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Subject:Re: Help! Database Publishing on the Web From:"Huber, Mike" <mrhuber -at- SOFTWARE -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 4 Mar 1998 12:41:33 -0600
Was the shell designed well? Will the database be maintained by people
who know how to create documentation?
It's still documentation. It's a new and different set of tools for
presentation, with new challenges, but it's still documentation.
So, was the page layout designed by this "very clever" programmer, or a
designer? No offense intended (some programmers are also designers) but
"very clever" doesn't necessarily mean "excellent designer." Are the
people who will be responsible for adding content qualified to build
content?
The concern I have is that there may be an attitude that having a
database that presents content read from a database means that there is
no longer a need for professional information development. That attitude
leads to a data dump - huge quantities of uninformative information,
presented in a consistent but not necessarily helpful format. The
results may not even be consistent - the layout will be, but the content
could be all over the map.
On the other hand, it could be done very well if the information fits,
the shell design is good, and each item added to the database is well
designed.
---
mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com
Home: nax -at- execpc -dot- com
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Nyman, Rikki [SMTP:Rikki -dot- Nyman -at- ALLIEDSIGNAL -dot- COM]
>Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 1998 6:49 PM
>To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>Subject: Help! Database Publishing on the Web
>
>...It will need
>virtually no HTML maintenance at all. To generate new pages, you put
>information into a form and the utility loads it into the database. The
>next time you view the topic list it includes the new entry.
>
>...The programmmer tells me the page is
>limited to 23 meg (I think he was joking!). He says it will keep people
>from getting lost.
>
>Does anyone out there have any experience with this kind of a web site?
>I honestly think this is a terrible idea -- it looks like it has the
>potential to become a data dump instead of a route on the information
>highway.
>
