The changing face of the web development industry

Sam Takunda Avatar
Web Development

Web DevelopmentIt’s almost safe to say that history is repeating itself. A few years, specifically prior to the year 2008 companies such as Cyberplex were known to rule the roost and getting a website for a company was a comparatively sizable investment. There was the initial cost of getting the site developed, and the fixed monthlies/update fees. The process involved repetitive cycles between the marketing team and the web designers until the two parties agreed on a design concept.

Then after the year 2008 when internet became increasingly available, free(open source) website development tools with not-so-steep learning curves have become increasingly within everyone’s reach and since then prices have spiraled downwards, so much that it’s now common to see a post on Dipleague about a web designer offering his service for $50. Maybe those ones are a bit too extreme, but the average fee on the street is around $400 and for that you can actually get a pretty decent website.

They have become the go-to option for small businesses that can’t afford the budgets from big established web development companies (most of whom have since shut). But established companies still argue that businesses are compromising on their bran communication by getting their online presence communicated by a freelancer who played around with a template. While that may hold for larger companies, it doen’t seem to be stopping small businesses.

Other countries also experienced this transition; the UK is popular example with companies having reportedly made millions from the industry before freelancers took them on. The new trends are sites such as Elance that bridge businesses and web designers/graphic designers an many other creative ventures. The war now is between the freelancers themselves, as they have to present impressive portfolios if they are to impress someone whom they may never get to meet in person.

Also interesting is that there are now two families of website developers: those that are programmers, capable of doing an entire website from scratch (more costly) and the ones that went to Joomla.org, grabbed a copy with some tutorials and have since established a career with not much of an idea of what really happens inside the browser. Others also argue that freelancers are current in terms of latest web development trends, such as mobile, while the big companies aren’t as keen to adapt.

Is there hope for big website development companies being established (infrastructure and team size wise, not financially), or the pockets of freelancers will run the industry from here onwards?

image via freebirdmedia.org

60 comments

  1. Kenneth Madyirapanze

    This is an interesting post, it reminded me of this company called N-Sho Technologies, I think they were the first to actualy offer proffessional web development services and hosting in Zimbabwe. One of their developers did a job onsite for an NGO i used to work for back in 2009 and the work was astonishing. I believe his name was Shaun.

    I think these new companies coming up now are all just following in their foot steps when it comes to pricing but not when it comes to quality of service.

  2. Greg Chiponda

    another interesting curve ball is the rise of free websites from the likes of google via wozaonline and various other web creation tools. I think google is doing us a disservice here, they can shell a few millions to kill web development companies knowing that their revenue is in advertising .

  3. Norman Nhliziyo

    It really depends on the client requirements. I think there is a good market for web application development as more and more software is getting web based. 

  4. GoDHanD

    Let me just point out that there is a big difference between web-design &  web-development. There will always be plenty of Web Designers out there because the learning curve is not that high. These so called we designers use one-size fits all tactics because that’s all they know and therefore can never offer a custom solution to any customer. 

    Web-development on the other hand requires a lot if R&D about the clients requirements and therefore it will almost always be a custom solution. At this point I think the industry is fine the way it is, clients and Web Designers/Developers meet each other at comfortable price points. 

    The big companies needn’t worry because they’re clientele will always require a professional service in order to have peace of mind. I doubt they would have any, if their websites security was developed by a guy working from the backseat of his car.

  5. buffdaddy

    for a quality website, I will always go with the larger company or someone who does not build off a template. 

    However, having said that, I think that there is room for modular websites for entry level businesses that need an online presence. 

  6. D Esq

    I definitely agree with Norman, the real market is in web applications.

  7. Anonymous

    Web development companies are here to stay, its those that know how to evolve with change. Wyssywig apps have been theer for years but have never and will never come close to non wyssy stuff.

    A freelancer cannot replace the power of a fully fledged dev team, even with the rise of those do it yourself services there is still even more an opportunity to dev themes for those very services.

    Web apps and nothing but the very same websites people dev I still dont get how people diffrentiate between the two or maybe its just me.

