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Not to mention Eric's statement (at least the part about making it difficult for others to work on) was completely true. They even have competitions for who can write the most obfuscated source code.
Just so there's no confusion: who are they (my emphasis, twice)?
Just so there's no confusion: who are they (my emphasis, twice)?
I think Chris' remarks were tongue in cheek... especially since the mere fact that there are such competitions in no way proves anything about the code that was actually written to power the CFC website. Even if that code is old, was badly written or not commented or any other cardinal programming sin, it doesn't mean it should automatically be a candidate for rewrite.
I doubt there has been a proper analysis of the website coding - more likely the folks who most recently inherited the care of that website looked at it and were able to answer the question 'how bad can it possibly be?'
I think Chris' remarks were tongue in cheek... especially since the mere fact that there are such competitions in no way proves anything about the code that was actually written to power the CFC website. Even if that code is old, was badly written or not commented or any other cardinal programming sin, it doesn't mean it should automatically be a candidate for rewrite.
I doubt there has been a proper analysis of the website coding - more likely the folks who most recently inherited the care of that website looked at it and were able to answer the question 'how bad can it possibly be?'
Of course the far going conclusions can not be done but:
meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0"
meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document"
Of course the far going conclusions can not be done but:
meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0"
meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document"
I would agree that FrontPage (any version) was total crap ...
Using anything other than a simple text editor for maintaining a website means you are likely going to be dependent (to some degree) on the editor.
Exactly, Egis. Once again, you have hit the nail on the head. They were not employees of the Chess Federation of Canada. Those employees may have created something difficult to maintain, but a complete and reasonable explanation is:
they used toolish tools to mark-up web pages;
they were under constant pressure to do things other than document their code;
they didn't expect to be fired;
when they were fired, it was too late to document the code.
As a counter-example, I left the CFC of my own accord in 1984, and gave six months' notice. I compiled a book of CFC Office Procedure, which Tom O'Donnell told me that he and Deen Hergott consulted frequently, years later. The CFC Rating and Membership programs, which I had written circa 1980, may not be shining examples of code, but they were kept up to date by various CFC employees until 1997, when new technologies such as Microsoft and The Internet occasioned a rewrite.
I doubt that any CFC employess intentionally wrote difficult code. The CFC Office never was Office Space.
PS -- The CFC website is back up. Ratings are current to yesterday, though I notice that at least two Labour Day tournaments (Fredericton and St. John's) aren't in the update. Maybe Occam's Razor for that involves Canada Post.
I, and probably a bunch of other software developers are still waiting for an apology from Mr. Van Dusen:
As for the site itself, it was developed by the previous office staff and typical of most software developers, it was made in such a way to make it difficult for anyone except for the creator to maintain and upgrade the site. That is how software specialists keep the revenues flowing with follow-on maintenance contracts. The fact is the budget presented at this year's CFC AGM set aside money to develop a new web site as well as a web magazine. The attendees of the meeting including Bob Armstrong were not too happy about what they perceived as putting good money after bad regarding the web site and the e-magazine.
As for the CFC site, let's hope this episode serves as a warning. Here are my recommendations:
if the site is running on a computer that is managed by CFC staff or volunteers, it's time to switch to a professional hosting company. Let someone else take care of the grundge work - they will do it better and cheaper.
if the site is running on some ancient database, it's time to move it to MySQL or whatever the hosting company provides.
the CFC site, just before the attack, was an embarrassing hodge podge of the old site and whatever got grafted onto it. Consider moving to a modern, free CMS such as Drupal (my favorite), or Joomla. There are armies of volunteer and mercenary programmers to support these systems.
I, and probably a bunch of other software developers are still waiting for an apology from Mr. Van Dusen:
As for the site itself, it was developed by the previous office staff and typical of most software developers, it was made in such a way to make it difficult for anyone except for the creator to maintain and upgrade the site. That is how software specialists keep the revenues flowing with follow-on maintenance contracts. The fact is the budget presented at this year's CFC AGM set aside money to develop a new web site as well as a web magazine. The attendees of the meeting including Bob Armstrong were not too happy about what they perceived as putting good money after bad regarding the web site and the e-magazine.
As for the CFC site, let's hope this episode serves as a warning. Here are my recommendations:
if the site is running on a computer that is managed by CFC staff or volunteers, it's time to switch to a professional hosting company. Let someone else take care of the grundge work - they will do it better and cheaper.
if the site is running on some ancient database, it's time to move it to MySQL or whatever the hosting company provides.
the CFC site, just before the attack, was an embarrassing hodge podge of the old site and whatever got grafted onto it. Consider moving to a modern, free CMS such as Drupal (my favorite), or Joomla. There are armies of volunteer and mercenary programmers to support these systems.
Yeah, I let that slagging of software developers slide since it was obviously from someone ill-informed.
Vince pointed out elsewhere that he used Joomla (when he was grafting stuff on the website for -$8/hour {yes the negative sign is deliberate}) Vince knows what he is doing; the previous CFC president did not know squat.
When someone requires you do something without supplying the proper tools and resources, you can either hack at it or refuse to do it. Vince chose to do the best he could under the most onerous circumstances [likely he felt the benefits were more important than making a stand - you have to pick your battles]. He and the other Executive staff were rewarded for working day and night for essentially no compensation by being sacked. I commend them for their efforts.
Well, google is reporting www.chess.ca as an attack site again as of just a minute ago. So they don't seem to have done anything to actually fix the problem.
A quick glance at the code shows an ancient table based layout with no document type declaration, no significant use of CSS, and over a hundred html syntax errors. A site straight out of the 1990's in other words.
No attempt should be made to fix this mess. It needs to be torn down and started over from scratch.
The ratings database is an application with business logic that as far as I know cannot be bought off the shelf. Are you voluntering to write a new application in MySQL free of charge and support it in perpetuity ?
Last edited by Duncan Smith; Friday, 18th September, 2009, 06:02 PM.
The ratings database is an application with business logic that as far as I know cannot be bought off the shelf. Are you voluntering to write a new application in MySQL free of charge and support it in perpetuity ?
That seems like a stretch to think that? I would think the database calls could be replaced but then, maybe that is wishful thinking too.
None of us (except perhaps Vince) can really relate to the state of the old system... that is part of the problem; the CFC Executive doesn't understand it either and they are relying on advice from one party (so far).
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