|
$500 for Software or $15,000 for Labor? You get what you pay for. If you use Notepad or a free text editor it would be like using a screw driver to build a house. Sure you could do it an many people do it just takes them much longer, reparative tasks are not automated, they have to have a separate FTP program to upload and download files, there is no built in automated spell checker, they have to have different software for source control. the list goes on Dreamweaver CS3 includes everything you need to edit, upload and create JavaScript, .CSS, database driven web applications and it's fast! That's what it boils down to do you want to spend a week writing code or an hour or two. if your like me and you build dozens of websites that are quality each year you don't have time to hand code everything and trouble shoot where you missed a comma somewhere. Developing multimedia web applications with freeware usually takes longer and cost more because labor is the most expensive part of building software. Using freeware to write web pages, bold text, format tables takes longer because you manually have to put a starting <b> tag and closing </b> around text to make it BLOD instead of just highlighting the text and clicking the bold button then moving onto the next task without worrying if you closed the last <b> tag and the whole page after the tag ended up bold then you have to spend 10 minuets looking for the tag you missed. Below are screen shots of are two commonly used web page editors working on the same file. You will notice both have the option to edit the code directly. You have the option to leave Dreamweaver in full code edit view and write all the code yourself but that would be like holding a power drill and turning the whole drill in circles to screw something in instead of pulling the trigger. Dreamweaver is Sold by Adobe Notepad comes FREE with Windows Other Commercially Sold Web Development Tools
Freeware Open Source Downloads
To start you have to buy a computer unless you plan on steeling one. Usually Windows is already on your computer and XP Professional is about a $50 upgrade when buying a new computer. The Real Cost of Open Source Development Immediately after opening the box open source gurus will spend countless hours browsing to the shareware sites to find and download free software to replace the software already installed on their machine. Then spend the more hours figuring out text command vs. double clicking and choosing from drop down menus. There is limited freeware that actually runs on Linux. Dreamweaver for example doesn't even make a Linux version. Commercial editors make quick work of HTML documents while freeware editors leave it to shareware gurus so to hand code each character in a single 10,000 character HTML document. If you going to create a website for the first time using a text only editor like Notepad or BB Edit along with a shareware FTP program it's going to take you a week to put get one web page on the internet that says
With Front Page or Dreamweaver it's going to take a day, maybe two, to put together a few simple HTML pages or linked together and family photo gallery. Building Open Source or Commercial If you paying someone to code something with open source technology you are wasting thousands of dollars because the developer is not willing to spend a few hundred dollars to make themselves more productive. Do you want your project to take a few months or a few weeks? Open source developers pride themselves on being able to write HTML code with their eyes closed well commercial developers can as well but don't spend a whole lot of their time worrying about writing HTML when the editor does it for you. Commercial developers spend more time analyzing the requirements of an application and less time figuring out how to make something BOLD or Italic. Hosting and Coding Issues Configuring a Linux server takes a real pro with thousands of hours of experience due to limited documentation and working in a command line environment vs. point and click offered by Microsoft Windows Control Panel. Hiring a developer to configure a Linux server could cost more than you would pay for a licence of Windows Server. Now days you can get shared or even dedicated Windows hosting server for less than $50 a month and the majority of the cost is space at the hosting company not the operating system itself. Database Development Where the real software cost comes in would be choosing Microsoft SQL Server or MySQL. Microsoft SQL Server supports stored procedures, comes with client tools that allow developers to point and click to create new tables, add new field, drag and drop relationship creation and the most powerful and promising feature DTS (Data Transformation Services). DTS allows developers to setup bulk data imports of comma delimited text files, excel files, SQL data from any ODBC compliant database even MySQL. MySQL was built on a shoe string budget with little or no support, usability testing or load testing. If you are a large mission critical corporation SQL Server is your only option for migrating and importing mass amounts of data on time and under budget with other enterprise data providers. If you a small start up use Access because it is so easy to use and move around. MySQL is much more complicated to use. MySQL is more robust than Access but if Access can't do it just make the move to SQL Server and save your self the headaches from moving from MySQL to SQL Server later. The Wrap Up A few hundred dollars spent of quality software boosts developer productivity and creates a better quality product for clients. Better software saves developers time and clients thousands of dollars. |