  8. Madziva

    apparently being a web developer myself since 2006 I have noticed that the big companies go all the way out to hire the street programmers. and by the way the big companies like webdev and cyberplex are all turning to Joomla. old school programmers web designer you need to woke up and smell the cheese. wordpress, drupal, joomla are here to stay, sooner or later you will be marvelling at the founders of these innovations. on another note, checkout b2i.us, a company in zim (africanshareholder, africainvestor, biglo and all the other names rob is using) they are taking development further. they use the same template but customised for each particular client and they are the ones customising and hosting Zim’s listed (big brands ) companies liek econet, dawn, zimplow, check their portfolio here http://www.africanfinancials.com/, this is even worse than joomla if we look at it from the point of view of you guys critising joomla. BUT IT IS THE FUTURE. HEY ALL THE BRANDS THAT YOU WANT TO PROTECT BY CODING ORIGINAL CMSes are already taken through one template hosted somewhere more like facebook pages (http://www.africaniscool.com/clients.aspx#all)
    so while zimbos troll about having to code the Operating System before you can use a computer for a Point of Sale Software, the clever ones out there (b2i.us), the once who even invented the computers, php, mysql, .net, joomla in the first place are already doing all your work! THINK ABOUT THIS

    1. Anonymous

      I guess this is a love letter to Joomla.
      Thats the point! you came on the scene in 1996 and the world and all of us left you there. Joomla being the future ouh please shoot me. Eversince the split to Joomla and Mambo that framework has been nothing but bloat and I wonder what makes you Zimbabweans believe in it.

      I personally hate anything called Joomla its the worst of frameworks I have seen. No wonder why Zim has the ugliest of websites!! Its coz your mindsets !!

  9. Prosper Chikomo

    Is there hope for big website development companies
    being established (infrastructure and team size wise, not financially),
    or the pockets of freelancers will run the industry from here
    onwards?

    What will run the Zimbabwean web development industry into the future is the doing away with joomlaring and Zimbabweans coding their own works. Without coding skills, Zimbabwe web development is useless and uncompetitive.

    That someone charges $50 on Dipleague is not an issue, that is what competition does; it drives prices down. Unemployment also does that to those with the skills.

    Price is not an issue, the big companies you talk about, how many websites would they have to build at $400 just to hit a $1 million a year? 2500 a year => 209 websites a day => 7 websites a day + assumning they already have everything, and with how big a team, at what cost?

    The hope for the future of the industry lies in a different business model to the one of 10 years ago. Whether it is one person or a company it does not matter, the business model is the one that does.

    One young US$ millionaire offers free websites on top of the one he built already, and for free, and he still makes money. All he does is just make sure it is safe and secure and continuosly updates the software. That is Matt Mullenwerg who founded WordPress which he branched of b2/cafelog.

    WordPress.com enables anyone to have a very safe and secure website for free, and if you want to have a WordPress website with your own domain name, you pay only US$17 per year. For only $17 (far less than your $400 and the $50 you talk about), you know your site is safe and secure in the hands of experts who own the software, and maintain the site 24/7.

    Now, compare that to the $400 you talk about, mostly a “joomla” site which safety and security you know nothing of, and is not guaranteed.

    And just how many Zimbabwean companies do what WordPress does? remember, mullenwerg started small, by himself.

    Instead “big” Zimbabwean companies are stuck in the 1990s business models.

    WordPress is a multi-milliondollar brand already, and in under 10 years, and Matt himself, last time i checked, was reportedly worth US$230 million.

    If i was a freelancer, i would look to build just one site that can enable people to build their own site intuitively, wordpress-style. And i would create my own CMS or branch from an already existing one. That way I would have a chance to score millions of dollars and it is such companies that attract foreign venture-capital funding.

    Build websites “software as a service”-style not “build ’em and sell em style” – or “joomlaring”.

    Do you think a venture capital company like sequia capital, which funded Google and youtube would put $10 million into a joomla site? it would rather put that money into the joomla project itself.

