Here’s an online conversation with a good friend of mine on IM!

oculart:      hows it going with you these days
ghostmonk:  good man
ghostmonk: busy
oculart:     that’s the word on the streets isn’t it
ghostmonk: Myron and I are making this crazy ass site
oculart:     sweet, for who
ghostmonk: same one we’ve been working on for the last 8 months
ghostmonk: for this at risk women’s group in Winnipeg
ghostmonk: funded by ***
oculart:      ah cool, is an interactive story?
ghostmonk: no
ghostmonk: it’s a content site
ghostmonk: interactive story would be awesome
ghostmonk: nice idea
ghostmonk: I can show you
ghostmonk: beta.**********.com
ghostmonk: runs completely off a cms
ghostmonk: that’s why there is dummy content in there right now
ghostmonk: there is still a ton of work left to do
oculart:     alright let me check it out
oculart:      i like the resizing browser animation snap thing
ghostmonk: There’s more there than meets the eye
ghostmonk: the content is completely managed
ghostmonk: there is a back end
oculart:     do they have a lot of content they are going to be adding
ghostmonk: I guess so
oculart:     i don’t really believe in having cms for a lot of sites
oculart:     seems like a waste of programming time unless content is updated hourly
oculart:      I think it’s foolish when more resources are used on building a back end application when its just as easy to republish updated content unless it needs to be dynamic content
ghostmonk: well… depends on how long the thing will live
ghostmonk: you want to extract as much of the changing data that is possible
ghostmonk: that’s just good sense
ghostmonk: If I make more than one of these sites
ghostmonk: I don’t want to constantly republish every time content changes
ghostmonk: and as the thing moves forward, there is opportunity to add new modules, and the possibility of abstracting more business related rules
oculart:     yeah buts its also taking 8 months to make it
ghostmonk: well it is and it isn’t, the whole project is taking 8 months, not 8 months of coding time
oculart:      but will there be money for them to add extra features?
ghostmonk: let’s just say that I’m working extra hard to have a code base I can resuse
ghostmonk: so they get more functionality, but we own the code
ghostmonk: when you program sites that hard code business related rules
ghostmonk: like content
ghostmonk: you basically create throw away code
ghostmonk: or rather
ghostmonk: encourage throwaway code
ghostmonk: that’s fine for current clients
ghostmonk: may even speed up things on a client by client basis
ghostmonk: but in the long run
ghostmonk: you shoot yourself in the foot
oculart:      that’s a fair argument, but i think clients waste too much on cms work
ghostmonk: well… that’s a different argument
ghostmonk: does a client need a cms?
ghostmonk: that depends if they are publishing regularly
ghostmonk: weekly is probably a good measure
ghostmonk: If over my career I deploy 100 sites with clients that want to update even on a monthly basis
ghostmonk: I might drive myself crazy trying to maintain sites that could otherwise maintain themselves
ghostmonk: in this case… honestly
ghostmonk: I’m thinking about the code base when it’s all done
ghostmonk: and the lessons learned
oculart:     but how is building a cms like that going to be useful for future clients going more mobile
ghostmonk: well, unless flash blows up, I have a code base that is easily deploy-able in a variety of online environments
ghostmonk: I think the idea is more about the experience
ghostmonk: certainly the argument that flash sites are redundant can be made
ghostmonk: but people still want them
oculart:      i think reactive content management systems are the future
oculart:      content that reacts emotionally to people’s behavior
ghostmonk: that doesn’t even make sense
oculart:     emotional intelligence
ghostmonk: what in the hell are you talking about
ghostmonk: that’s fine when speaking about technology that is stil 50 years from common use
ghostmonk: but that’s a future beyond ours
ghostmonk: touch screens are still not main stream
ghostmonk: unless you talk about iPhones
oculart:      i think instead of managing content, we need to manage how to absorb content
ghostmonk: ok that makes a little more sense
ghostmonk: but what you are talking about is still a decade away from being mainstream
ghostmonk: no client in their right mind would budget a project that only has the potential to reach the most technically savvy of the population
ghostmonk: tech savvy and rich
ghostmonk: iPhones are a sort of exception
ghostmonk: but they are still drastically limited
ghostmonk: you are basically banking on the mainstream peripherals to be different
ghostmonk: in our generation, and probably the next
ghostmonk: you are looking at touch screens, keyboards and the mouse
ghostmonk: there are tons of other theoretical ideas and prototypes out there that are awesome
ghostmonk: but right now they are more suited to museums and installations (maybe special scenarios)
ghostmonk: not feasible to the mainstream
ghostmonk: .. the only mainstream touch screen right now is the iPhone
ghostmonk: and that doesn’t capture too much real data
ghostmonk: it certainly doesn’t replace the keyboard and mouse…. yet of course
ghostmonk: and I still can’t see how a touch screen will grab too much in the way of emotional content
ghostmonk: gestures are cool
ghostmonk: but they don’t say a hell of a lot about the emotional state of a human being
ghostmonk: unless you are adding a really representative GUI
ghostmonk: which is cool
ghostmonk: but still not mainstream
ghostmonk: anyway… I’m just trying to make software that is as flexible as possible
ghostmonk: if i have to rewrite this one day for a mobile application… at least I will have done it once… so I can do it again
ghostmonk: and i can start gathering those gestures, and building data bases that can begin to infer their meaning
ghostmonk: you still with me?
oculart:      jesus you talk a lot when i turn my head
oculart:      haha
ghostmonk: I think what i said makes sense
oculart:      man, let me read this, im multi tasking, arguing with you and working at the same time
oculart:      hold on a sec
oculart:      feel like god damn batman
oculart:      but i love arguing with you more than anything so i will for sure get too it

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 6:47 pm and is filed under Design, Lost in the Ether, process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.