jonathan stegall

It’s that time again. If you make websites, you should take the survey from A List Apart. It’s a beautiful thing.

I’ve written a few posts about the issues that arise, and things that can be learned, through spending one’s time working on a very large website.

One of the most significant issues that I have not yet mentioned is passion for design. A good web designer is an artist. An artist needs to have passion, or as far as I’m concerned she is no longer an artist. That passion will lead a web designer to be concerned that her designs are of the highest quality, that she is aware of current technologies, current trends (both so that her designs are not out of date, and so that she can continue to push or go against those trends), current issues and advancements, and so on.

One of the things I have learned about working on a very large website is that it can be difficult to maintain a passion for design. Many large websites have decision-makers that don’t care about design at all, and are in charge of deciding how websites look, how they function, and what kind of changes or additions get approved. Many other large websites have lots of people that care about design, but they may be on different skill and competency levels, or have different levels of authority, or simply have clashing tastes.

When these kind of issues arise, a web designer that is passionate about his art can run into various roadblocks that can prevent work of the highest quality. Subjective decisions may be passed down from superiors, or financial decisions may prevent certain things from happening, or technological decisions may prevent other things from happening.

When any of these things happen, a designer can find it difficult to maintain that passion. It can get easier to give up on important issues, or feel like design does not get the importance it deserves, or any number of other emotional and mental issues may arise.

I’m aware that this also happens outside of large websites, and have experienced it there. I believe, though, that it is a different issue on large websites because these designers don’t get another client the next week, or the next month, or the next quarter. What kind of solutions can maintain this passion on the same website, month after month, decision after decision?

I want to let you in on one of my greatest fears. And one of my greatest hopes. I wrote recently about the ways I’ve grown into things of emergent, and before that how I grew into the underground and have desired to reach out there.

For a little more background on how I got to my current place, I want to give a little more history. While I was in high school, trying to un-learn some things that I had learned before I met Jesus, and trying to figure out what those things meant and what the new things meant, and how to put it all together, I had to figure out what to do about college. I felt strongly that I needed to learn ministry, so I went to a A/G college that is now a university, and pursued a B.S. in Church Ministries with a Bible concentration.

There, one of the first things I was faced with was the question of how I would financially support the kind of ministry I wanted to do. Prior to this, I hadn’t thought about it, at least not in any in-depth way. This was my idealism. It occurred to me then, though, that I could use and enhance the skills I had in web design to support myself. I could create websites on a relatively flexible schedule, do a lot of original, creative work, and make enough money to support myself (and my family, if I were to get one) and also hopefully to support a ministry.

Thus, I had become somewhat cynical of the church. I believed it didn’t care about the kind of ministry that I wanted to do (which, to some extent, is true, though I think it is less true than it was seven years ago when I was preparing to graduate from high school). I benefited from my education even so, much more than I expected. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. My theology and spirituality and hope for the church as a whole. and my part in it, were shaped in powerful ways there, and I was fortunate to meet and marry an amazing woman as well. But, I had traded the first idealism for another idealism, that I could quickly transition into funding a ministry from the creation of great websites.

When I finished the first degree, we weren’t yet financially able to leave Florida, and Florida is still quite behind in technology, and also art, education. So, I pursued another bachelor’s degree, in Interactive Media, at an art school. I learned a lot through it, as well, and then was finally able to leave Florida and see seasons again. Also, I became extremely fortunate to become a part of Revolution Atlanta, and feel like I am involved in, and can be more involved in, ministry there.

Now, I find myself trading, or perhaps balancing, the web-related idealism with cynicism. Do I need to pursue graduate school? If so, where? Who pays for it? If not, can I ever get to the point of doing my own thing? If I do transition into an individual way of working, will I have time to do ministry then? If I don’t, can I work in a relatively normal position, and still have time to do ministry? Who pays for it then? Does that mean I do need to pursue graduate school, more importantly than otherwise?

So, there is much to learn and question.

