[thesite] Additions to default CSS file

[Madhu Menon]

At 06:24 AM 11/10/2001, you wrote:
>er... mccreath was the last keeper of the CSS... there's been so
>much changed in there that i have no idea what's up...

Which brings up a good point. Are we treating the evolt.org project like a 
"real" site development project. If so, there must be revision history 
records for all changes made to code, css, etc. At my last company, there 
was no such thing when I joined. Everyone working on the project had access 
to the CSS files. When something went wrong, the finger-pointing would begin.

I solved the problem by introducing a strict version control process for 
all elements of the project, including the CSS. I only let the Production 
Lead and the Site Producer control the CSS file, and if something needed to 
be changed, there would be a note made in the revision history explaining 
what was changed and why it was necessary to change it. This increased 
accountability and also made it easier to convince clients when they said 
things like, "hey, I never asked for that to be changed to purple!".

Shouldn't we have the same? It's trivial to do this in something like 
Excel. Heck, even a text file would do. A simplified version for the CSS 
would record:

1) Date
2) Changes made - what was added, what was removed
3) Change made by [author]
4) Reason for change
5) Impact analysis - what parts of the site it will affect (OK, you can 
leave this out if you're so inclined)

None of us have perfect memories. 6 months down the road, you might be left 
wondering why you don't have .hover for a certain class. Let's make a 
simple text file to record these changes somewhere.

Regards,

Madhu

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Madhu Menon
User Experience Consultant
e-mail: webguru at vsnl.net