About

What the heck is this, anyway?

by Ben Goren

When I was a young Web designer, I naturally created my Web pages by writing the HTML by hand. I say, “naturally,” because, in those days, there was no such thing as a Web page editor. The only way to do it was by hand.

That worked for small, simple sites, but I knew right away that it wouldn’t work when I started on my first big job—creating an online catalog (and the rest of the site) for Summit Records. (We’ve long since gone our separate ways. I’ve had nothing at all to do with their current site, and haven’t for quite some time.) Back then, they had a bit over a hundred CDs in their catalog, and I had no interest whatsoever in trying to design each of them by hand. And what if somebody decided that the background color was worng, or didn’t like the font? Changing everything by hand would be no fun at all.

So, I hacked together a bunch of Unix shell scripts that would assemble a page from pieces. For a recording whose catalog number was, say, DCD116, I’d have a folder called just that. Inside would be a file called, “Title,” which was the title of the album and no more. Another file might be called, “Artist,” and another “Tracks,” and so on. My shell scripts would look for all the files with the proper names and insert their contents into the right order in various HTML files. When I made changes to an album, I’d re-run one or a few scripts and copy the result to the Web server.

Believe it or not, it actually worked. But, man, I’ve come a long way since.

Since then, of course, lots of companies have made programs designed to manage Web sites. I’ve tried lots and not liked one of ’em. The easy-to-use ones are far too restrictive. The flexible ones are far too cumbersome. So, I’ve kept on making and refining my own tools. At one point, I was using an Access database to store the page elements and Visual Basic to assemble them. Ick. Now, It’s all done with Mason, with Postgresql as the data store. Everything is done live, in real time, on the server. All pages are edited through a special link on the Web site itself.

And that’s where this site comes in. It’s a real, live site running on the latest, current version of my Web site engine. Don’t believe me? You can Edit it yourself. (Username: guest; password: guest)

If this is something you’re interested in for your own site, give a holler. I’m sure we can work something out.

Cheers,

b&

P.S. Since it’s possible to edit this site, please don’t be upset if somebody does exactly that. Just use the link at the bottom of the page to reset everything. And, please, do be considerate when making changes yourself. b&