Re: Would you take a complimentary course on HTML from acompany whose website looked like this?

I won't be quite as brutal as Aaron (Aaron here was the hint that it was *Vern's* site: "I'll put myself out on a limb" )

The site looks nice enough. I have created much, much worse. Just take a look at opensource4i.com or petesworkshop.com. I created those monstrosities almost 8 years ago! But you *can* tell that it wasn't a professional web designer who put the band site together. There are hundreds of thousands of sites like this out there. And, for what it is designed for, it works.

I can't remember who the OP was but I definitely recommend that if you are delivering content in a pre-packaged, commercial application, then invest the money to get a professional template created. If you are developing an intranet app or just throwing something together for yourself or friend, by all means, learn the HTML/CSS ropes and DIY. FBU (Functional But [Butt] Ugly) sites are good opportunities to learn. You really need them anyway just to be able to work around even a professionally developed template.

Pete


Vern Hamberg wrote:

I've found a number of books from http://www.sitepoint.com to be very helpful as to design. There are others as well. Concepts of color theory are teachable. I've done a fair amount of VB development in another context and am comfortable with trying to make things look MS-ish - again, it's how it is out there.

I redesigned a web page for a community band I'm in - I took concepts I gleaned from those several books - learned CSS, learned to use JQuery and plugins, learned layout with more modern techniques. Old site was all table-based layout - a border between sections of the page was action a 5pt column with background color - sheesh!! Not these days.

I'll put myself out on a limb - here's the link - http://www.ihcb.org - I know there are some things not quite as I'd like them but did not have time to figure out more. Be gentle, please!!

Oh - it took time and some help, but it seems to work pretty well in most browsers. Whew!!

Vern

Kelly Cookson wrote:

I've created some web pages that look decent...but I did it by surfing the web until I found a page design that I liked/wanted and tried to mimic it best I could.
With enough training and the right tools, I think most RPG/COBOL developers could make respectable web pages. The questions to me are: How much training? What kinds of training? What kinds of tools? Will your RPG/COBOL developers even want to be retrained as web developers? When does it become more practical to hire web developers than to retrain RPG/COBOL developers?
Plus, professional web developers work full-time learning the art of making great web pages. RPG/COBOL programmers won't have the same amount of time to devote to learning the art of creating web pages. That may always be a handicap when it comes to developing award-winning designs.

Kelly Cookson
Senior Programmer/Analyst
Dot Foods, Inc.
217-773-4486 x12676
www.dotfoods.com