    Zimbabweans must learn to stop this business of just joomlaring, that is not the future.

    If you branch off some CMS, even WordPress itself, and create a high quality CMS of your own, you could become fiercely big and rich by global standards, not to mention fame and paid speaking engagements worldwide.

    But obviously, the Zimbabwean “developer” knows no coding , and that is why he cannot do that. All he know is joomla, which even Zimbabwean universities offer to teach the public, when they do not even offer real skills like programming in HTML, C, C++, PHP,  etc and other high level languages to the public.

    (I am not a programmer myself but i know my stuff, i am a writer.)

    Very soon the whole of Zimbabwe will know to use joomla and then what will you do? lol

    Just like in every industry, small and big will co-exist, but my message is targeted to those who want phenomenal success; those who want to take the web industry into the future from right in Zimbabwe.

    I think a Zimbabwean  company having its own world-class content management system alongside its own commercial “software as a service” offering is the way to go – that is the future – not creating websites one by one – for just $400 each.

    1. Tinm

      I will reiterate…

      You have a very common and incorrect perception of Joomla based on what you have seen implemented and the perceived ease of using it. WordPress is in as many ways opensource as Joomla is. Difference being, they have commercial services in addition to the OS software they provide. Should you need bespoke features(form and function), you will definitely have to part with more cash in addition to the $17.

      I find no fault in people using Joomla, WordPress and other
      opensource web CMSs. It all depends on the needs of the project before
      you. Sometimes an existing and well-written plugin/extension/addon is
      all thats necessary to achieve something.

      Should one need to go
      beyond existing code, then it is necessary to write your own
      extensions/addons/plugins for those platforms you choose. The beauty of
      true opensource is that you have that freedom to customise the code
      which you have at your disposal to work specifically for your needs. Be
      it on a web application or on an operating system. All those companies
      would be nowhere if they decided to code their own web servers and
      operating systems. They used existing products and customised
      them(…just as WordPress et tal are existent and customised ).

      It
      is a misconception to say those who code everything from scratch are
      most likely to succeed. Only do so if you have to, and if there isnt an
      existing tried and tested product!! There is, really no use re-inventing
      the wheel.

      This is not to say I support those who just download
      and slap on plugins and modules senselessly and without understanding of
      what that code does(as u mentioned). Or those who are limited by whats
      available for download…and fail to deliver a solution according to
      specifications. But instead may try to force features  onto the project,
      based on those downloads. If that would be the case, I agree with you
      in total. One should strive to learn to code and extend. But also
      pointing out that selecting some of these tried and tested products(like
      Joomla) to deliver does not demean u professionally.

      1. Anonymous

         “It
        is a misconception to say those who code everything from scratch are
        most likely to succeed. Only do so if you have to, and if there isnt an
        existing tried and tested product!! There is, really no use re-inventing
        the wheel.

        A very un innovative mindset. Go ahead and plug all your code. I will reinvent the wheel If ever I have to coz I can

        1. Tapiwa ✔

          Do you develop software professionally? You might have heard of this thing called a ‘deadline’ – it determines. If you’re doing it in your free time, it’s all well & fine.

          Professionals do not create a new CMS/framework for each client/project – if they did, they wouldn’t last long in the business. Code reuse is good, it’s even better when you can reuse code written by someone else – like Joomla.

          We are there to provide a solutions; not a fancy, home-grown, look-I-am-a-rockstar-developer contraptions. In most cases, Joomla fits the bill perfectly (with minor additions, hopefully made by someone knowledgeable).

          1. Anonymous

             Yes I develop software professionaly and work for a company that looks to set a standard.

            Yes code reuse is good yu are very right. Unfortunately I think I have commented far enough on this thread. Im now tired to do it especially over the weekend when all Im thinking of is nothing good for human kind

    2. Anonymous

       You are a Saviour to the whole of Zimbabwe. You you my man know what you talking about!!!

      Someone give this man a Bells!

