Quote:
|
Originally Posted by chakorules
I like to prepare my kids for the "real" world. A real world website developer now-a-days will not just be coding in html only or hard code everything. My students need to understand how the backend works. How to SSH into the web server and issue command line commands. How to use MySQL, and edit the database. How to install php scripts, and fix Unix permissions to run dynamic scripts. Installing something like a CMS is a value add that just coding a static HTML site will not give to my students. This is purely my opinion and my aggressive approach in teaching them how it’s going to be life after college.
However in the sprit of FIRST, the judging is based on "CONTENT". If you code an html site "Static" and have good content, then yes you deserve to be praised. Using a CMS or not is irrelevant based on the scoring sheet of FIRST judging. They are looking at your content, layout, and navigation. Things that are important in a basic website REGARDLESS how or what tools you used to make it.
|
To address
chakorules', comments I understand where he's coming from -- the ultimate goal here of course is to build marketable skills -- although as he pointed out, the question we are framing here is with regard specifically to the Website Award. To add to what he said, we should note that after all, no backend technology in and of itself is a sufficient condition for this ultimate goal, or for that matter sufficient for an objectively "good" (i.e. irrespective of FIRST's slightly i'll-conceived criteria) website. In my experience, the non-CMS websites that win -- and most of the winners were in fact non-CMS, or at least cleverly disguised the fact that they used a premade backend -- created their own backend and used every one of the technologies above that you listed, only they often made it themselves (for those that don't believe me, there are
lists of the winners available). This is why I contended earlier that making a site by my lonely with no CMS taught me much more (and I'm sure many other webmasters would agree), and also raised the bar for what I would achieve. Also, not having to decipher someone else's programming in order to make my site do what I wanted (but rather programming it myself) catalyzed this creative process.
Of course, since content (especially with regard to FIRST goals), navigation, and design are key, only the second of the three criteria are neccesarily met by a CMS; the intrinsic problem from a development perspective is that this pre-made system does not encourage any individuality or creativity, because the site already "works" out of the box. Bottom line is that CMS'd sites are not neccesarily bad, only that using a CMS tends to cause us web designers to set the bar lower. Speaking form personal experience, I don't think we would have had a standout website if I'd decided to go that route. Couple that with the fact that website judges historically haven't been big on blatantly-CMS'd sites, and I'd say that's a pretty substantial reason to not go that way. That was my reasoning anyway when I made our team's site back in the day.