More MS ranting
Gah. So Kevin’s freelancing right now. He has a few projects going on, you know… juggling meetings and trying to find time to get all the work done. The pay is good, so you won’t hear me complaining (like yesterday.. it’s amazing.. it’s my first day out of fulltime employment, and I’m busier than I’ve been in 6 months.. but anyway). So I have a client whose site I am designing and building. Pretty much brochure-ware, 8 or 9 pages, etc. I’m thinking to myself ‘Gee.. I can get this site completely finished in like 6 hours using PHP.’ I’m happy happy. THEN, when the client asks me how I plan on coding the side, and I respond ‘An open-source scripting language that rocks called PHP.’ What’s their response? ‘Oh… er.. uh. ah.. We happen to have a Microsoft partnership, so.. can you do it in ASP?’ My response of course being…No. I don’t know ASP. Then what THEY said was ‘Well, we can’t use any other language other than HTML or ASP because MS wouldn’t be happy if we used PHP.’ Wonderful. So now I’m looking at coding flat HTML all weekend. Great. I guess it means more money, but less time to focus on a client with a cooler project and a higher hourly rate.
This is EXACTLY the same thing that happened with a client of the company I used to work for. They had us shoot and put together a QTVR of their data center/mission control room. Once it was all working and cool, they came back out of the blue with ‘We can’t use Apple technology… We have a Microsoft partnership…’ Complete bullshit. THAT’s how MS screws their competition into using ONLY their products, and no one else’s, lest they be struck down from above.
Reader interactions
14 Replies to “More MS ranting”
Comments are closed.
You could always do what “The Other White Meat” has done in the past and use PHP to dynamically output the flat HTML files to a site directory with some fancy schmancy scripting… And then you’d have PHP still do all the legwork. Kinda like using PHP as an HTML compiler, but not at runtime.
what are your hourly rates ? how much
can be done in 1 hour ?
SU: that’s actually an interesting idea.. I might look into it.. and as far as my rates? I’m not going to post that. Jeez.
Looks like an interesting dilema… On the one hand you want to use PHP and do things in a very efficient and effective way. On the other hand you have to make a decision that may compromise your own personal convictions in order to meet the demands of a client. But that sounds like everyday business to me… 🙂
One problem with using PHP to generate all that static HTML is that you don’t empower your client to update/administer/control their own site/content with the benefit of a scripting language like PHP. Instead, you’d still have to handle all the administration for them – even if you did just generate a new HTML page from your existing PHP code and send the static page over to them.
I know it’s a bit out of the blue, but I have experience with both PHP and ASP, and I’d be happy to give you some tips/pointers/code samples, if you’d like. If their site is really only going to be <10 pages it should be a piece of cake…
Kev has no PCs, and even if he did I don’t think he would even consider using ASP.
Kev, Am I right?
totally. I mean, i’m assuming ASP is close to PHp and CF, but it just isn’t in my realm. The client is going to do the ASP-ification themselves. So flat HTML, here I come.
I wouldnt call PHP and/or Apple’s WebObjects vapor ware.
You could always do what “The Other White Meat” has done in the past and use PHP to dynamically output the flat HTML files to a site directory with some fancy schmancy scripting… And then you’d have PHP still do all the legwork. Kinda like using PHP as an HTML compiler, but not at runtime.
what are your hourly rates ? how much
can be done in 1 hour ?
SU: that’s actually an interesting idea.. I might look into it.. and as far as my rates? I’m not going to post that. Jeez.
Looks like an interesting dilema… On the one hand you want to use PHP and do things in a very efficient and effective way. On the other hand you have to make a decision that may compromise your own personal convictions in order to meet the demands of a client. But that sounds like everyday business to me… 🙂
One problem with using PHP to generate all that static HTML is that you don’t empower your client to update/administer/control their own site/content with the benefit of a scripting language like PHP. Instead, you’d still have to handle all the administration for them – even if you did just generate a new HTML page from your existing PHP code and send the static page over to them.
I know it’s a bit out of the blue, but I have experience with both PHP and ASP, and I’d be happy to give you some tips/pointers/code samples, if you’d like. If their site is really only going to be <10 pages it should be a piece of cake…
Kev has no PCs, and even if he did I don’t think he would even consider using ASP.
Kev, Am I right?
totally. I mean, i’m assuming ASP is close to PHp and CF, but it just isn’t in my realm. The client is going to do the ASP-ification themselves. So flat HTML, here I come.
I wouldnt call PHP and/or Apple’s WebObjects vapor ware.