Suddenly summer is over. Whoops! I forgot to go to the beach!
Time flies when you're growing a new business and this summer I chose to spend a lot of my time building a data driven web site from the ground up. I've done lots of desktop software development but I've never really gotten into web technology that deeply before. So of course that meant many long hours glued to my computer and reading lots of very thick technical books.
My friend Matt just returned from a trip to a beach of sorts. He and his wife hiked for three days along the rugged coast of the Bay of Fundy.
"We had an amazing time," Matt tells me. "We covered a circuit of 50 kilometres. The scenery was spectacular."
"It was more physically demanding than we expected. The elevation not as high as our hike up Mount Washington but because of the ravines it was lots more work."
Matt described the price they had to pay for this experience: bruised feet, bleeding toes, and sheer exhaustion.
"We were more sore and tired than after running a marathon."
Sounds like a great time I think to myself. And then it occurs to me how marvellously Matt's hiking story illustrates my own journey of ups and downs as I built that web site.
My objective wasn't to avoid being out in the sun but to map out a deeper understanding of how to connect a web site's user interface front-end to a functioning, data driven, back-end. Some might call me a glutton for punishment - it would be a lot easier to just contract out the implementation side of things - but that would be like using postcards to illustrate a photo album. It's more of a thrill and an invaluable education to go there personally and experience the reality of the coding process.
Why would I bother? Precisely because gathering this kind of experience and expertise is the foundation of The User Advocate Group - to bridge the gap between end users and engineers. Building the web site was a great opportunity to explore the deeper side of web software engineering and to learn much more about the obstacles that engineers encounter when building web applications.
So where is this web site? It's almost ready. We're working with the site's chief editor to put the finishing touches on the content. Stay tuned for the link...