Think Say Do - Web Applications, User Experience

The Secret to A Maintainable, Growing Site!

Everyone wants a successful web site or web project. Success can of course be defined in so many ways. It is subjective at times. But, there are certainly objective measures of success too.

One aspect of a successful project is maintainability. Maintainability is the ability to update and grow a project long after it completes. It’s the hundreds of changes made after a site goes live. It’s the years of service a solid site gives it’s patron. Businesses benefit greatly from the low cost of ownership of a maintainable site. Web sites and applications continue to live, breath, and evolve long after a project finishes. As an example, I still make regular updates to a major site I wrote over seven years ago. In fact, I just spoke with the IT director today about adding some major new functionality… to seven year old code!

Over the years, I have tried many methods for writing web applications. From old “spaghetti” code (a mess to maintain over the long-run), to basic OOP, to MVC (like Ruby on Rails), to event-driven programming (like Visual Basic). In fact, I enjoy researching and reading about different programming methodologies. But, at the end of the day it is about being able to maintain and grow a site for years to come.

Maintainability is especially important for small, one-man shops and small non-profits and businesses. Here is the secret to great maintainability: a short development stack.

What do I mean by that? Years ago, growing up in a town village of about 150 people in rural Illinois, we used to go to the local bar/coffee house. I remember as a kid being asked if I wanted a short-stack or a tall-stack of pancakes. Of course, the tall stack looked tempting with all those layers of syrup, but ultimately the small stack proved to be the best option for a growing boy.

The same applies to you if you are a small business, non-profit, or one-man shop. You want the shortest stack possible on your web site. By that I mean, you want the fewest layers of code you can have that makes sense. Each layer of code adds more complexity and distances the developer from what is really going on.

For example, on most web sites you have these layers:

1. Web Browser (Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc.)
2. HTML/CSS
3. HTML/CSS Framework (Custom, Blueprint, etc.)
4. Javascript
5. Javascript Library (jQuery, RightJS, Mootools, etc.)
6. Web Server (Apache, IIS)
7. Programming Environment (PHP, Java, Ruby, ColdFusion, etc.)
8. Programming Libraries
9. Web Application Framework (Zend, Ruby on Rails, WordPress, etc.)
10. Web Application (WordPress, Expression Engine, etc.)
11. Custom Code

See that tall stack? And it can be far taller too! So, when you are evaluating options, look at the complexity and depth of your stack … the shorter the better usually. You can more readily track down bugs, add new features, and adapt to changes. It allows you to work like the Internet with agility, moving at the speed of modern business. And, it keeps your sanity. Maintainability is key to a successful long-term project.

~Collin Schneider
Founder / Systems Designer
Think Say Do, LLC
P: 317-489-9184