely to be able to complete the job without ripping me off has been incredibly hard. There just seems to be a lack of people into computing or with these kinds of skills to help me out, which is strange given that the online boom is probably the best 'trade' on the block with the way the world is turning. Can anybody help me out? If so could you please leave a message in here, or drop me a PM.

If you're looking for a developer, I can't do much for you at this point. But speaking to your problem, I've noticed a lot of projects are using pre-made CMS to cover a lot of what we used to have to build ourselves. Wordpress specifically is night and day compared to what it used to be, but drupal and others are much easier to work with as well.

I don't know your site so you may really need some advanced programming for what you're looking to do. But my guess is you can probably get away with going a different route... and save money and time managing someone else possibly too.

[mgoblue]

Quote: Originally Posted by wwharton

If you're looking for a developer, I can't do much for you at this point. But speaking to your problem, I've noticed a lot of projects are using pre-made CMS to cover a lot of what we used to have to build ourselves. Wordpress specifically is night and day compared to what it used to be, but drupal and others are much easier to work with as well. I don't know your site so you may really need some advanced programming for what you're looking to do. But my guess is you can probably get away with going a different route... and save money and time managing someone else possibly too.

Yeah, I'm a back end developer (I can do front end styling but am not a photoshop creator)...I don't have time for anything now, but Wharton's right about the pre-made CMS's out there nowadays. At my last job we created most sites with Drupal, and you can get away with using their themes and whatnot to get a pretty good site.

We did all custom stuff where we'd get under the hood of Drupal, but all these CMS systems are created so less technical people (not coders) can get by using them. Might be worth a shot.

[Dirty Turtles]

Most of the CMS theme packs are too cookie cutter for my liking. I don't like it when you can go to a website and immediately know they built the thing using a CMS. Sure you can get under the hood on a CMS, but those people will never know the feeling of starting with a blank document on notepad (or notepad++ if you're smart) and typing away line after line of code.

When I overhauled our local Little League's site this season I used the Usercake UMS and started building my own CMS around it. The behind the scenes of the site is controlled through my own custom built codes for editing the MYSQL database that contains 99% of the sites content. The ultimate goal is to refine and replace borrowed code with my own and package the entire CMS as a potential rival to sites like eteamz and Active. I figure I can offer a better product for similar/less cost to leagues. Last year I had several leagues in our All-Star district tell me how much they love the site and ask me if I'd want to do one for them.

[wwharton]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dirty Turtles

Most of the CMS theme packs are too cookie cutter for my liking. I don't like it when you can go to a website and immediately know they built the thing using a CMS. Sure you can get under the hood on a CMS, but those people will never know the feeling of starting with a blank document on notepad (or notepad++ if you're smart) and typing away line after line of code. When I overhauled our local Little League's site this season I used the Usercake UMS and started building my own CMS around it. The behind the scenes of the site is controlled through my own custom built codes for editing the MYSQL database that contains 99% of the sites content. The ultimate goal is to refine and replace borrowed code with my own and package the entire CMS as a potential rival to sites like eteamz and Active. I figure I can offer a better product for similar/less cost to leagues. Last year I had several leagues in our All-Star district tell me how much they love the site and ask me if I'd want to do one for them.

My short response is who cares about the feeling of starting a blank document on notepad? If we were talking about someone learning how to become a coder/developer then I'm all for the "crawl before you can walk" or "know where it all comes from" approach. But that's not what we're talking about here.

More importantly for this thread, your feelings about the pre-made themes was spot on even only a few years ago. It's a much different world now, trust me. I could show you a few sites so you can see how flexible these themes are nowadays. If you're an absolute novice you're not going to stray too far from the basic structure, but they are doing a much better job of giving an interface for those more advance to customize to their heart's content (versus literally hacking CSS and php files to break the cookie cutter feel).

By the way, absolutely nothing wrong with your approach. With just about anything, if you have the ability building your own will always be "better" but in Sadrad's case, that has brought him here looking for a developer to pay.

