Long-term maintainability? (was: How much tweaking post-generation?)

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Long-term maintainability? (was: How much tweaking post-generation?)

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dhempy

Posts: 40

Posted: 06/18/2004, 4:35 PM

I find myself in a very similar situation as Mr. Simcich describes below. I'm interested in hearing how seasoned CCS users would answer his questions today, three years later.

Quote :
(Quoted from http://forums.codecharge.com/posts.php?post_id=38042 )

Posted: 02/20/2001, 2:12 PM

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CodeCharge looks pretty interesting. ... I do have a question for you - about post
code generation editing.

As far as I can tell, the page design (html etc) is handled in cc via a
template engine. That's cool. But I also get the impression that cc
isn't really set up for wysiwyg page design ala Dreamweaver or FP. And
thus it's expected that one would tweak the generated html by hand or
via DW or whatever. My concern is that if there is any substantial
amount of customization of the cc generated html, republishing could be
considered a bit of a bummer.

I think CC creates it's html output as a separate operation, distinct
from the server side stuff. I'm guessing that this output division is
what makes it workable. Can someone from CodeCharge and/or some users
comment on this?

Thanks

--
Michael Simcich
AccessTools

I'm having a hard time deciding about CodeCharge Studio. It is clearly an amazing product with tremendous potential, and the price is an absolute steal. The part I'm trying to figure out is if it creates sustainable projects. I'm not a freelance consultant...I've got 10+ years until retirement, and I'll be working on my company's web site until then. I can't give up long-term maintainability and day-to-day server reliability at any price. (Not to imply that freelance workers can eschew those requirements, of course!)

So does a CCS project last forever, or if it is best used to generate a starting point to then convert that output to a manually maintained site? When a table gets two new fieds added a year later that need to be added to the editing pages, is that a one-hour fix in the CCS IDE? (The demo projects have shown me how easy it is, but I'm looking for insight to real-world experience here.) Or will I need to start wading through some pretty hefty generated code? Or will I shrug it off and recreate the entire project from scratch in a day or two?

Also, I'm not yet convinced if it is best contained to fairly simple projects where we're simply listing and editing rows of data in a grid from one or possible two tables at a time (ie. typical staff administration tools), or if it is up to the job of complex presentation issues (ie. generating and scoring a quiz joining a half-dozen tables in a highly stylized html layout). How much presentation tweaking can I do from what the wizards give me, and still expect all the wizardly tools to be able to maintain the project in the future? Again, I'm asking for experience from the trenches here.

Can you offer any insight on your own experiences with the product?

Thanks in advance,
-dave

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David Hempy
Director of Broadcast and Education Technology
Kentucky Educational Television
800-333-9764

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E43509

Posts: 283

Posted: 06/24/2004, 6:38 PM

I use CCS on simple to very complex sites. I actually put both the generated files and the CCS project files in our configuration management system and indicate what version of CCS was used to generate. I have not yet found that I had to step away from being able to generate all code via CCS.
My only issue (as I do a fair amount of custom coding in CCS) is that I projects generated in one version of CCS does always 'upgrade' well to the next version. I'll steal some of their generated code to put into a custom event and then next release may have changed the parameters I was using from their library and now my 'borrowed' logic is broke.

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dataobjx

Posts: 181

Posted: 06/29/2004, 6:39 AM

I have been using CCS for over a year, producing VERY complex financial applications, medical applications, Insurance applications and so forth.... heavy stuff. There has never been an occasion where CCS has failed me on the heavy stuff.

You asked...
"When a table gets two new fieds added a year later that need to be added to the editing pages, is that a one-hour fix in the CCS IDE?"

My answer is that it's actually a a 5-10 minute job to add the field to the database, and then add the field to CCS and regenerate.

You asked...
"is up to the job of complex presentation issues?"

Presentation is in the hands of the designer. Really. It certainly is up to the job of complex presentation issues! Absolutely. Utilizing CSS (style sheets), and modifying the grid and record forms to have the look and feel you want is very simple and only limited by ones artistic ability (we developers are better at logic - than at drawing... so get a web designer if you need one and keep the development aspect for yourself. I've yet to meet a Good developer who was also expert at images, etc.)

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dhempy

Posts: 40

Posted: 06/29/2004, 3:53 PM

Thanks for the replies, both of you.

While there's a lot I haven't figured out yet, I am confident CCS will pay for itself several times over. I've just purchased a full copy, and have really set about to figure out all the ins and outs.

-dave

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David Hempy
Director of Broadcast and Education Technology
Kentucky Educational Television
800-333-9764

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