  10. GoDHanD

    Big companies are ok if they embrace the numerous CMS’s… To be honest this industry is the easiest to work in. For clients that don’t require a custom solution I just buy a template and use that and viola. Example if you charge a client $2000 then you spent $200 on a CMS and a template… You pocket $1800 for doing nothing :P. I do create custom website but I’m a blog specialist because there is no one size fits all to those… example http://www.game-sait.com

  11. Joe Black

    Would you hire these guys? 
    http://www.webdesign.org.zw/ $100 including domain and hosting and 30 emails … etc etc.

    1. Masalu

      @Joe, If you take a closer look at webdesign.org.zw you would actually see that its quite a big company thats only offering a cheap service to those that cant afford a $750 or $1500 website. The guys who designed that website are the same guys who designed http://www.myzimbabwe.co.zw and http://www.forsale.co.zw so certainly its quite a big company.

      1. Joe Black

        Thanks! Looking at those sites, including their own, has helped me answer my own question.

        I wouldn’t hire them, no matter how big they are 🙂

        1. GoDHanD

          I would never get a website from these guys… It just smells fishy. You know what they say. when something is too cheap there is something wrong with it. Just looking at their own website   I can tell that they have very poor design

      2. Webby

         Masalu these guys don’t design websites they are template modifiers all there are doing is killing the industry or as i see it there are making real web professionals shine and here are the url’s of where they downloaded their themes and templates from
        http://www.khairul-syahir.com/wordpress-dev/graphene-theme
        http://www.joomla-monster.com/free-templates/dj-0013-free-template.html
         

  12. Anonymous

     Cant someone just put a law to end all these Joomla love letters!!!

  13. Madziva

    JUST BEING A TECH PROPHET. SOMEONE IS GOING TO MAKE BILLIONS OUT OF THIS JOOMLA AND ZIM TECH GURUS ARE GOING TO DROOL OVER THAT ONE. JUST ME THINKING. THIS REALLY LOOKS LIKE A REPEAT SCRIPT. YOU DO NOT NEED MUCH COMPLICATIONS TO DO GREAT THINGS. SIMPLE THINGS WILL TAKE THIS WORLD FAAAAR. A COLLEGE SOCIAL NETWORK WHICH CAME AFTER GIANTS MYSPACE ET…AL IS NOW VALUED AT 100USBILLION. COMPLICATE AND DIE. SIMPLIFY AND LIVE. WHAT WE NEED NOW IS AN ECOSYSTEM, THE TECHNOLOGY IS THERE. JOOMLA, WORDPRESS, DRUPAL YOU NAME IT. THOSE WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND TECHNOLOGY DO NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JOOMLA AND WORDPRESS. HEY GUYS LETS WORK ON THE ECOSYSTEM AND MOVE AHEAD

    1. Anonymous

       Im suprised you started using Joomla just when it went shitty. Around 2 years ago is when they split into Joomla and Mambo and thats when developers started leaving the show and we saw the rise of Drupal and further rise of WP.org

      Yes maybe in Zimbabwe were things are just starting to crop under the door and all developers are busy trimming the bush with ancient frameworks. To a developer looking to built a sustainable career I would suggest you totally refrain from wasting time on Joomla.

      One fact I hate about Joomla is its badly done debugging and error notification system. Before I use a fframework I first look into just that simple but vital feature. I have learnt more from my bugs than anything else

  14. Anonymous

    Shouldn’t we have a Dev and Design face off sounds like some high-school pitcher I figure we could get to know about those that have been in the industry for the past  I dont know how many years

    1. Madziva

      only started using joomla in e past two years. also use all the other platforms depending on clients need. the idea is what we can do with the technology and how this will improve people’s lives. right we are arguing and we are on a WORDPRESS site. the idea is WORDPRESS in this case is making THIS very discussion possible!

      1. Anonymous

         This is acceptable use of a framework and WordPress is one of the actively and thoroughly done frameworks on the net. You get cleaner coded plugin on WP than Joomla coz WP is well documented and clean.

