[thelist] your opinion solicited on coding specs I requested from contractor

[Tara Cleveland]

Sorry, I'm a bit late with this, but I'd add two things to your specs.

1. Specify the doc type you want them to use. I can't tell you the number of
times I've had people not use doc types at all.
2. Specify that they must use classes that are a description of the style, not
what the style is used for. For example, instead of using <span
class="Intro_title">Hello world!</span> They should put <strong
class="large_bold">Hello world!</strong>. I find that CSS, especially in a
large project with different people using it at different times gets very
confusing. So people end up using <span class="Intro_title"> on things that are
not an introduction or a title, or they make up a new class, exactly the same
as intro_title and your style sheets become unmanageable and redundant.

HTH,

Tara Cleveland

spinhead wrote:

> I wrote this last year for the guys who coded our site. We're coming up on a
> complete redesign (new VP of Marketing) and I'm interested in your take on
> it. My perspective is that I don't have time to do the initial coding, but I
> know I'll be maintaining it. I've focused on the things that I've found
> difficult or frustrating in the past.
>
> Any glaringly stupid requirements? Am I missing anything really important?
> (The last group claimed this was perfectly acceptable, then delivered
> something which was pretty close but didn't work in Netscape, so they blew
> away all concept of modular code and copied and pasted 15k chunks into every
> page to get the navigation to work; therefore, I don't have a real feel for
> whether or not this works in the real world.)
>
> The best suggestion will be rewarded with a happy face. Like this :)
>
> Oh; you thought I'd e-mail you a pint or something?
>
> spinhead
>
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