My First Paid Job as a Web Developer! Created 15 years ago2009-04-17 20:58:29 UTC by Tito

I know TWHL's forum is mostly for mappers by mappers talking about, well......maps. Nothing wrong with that, I like maps so much I can't get enough of them! Now, with that said I also know for a fact that their are among us here a few good and so-so webmasters, people with a fairly good or better grasp of doing websites as a hobby or even as a living like I find myself doing of late. Some of you might already had the fortune (or misfortune - depends on the way you see it, I guess) of coming across one of my earlier and strangest sites I have made from scratch: www.VirtualHL.info

My Virtual HL site is definitely a hobby on the side, nothing serious. Looking back now on it, the way it looks and all, I am not all too happy with it on the source code side of things. But at least I still get a few hits a day, so it's not a total loss for my goofing-off hobby site. Now, I mentioned that I am doing a little of e-commerce on the side too, and just recently got done doing a paid job for a client friend of mines that owns a pizza restaurant. This website that I did for the pizzeria is not just to showcase the restaurant and it's food menu, oh no.....it's more than that! The site's navigation menu is actually a full fledge ordering form connected to a remotely hosted shopping cart which in turn is connected to the PayPal gateway. So the whole idea here is that when a potential local customer visits the site from their place of work or home's computer, and let's say they are in the mood for some pizza, all they have to do is start selecting the pizza size they want, then they can add all the toppings they want from a list of 56 flavors, and once they are done selecting what they want, it's just a matter of filling out the shopping cart form with the credit card details, and submit the order.

Like all of you know, when the contents of a shopping cart are submitted online, a copy is sent as an email message back to the vendor's email box. But for the website I did for my client's pizza shop, I added another thing to this whole deal. You see, whenever an order is made on the pizza site, the submitted order form message gets re-routed through a fax server, which then converts it to a analog fax signal, which then is automatically sent to a fax machine located in the pizza restaurant. This way, the owner of the pizzeria does not have to be in front of a PC all the time checking to see if any orders came in, because the fax machine will take care of that and will let know the pizzeria manager of any incoming order with a special ringing sound. Between the order submition and it getting to the fax machine, it takes about 45 seconds to a minute or so.

So, to wrap this up.....I would humbly like to especially ask the fellow webmasters in the house to check out my first paid web development job and if possible, give some constructive critique. You know what, the heck with it.......everybody is welcome to check it out. Now, before you do, there is one little thing about the website: Due to the fact that my client's pizza restaurant is located in Spanish speaking Puerto Rico, just like I am too, the website is also in Spanish. But it should really be no big deal for most to get an idea of the contents on the site, since a good part of Spanish is similar to English anyway. In fact, many of the same words with the same meaning in both languages are spelled the same! Well, here's the URL to the website: www.WaldyPizza.com

Needs more web standards. Get rid of tables for layout, for starters, they're old.

Cool fax hax though.

At first, I thought about the site's web standards being up to date when I went out to do this website, but the truth is, I was under a very tight deadline to get this job done right away without delay, or else forfeit part of the pay if I took too long to do it. So using FrontPage, I whipped up most of the site as fast as I could with the WYSIWYG tools.

FrontPage? Pfffffffffffffffffffff
Using FrontPage is really the worst thing one could possibly do when designing a website. There are much, much better editors out there for free if you like WYSIWYG editors.
Try Amaya.

When I see things like this:

<FONT color="#0000FF" face="Arial"><B>

on a website I most of the time press CTRL+W without thinking.

The site isn't clear. It's too much red, and the pizza man and the counter is unnecessary. The menu is disturbing. The menu hover effects doesn't work without JavaScript, even tho it would be very simple to make the same effect using only CSS. Too many big pictures at the bottom. Because you use frames the URL doesn't change in the address bar so you can't bookmark anything but the front page. On some pages there is no menu?
At least the order pizza system seems to be easy to use. However the "Total" thing doesn't work without JavaScript. And when it doesn't work without JavaScript it shouldn't show up without JavaScript.

The following text will not be seen after you upload your website, please keep it in order to retain your counter functionality

Should that text still be there?