        You can tell a Joomla site by its wooden look but you could be decived not to think a site runs on WP

        1. tinm@n

           you are clueless about Joomla. Joomla isnt just an easy CMS on which all you ever do is download and install extension? what design pattern is joomla based in? ever heard of MVC? have you seen the API documentation? have you ever developed using it as a framework? what is acceptable use of a Framework? what is clean?

          you are just throwing words. no actual reference to an existing challenge YOU encountered as an implementer of a Joomla solution. what wooden look? a template is a template? blame the carpenter not the tool?

          trolling for the sake of trolling

          if you failed to implement something in Joomla, either you lacked the patience or you simply “failed” not that you tried.

          a true solutions developer will be flexible to use any tool available or practical for each unique project they encounter.

          1. Anonymous

             Firstly let me say yes I have worked with Joomla from 2008-2009 I made money off porting Joomla sites WordPress and Drupal. I however left the scene and now work on the most powerful and expensive CMS Microsoft SharePoint. Model View Controller yess sir by being a Microsoft Certified Professional Developer there is no slight doubt I would know that. Being someone who usualy like giving evidence please refer to my exam sheet http://on.fb.me/mUK1s8 I had 1000/1000 and the least I scored in any Microsoft Exam was 970/1000 . I thought you would love to know that I was an MVP in 2010.

            Now all that said lets leave it there. I would know clean code just by sight. Wooden look “puranga” just there nothing to it ancient and un crafted.

            “a true solutions
            developer will be flexible to use any tool available or practical for each
            unique project they encounter.”I have been qouted of saying “Development and design is art what matters is the creation and not the brushes” But I just cant help but look at what I see on the .co.zw space. And its seems to be a force of people charging onto the market with only the ability to work on Joomla and nothing esle frankly put framework agnostic devsWell maybe I failed to impliment ….. Im not hitting on the framework just alone I have seen joomla sites look like joomla. Just to clear this up I am the developer behind http://www.hertzner.co.za and that site doesnt at all look like a Joomla site.

            1. GoDHanD

              Great looking site… I can tell what type of a developer you are you put function over form but still maintain a nice balance. BTW the Web Hosting menu tab is screwed up, the text is floating and there is no BG.  

              I fail to strike a balance always having a bias towards function. If I had my way all my sites would have a legacy look.. 

              I too work with joomla, just not in the way most “web designers” do. I break down Joomla so that I have absolute control and always chasing after the 1s load time my current record for http://www.game-sait.com is 1.8s right now it’s at 4.25 after a test on Pingdom which is why I want to change hosts.

            2. tinm@n

               You still havent mentioned what is wrong with Joomla.

              you said:
              “You can tell a Joomla site by its wooden look but you could be decived not to think a site runs on WP”

              how on earth do you generalise Joomla sites to have one look? ever heard of templates? do you know you can create your own?

              and also said:

              “You get cleaner coded plugin on WP than Joomla coz WP is well documented and clean. ”

              Not documented?
              http://docs.joomla.org

              what is clean?

              the underlying code or are you talking third party templates?

              you also said:
              “Im suprised you started using Joomla just when it went shitty. Around 2
              years ago is when they split into Joomla and Mambo and thats when
              developers started leaving the show and we saw the rise of Drupal and
              further rise of”

              That is a blatant lie. In fact, the fork of that project  accelerated development under a community support. If you followed the development of the code base up to the most significant overhaul from 1.5, then you dont know what you are talking about.

              and again:
              “To a developer looking to built a sustainable career I would suggest you totally refrain from wasting time on Joomla.”

              again:
              “One fact I hate about Joomla is its badly done debugging and error
              notification system. Before I use a fframework I first look into just
              that simple but vital feature. I have learnt more from my bugs than
              anything else ”
              what do you mean badly?
              Clearly you have never used it. Unless you use(d) the least supported, legacy (1.x versions)…based on the original Mambo code. Even then, errors were clear.

              Current Native debug tools give you a very clear stack trace that help you narrow down when and what caused an error. You say you know MVC.