[mgoblue]

Quote: Originally Posted by wwharton

My short response is who cares about the feeling of starting a blank document on notepad? If we were talking about someone learning how to become a coder/developer then I'm all for the "crawl before you can walk" or "no where it all comes from" approach. But that's not what we're talking about here. More importantly for this thread, your feelings about the pre-made themes was spot on even only a few years ago. It's a much different world now, trust me. I could show you a few sites so you can see how flexible these themes are nowadays. If you're an absolute novice you're not going to stray too far from the basic structure, but they are doing a much better job of giving an interface for those more advance to customize to their heart's content (versus literally hacking CSS and php files to break the cookie cutter feel). By the way, absolutely nothing wrong with your approach. With just about anything, if you have the ability building your own will always be "better" but in Sadrad's case, that has brought him here looking for a developer to pay.

I agree with you...It's a cheaper way to get a quality site IMO.

I will agree that there's not a "perfect" CMS out there though. At my job we're making a internal CMS system that we can reuse for various clients because the existing ones have some negatives that impact us directly.

This is mostly due to us having clients with a lot of data and whatnot, so on normal sites without tons and tons of custom data and coding you'll be fine with a CMS.

If I were freelancing I'd be pushing Drupal because I've gotten a good amount of experience in it, and the open source modules out there can do most of what you want. It all depends on how complex of a site you have and if you're willing to go with what systems give you at the start.

Just depends on what you want to pay I suppose.

*oh, Sublime Text 2 is a pretty decent text editor as well, I flip between that and Notepad++

[wwharton]

Quote: Originally Posted by mgoblue

I agree with you...It's a cheaper way to get a quality site IMO. I will agree that there's not a "perfect" CMS out there though. At my job we're making a internal CMS system that we can reuse for various clients because the existing ones have some negatives that impact us directly. This is mostly due to us having clients with a lot of data and whatnot, so on normal sites without tons and tons of custom data and coding you'll be fine with a CMS. If I were freelancing I'd be pushing Drupal because I've gotten a good amount of experience in it, and the open source modules out there can do most of what you want. It all depends on how complex of a site you have and if you're willing to go with what systems give you at the start. Just depends on what you want to pay I suppose. *oh, Sublime Text 2 is a pretty decent text editor as well, I flip between that and Notepad++

I know we're taking this a bit off topic but what makes you "flip" between Sublime and Notepad? What does one do for you better than the other?

I feel like I tried Sublime at some point, didn't give it much of a chance, ended up on Notepad++ and am happy enough with it to just role with it. I'll code in Dreamweaver too though... not really all that picky when it comes to manual coding so I'm curious to know what would make a text editor stand out to you.

I'd be curious to hear your opinion too, Dirty Turtles... since it sounds like you favor the old school approach so probably put some time into deciding to go with Notepad++.

[mgoblue]

Quote: Originally Posted by wwharton

I know we're taking this a bit off topic but what makes you "flip" between Sublime and Notepad? What does one do for you better than the other? I feel like I tried Sublime at some point, didn't give it much of a chance, ended up on Notepad++ and am happy enough with it to just role with it. I'll code in Dreamweaver too though... not really all that picky when it comes to manual coding so I'm curious to know what would make a text editor stand out to you. I'd be curious to hear your opinion too, Dirty Turtles... since it sounds like you favor the old school approach so probably put some time into deciding to go with Notepad++.

I liked how Sublime could open a whole project and let me manage it within there, so I'd have a different project (with all tabbed files) in separate instances of Sublime. I tend to have to hop back and forth between things, so that helps.

Though we do a lot of .NET stuff, so I also use Visual Studio a lot for coding there. I tend to prefer the other editors for CSS and more pure HTML editing though.

I've been on one project for a while now (.NET) so haven't had to use the other editors as much lately. My last job was all PHP, so used the editors more there and saw pros/cons more.