I'm sorry, but there are many improvements needed.

To potatis_invalid: You keep saying "doesn't work without JavaScript". You make it sound like if it's a problem, which makes me ask the question....Do you have JavaScript enabled on your browser? As far as I know, having JavaScript enabled on the browser is a default setting. Did you turned off yours? I know some people do that for security reasons.

Now, as for the looks of things: When you go out to make a commercial site for a paying customer that gives you strict instructions on how he wants to see his site look like, what graphics he wants on it, what color he wants and so on, there is not much you can do about it as a paid developer, except to do what you are told and paid to do. Let me ask you a question: Have you ever heard of the term "The customer is always right?" Well guess what, the customer is always right, even if he's dead wrong!

So yea, some of the things you bring up that you don't like, I brought them up too with my client, but just like I already mentioned: He's way or the highway! Trust me when I say this, I don't like it as much as you do when it comes to sloppy work (at least done on purpose or without a choice).

I'm sorry, but there are many improvements needed.

Now that I do agree with you. I never did say it was perfect. Remember, I am still learning the craft while I make a living out of it.

You make it sound like if it's a problem, which makes me ask the question....Do you have JavaScript enabled on your browser?

So you know, you're asking your question to the 'wrong' person. It is most certainly a problem, by definition. It really should be equipped for everyone regardless if they're javascript enabled or not. Creating rollovers with CSS is a lot more simple than doing it in javascript.. and more people can use it that way.

Well guess what, the customer is always right, even if he's dead wrong!

Assuming he is 'dead wrong'.. that's where you, the paid developer, should be ready to argue based on your experiences and tell him what he needs. Even if he tells you to do it his way, its your responsibility to experiment. Your phrase is a bit absolute to be correct. There's always a degree of freedom in between specifications.

Trust me when I say this, I don't like it as much as you do when it comes to sloppy work

Did that come off wrong or what? To say he likes sloppy work more than you is bullshit. As much as it annoys the hell out of me, potatis still finds time to point out the extremely specific bugs of TWHL. That tells us his standards go beyond what you even understand. Thats not to say that you couldn't understand and recognize what he does in the future, its just that your statement is wrong... for now

On that note, you really should learn CSS. Assuming you're fluent with CSS, a website can be made extremely quickly. Time shouldn't be a particular issue. The code is also easier to read and maintain as well. It would also look a lot nicer, as CSS provides a fuckload of options when it comes to formatting anything.

On that note, you really should learn CSS. Assuming you're fluent with CSS, a website can be made extremely quickly. Time shouldn't be a particular issue. The code is also easier to read and maintain as well. It would also look a lot nicer, as CSS provides a fuckload of options when it comes to formatting anything.

You won't get an argument from me on that. I will see to it using CSS on my next site.

Crap! I didn't know what each link did and I accidently ordered a pizza :S

Anyway the site is basic and straight the point. A lot of clients aren't too bothered about a work of art.

Why thanks for your kind words there, Habboi. Oh by the way, is that a picture of you on your avatar in Super Saiyan mode?

http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_intro.asp >_>

Why, yes it is Tito. Tis every DBZ fans dream PUSH ON THROUGHHHH!

To potatis_invalid: You keep saying "doesn't work without JavaScript". You make it sound like if it's a problem

Oh boy. Read up on graceful degradation in favour of (and this is important) accessability. Of course, this mandates proper use of web standards for both HTML and CSS (by the way, seperating the layers of a web site is warmly recommended, both in terms of accessibility and maintenance of a site) . Trust me, it will make life a lot easier regarding cross browser computability, error tracking and the ever-so-important SEO in the long run.

I know this might be a lot to take in and consider at first case, but start by learning proper, valid, semantic HTML (it's not hard), styled by valid CSS and the rest will come easy. Especially if you hang around useful help channels like #css and #html on freenode, or read useful tutorials on sites like htmldog.

http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_intro.asp

Avoid w3schools. They're not affiliated with W3 and have been known to advice bad practice as well as using examples containing syntax errors. There're better sources (like the W3 specs).

I use their references more than their tutorials ;o