              Unless you created an extension in spaghetti code, you wouldnt be complaining.

              Regardless of that, if you have any experience working on a PHP dev environment you should know about debugging tools like Xdebug, that will give you  sufficient insight to be productive.

              I guess the reason behind it all is that you said:
              “I
              personally hate anything called Joomla”

              Clearly, you dont really know what you are talking about.

              Your brash declarations are unfounded and void of facts.

              You said
              “No wonder why Zim has the ugliest of websites!! Its coz your
              mindsets !!”

              Do you truly know them all?

      2. Sochdeveloper

        l wish l had joined earlier 🙂 A front end designer will love WordPress coz its clean Madziva na Nerudo hawine ane nharo lol but bottom line is a programmer is a backend developer and a designer is a front end designe rthe two never go along l think this explains it

        1. Anonymous

           Iwee ndiwe waloozer iwe none the less you know just how much I hate Joomla and its in my thick skin. This is the last time I bother even talking about it.

  15. buffdaddy

    I’m fascinated by this debate and it takes me back to the good old days – notepad. The first thing you did was open then close . The repeat the same for BODY, TITLE, etc. I remember the first time I used frontpage I was like wow you can do this then it was Dreamweaver and a case of super wow. Then we move to CSS and I remember the cgi and pearl scripts that used to get written. Developing SQL DB’s that pulled webpages and then created your server side includes – was fun. 

    I admit when cold fusion came I thought that was cheating and poor way of doing sites. That’s all moved on now and everyone talks of joomla. Call me a Luddite, someone who harks for the past but nothing beats the development of an original site. 

    How many website “developers” actually understand the code. Joomla is like Willowvale and their assembly from kits while developing is the proper motor factory. You get to design, create, test and adapt.

    These template sites have a place and are relevant for your SME’s and startups who are seeking a presence without a high cost but I will never understand a large company that uses that for its primary site. An investor relations site, yes but your main site – hell no. 
    For those of you out their creating, please continue, we need a whole lot more. 

    1. Anonymous

       The moment you mentiones FrontPage and then DW my eyes filled with water. Thats exactly the same pathline I took, FrontPage was just nothing but awesome its the reason I will never leave Microsoft. It was Dreamweaver / Photoshop should be version 5.5 and FireWorks then in those days the big thing I loved doing were those interactive cd thingy should have been Macromedia something something, DW was under Macromedia at the time right? And you used one key to unlock all ofthem.

      Yes my friend those days represented the true joy in the art of development. I will buy you beer for free! Just to geek it out I still have a Copy of FrontPage.

      I implimented my DB with Access oooouh my goodness just a simple CRUD implimentation would have me running around the house in full joy.

    2. Joe Black

      To this very day, the first things I install on a new PC are Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Photoshop (in that order).

      Let’s face it, you don’t really need to know PHP nowadays to “build” a PHP website. That’s a fact of life.

      And those kinds of sites (and those kinds of ‘developers’) do have a place, and also allow a semblance of a pro job without paying $2,000 for 40 hours of coding time.

      But, and here’s the BIG BUTT, I believe there’ll always be a place for the big houses as we call them … maybe not with the same model as is traditional (company, admin, design, coding departments) but with an evolved system.

      Keep your eyes peeled, guys … we might just be seeing something new soon.

      1. buffdaddy

        damn I forgot about PHP. never used that creature. photoshop is the second program I install after office. I don’t develop sites anymore but regularly use PS. Stopped before the big move to CS. 

      2. Tapiwa ✔

         I think it all falls to the differences between a website and a web application. Most people want websites, that is show people stuff. You don’t really need to be be a developer to create a website. Forget Joomla – any computer literate person can use Google for your Domain + Google pages have a website from domain registration to launch in 1 day, flat. All without having to know what the difference between ‘8pt’ and ‘8px’ is…

        Web applications is an whole different ball game. I suggest all developers, in the true sense of the word, realise that the game has changed. Stop moaning about how the bar has been lowered and/or how the lunch for professionals is being stolen. That’s disruption at it’s finest, move on to fields where your skills are indispensible. Just how many CMSes do we really need, anyway?

