that FinalSite is a development environment. I do=20
agree with the rest of his comments about=20
creating unsustainable systems, which can happen with whatever you choose.
I am currently in the middle of implementing=20
FinalSite and Veracross to replace a custom=20
solution, I had a WH site at my last school and I=20
also structured an entire website with Frontpage=20
at a previous school. I also have experience in=20
corporations with design and development, and=20
share Jonathan's concern with sustainability.=20
Schools, including mine, have histories of trying=20
to make-do with limited resources and the result=20
is, predictably, one person's cobbled "solution"=20
that worked while the person was still there, but=20
as the person left, things fall apart. We intend=20
to avoid that problem, which is one reason we=20
chose FinalSite. (WH can also provide the same=20
level of support, but FS provided a couple of benefits that we needed.)
However, Jonathan really illustrates another=20
issue when he mentions "professional labor or=20
in-house talent" and that is professional labor=20
is in for the short term, and in-house talent=20
seldom is more than a talented amateur attempting=20
to do a professional job. The result is that=20
projects are developed for the present with only=20
a limited consideration for the future.=20
Communications are too important to be left to=20
ad-hoc development and management.
Derrel
At 02:11 PM 12/4/2008, Jonathan Mergy wrote:
>I have not played with Finalsite, but it seems to me at a quick glance to=
be
>far more of a development environment that can be molded with professional
>labor or in-house talent to adapt to what the school wants. In following=
the
>thread on ISEL, it seems that is a strong selling point for the product for
>those that have bought the environment. I totally understand that value
>proposition. The only issue I have with that is that typically these sorts
>of systems can become so catered and tweaked that they cease to be the
>standard development environment and start to really become custom
>solutions.
>
>Again, my experience is NOT in schools and I have seen scenarios play out
>for others like this in corporate environments where software systems can=
be
>customized so much, they cease to have the value of upgradability of the
>standard core toolsets and layers of the base product. It is all done with
>the best intentions and driven by the desire to hit the nail on the head=
for
>temporal customer requirements, but long term it can be detrimental for the
>customer to give them everything they want and cross the line from what I
>would call 'personalization' of the software environment for the site to
>full-blown 'customization' of the software to generate a site 'version' for
>the customer which can eventually make you in the business of software
>developers for your custom site.
>
>Probably have gone on too long here, but at least in working with WH, there
>is a definite structure that is underlying all the WH installations that
>takes into account the upgrade and feature set improvements because there
>are certain areas that just cannot be messed with or should not be messed
>with to maintain common architecture across the customer-base.
_________________________________________________________
Derrel Fincher
Director of Information and Communication Technology
Graded=96The American School of S=E3o Paulo
(Associa=E7=E3o Escola Graduada de S=E3o Paulo)
Av. Pres. Giovanni Gronchi, 4710
S=E3o Paulo, SP, 05724-002, Brazil
dfincher@graded.br | http://www.graded.br |T:+55-11-3747-4837
_________________________________________________________
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