  16. Web Engineer

    i think web careers have generally transitioned as –  web designer… web developer… web engineer. The designer are all about the looks, the developers tried to use CSS, HTML etc to create good looking sites, but the engineers are creating good looking sites, going beyond the marketing department and putting businesses online – i mean a business can develop products, test the market, sell, receive payment, run customer support and manage the finances, operations and all on the web.
    the future is web engineers – the boys and girls who can make things look pretty and are not shy to write poetry (code) and run the whole government from their tablet. How its done is not the issue. Results matter.

    1. Anonymous

       I thik
      Designer : Photoshop Html and Css
      Developer : Backend
      Engineer : ?

  17. Rufaro Dhliwayo

    Everybody is an expert. Im a web designer but i have completed a couple of websites myself only because web developers have told me certain things cant be done. The real question is, in Zimbabwe, who can afford proper web development coz all I hear is “Vapfana vemacomputer muchanetsa.” We cant be making losses everytime because we want to take months to build a website. At the end of the day especially in our country, its all about who you know not what your skills are.

    1. Anonymous

       Thats the mentality thats killing the web community back there. There is lack of professionalism. But we cant give up just yet. I look to come back home to a mature community of dev and designers.

      Collectively we can change the space. If you educate a client on the best track they will inturn help their co assoc. The struglly is in removing the chuff of devs ripping the efforts of hard earned devs going the last mile to set a stanard.

      Zim devs are looking to settle for the least without setting a standard and thats exactly were a country gets left behind

  18. GoDHanD

    This discussion is going no-where… but we have one advantage right now. This discussion currently has what I’d assume to be competent Web Developers and Web Designers. Why don’t we start our own guild where we can discuss and share projects and hopefully prospective clients could use that database to find and partner up with Web Devs/Designers they think will best suit their needs. That way we control pricing and maintain a high standard. 

    (7±2) if you know what that means welcome to the club.

    1. Anonymous

       Good idea

  19. Anonymous

    @99cc7ce3550f7e6b3e22161a5bcdb561:disqus http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/02/02/joomla-1-6-vs-drupal-7-0/  quench your thirst I wont even bother re answering your question. TINYADVJ (This is not Another Drupal Versus Joomla take off”

    Joomla is for designers drupal for Developers. I last worked on Joomla during the split from Mambo to sub Joomla and lifew went on even better with my beloved Drupal.

    “Current Native debug
    tools give you a very clear stack trace that help you narrow down when and what
    caused an error. You say you know MVC.” – What does that have to do with the MVC programming methodology. Let me tell you what MVC is Mr Tinm – MVC is just but a structure and applies to anything you do in your day to day development tasks.
    I think you probably get the whole MVC idea wrong, you keep mentioning about it in the very wrong of contexts.

    A model handles your typical dussiness backend logic eg CRUD operations and all there is to it. Your controller aggregates data sources and channels or tunnels Model generated data to their respective Views as per request. In practice that approach can be done in any development setup. Even the simplest of an HTML site can have an MVC setup to it in actuall fact thats what we do everyday. You Ajax handles Business logic your Html is more like the controller and Css glorifies views or you could mention forms as views.

    I think we both have to much time to be asking bullshit.
    You said

    “No wonder why Zim has the ugliest of websites!! Its coz your

    mindsets !!”

    Do you truly know them all?”

    U expect me to answer that?

    1. tinm@n

       still you make assertions without facts.

      posting a link isnt an answer. there are countless websites that troll one platform in favour of the other. we could post websites for ever.

      “Joomla is for designers drupal for Developers.”

      Another misleading and wrong assertion. Drupal AND Joomla can be used by BOTH Designers and Developers.

      “I last worked on Joomla
      during the split from Mambo to sub Joomla and lifew went on even better
      with my beloved Drupal. ”

      During the split to Joomla would mean you were using either a beta or RC version. And you base your assertions on that? If you have no experience using even the post-beta, legacy version, then on what authority do you reach your conclusion? The website you posted? or because you fail to work with Joomla! ?

      “Current Native debug
      tools give you a very clear stack trace that help you narrow down when and what
      caused
      an error. You say you know MVC.” – What does that have to do with the
      MVC programming methodology…
      I think you probably get the whole MVC idea wrong, you keep mentioning about it in the very wrong of contexts.

      Because if you code your extension in pure MVC as prebscribed by the Joomla! framework, then you will take full advantage of its debugging features. I mentioned it intentionally and in the context of debugging.

      Why comment and assert when clearly you dont know it

      1. Anonymous

        I figure like wise you are using my wise words to plugin your Joomla love letters. Please do kindly present to me sites you worked on. I worked and have constantly been working on updating joomla sites I worked on. Hertzner run on the latest Joomla build and plans are to port it over to Drupal. 

        MVC doesnt at all have anything to the debugging bloat you are talking about and If thats how Joomla documents the MVC methodology or rather patern then thats gives me even a better reason to hate it. I should be able to debug my code even coded all in single files.

        I find commenting only creates more content for you.

        I will upload my human.txt files to mine and I will do so too.

        FACT RAIN OR THUNDER I WRITE MY CODE BY HAND!! NOT BY MOUSE CLICKS.

        Go on as usual and copy and paste my comments!

        1. Tapiwa ✔

          Hetzner intends to migrate to Ruby on Rails – not Drupal (as far as KonsoleH is concerned. Aside: they are hiring, if you’re A RoR dev).

          I hope you when you say “code by hand”, you don’t mean in textpad, because that would be really sub-optimal. IDEs are worth something (syntax highlighting, code completion, to mention a few benefits)

          One thing you said keeps bothering me: how do you implement MVC with ‘plain HTML’ – specifically, how can you implement a Controller in markup (which is what HTML is)?

          1. tinm@n

             oops

  20. Madziva

    Discussions are great but I feel some are choking others here

  21. Trustaldo

    Web development companies that failed to adapt will shut down and do not have a future. You can not build an online banking solutions with joomla and other complex online solutions. So real web developers need to align themselves with business look into sap intergration pastel intergration sage oracle erp etc

  22. Sochdeveloper

    Sorry l came too late to this but l cud not help but notice my good friend Nerudo blasting CMS again/Mt Nerudo with yr hatred for Joomla please post one website lin k of yrs here and l will tell you it says nothing about how you handle security i.e SQL Injection etc, session security etc,how you handle scalabilty and many other programming issues, l guarantee you will only tell us about the templating layer, CMS is bigger than tamplating.l say even if you doen use an open source CMS you have to be good enough and have the time to build a CMS of yr own why do l have to code a login every time…..

  23. Web Designer Developers

     Good stuff defined about web development , as the web application takes a major participation in any successful business the responsibility comes to web development companies to handle the pressure & make some good quality web application for business organizations .
    Thanks for the writing a great post .

  24. Prosper Chikomo

    This is what i am talking about: http://www.biztechafrica.com/article/zim-start-challenges-africas-mobile-landscape/2365/

    The article is about a Zimbabwean guy who is doing something like what i am talking about. At his website htt5p://www.zimbile.com, you can create a mobile website in under 5 minutes and everything is automatic.

    Compare that to paying US$250 to US$2000 or even more for a mobile site.

    Compare it to Project Brandify http://www.techzim.co.zw/2012/02/project-brandify-will-build-you-a-website-for/ which will make your website for free by hand and charge you for US$9,95 a month for hosting.

    In under 10 days he got 285 members. to me that is a good sign and members create mobile sites for free! The model is simialr to the one I mentioned above which WordPress uses.

    You cannot create another Facebook creating accounts or websites by hand.

  25. PSD To Wordpress

    I got lot of useful information from this site. I recommended
    every one to read this site,Great article. Thanks for sharing!

2023 © Techzim All rights reserved. Hosted By Cloud Unboxed