From your friends at CareerBuilder.com:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNrq7GAxRcc

Currently, I’m in the midst of a hunt for a Content Management System (CMS) to use for a client project. Basically, this hunt is occurring in the hopes that I can save time on the project by using something that is already in existence. The system I’m looking for would have to do the following:

• Create a directory of businesses, with support for international locations and a hook for and/or built in support for the Google Maps API.
• Allow for different levels of businesses, and also a hook for and/or built in support for ecommerce to create said levels.
• Allow for these businesses to be filed in categories based on the field of business where they practice.
• Allow for these businesses to be connected with the kinds of things they do. For example, an auto mechanic might be connected with replacing radiators. These things would have to be connected with the field of business. For example, a lawyer would probably not replace radiators.
• Allow these businesses to be searched by location, category, and things performed by the business
• Be secure, including form validation, user access, and blocking of at least the most common vulnerabilities (if I know about it, it should definitely be blocked)
  • I was researching Joomla in the hopes that it might provide such a solution, when the site I was looking at was hacked and taken down as I navigated it.

I feel like such a search may be a pipe dream, and that if I did find such a solution, it would probably have such a high learning curve that I wouldn’t save time over a custom built solution, which is the goal of this search in the first place. However, the search makes me wish I had already had the time to learn Ruby/Rails and Python/Django…

So, I’ve just recently finished a nice freelance project that allowed me to create an admin system from scratch. I used PHP/MySQL, and rather enjoyed myself learning a lot of things I didn’t know about admin systems. I’ve created a couple in the past, but never one this object oriented, or this efficient, or this powerful. So I enjoyed it, and hope it gets approved by the client. Anyway.

As I’ve noted in other posts, I’m fairly close to finishing the Underground Railroad’s redesign, and then I’ll be able to work on other things. The Underground Railroad needs to be done by Cornerstone, at the end of this month. It has a decent amount of work remaining, but I feel pretty confident I can get it done in time. It also is using PHP/MySQL, but is quite a bit more intensive, object oriented, and powerful than the admin system, simply because it’s an entire site from the ground up, rather than just the admin system.

One of the other things I intend to turn to upon finishing this, other than designing a theme for this blog, is learning Ruby/Ruby on Rails. I’ve debated with myself about whether I want to learn Ruby, Python, ColdFusion, or try to learn .net in a better way than I did in college. I feel strongly that I didn’t learn the best way of doing things that .net has to offer… whether that’s wishful thinking or not is yet to be seen. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t feel that it was the fault of the professor so much as the curriculum, as it was evolving after she took it over, and certainly did improve drastically from the point it was before she took it. Anyway. I’m not ready to deal with .net stuff again at the moment, if I ever will be, and ColdFusion is interesting, but I’m not sure where its future will take it. So, my major decision has been between Ruby and Python. I’m still not entirely decided, but I’m leaning toward Ruby.

I’ve found this hilarious guide to Ruby, and it looks like something I could enjoy working through. It has funny language, funny drawings, and appears to be teaching in a way that is easy to follow while actually learning some things about the language. So, I look forward to working through this.

For the next couple of days, at Visit Mix07, Microsoft is broadcasting the Mix conference from Vegas. They’re spending a lot of time demonstrating and talking about things in Silverlight, Expression Studio, Visual Studio Orcas, etc. I’ve been watching the news about these things for quite a while with a mixture of skepticism and excitement. After watching some of this stuff, most of my skepticism has gone away. That’s a big deal, for me.

At this point, I can’t wait to see how Adobe and Microsoft will compete over these similar programs and technologies. I’ve never experienced a season in web technology like this, where two companies are essentially vying for the attention of designers and developers.

I think often about the choice between .Net, PHP, Rails, ColdFusion, etc. as I try to figure out where my career will head, and I’m beginning to think that these next few months will help me decide. Adobe is going to do amazing things with Apollo, and with Flex, and of course Creative Suite 3, and I think they’ll also do some awesome things with ColdFusion in its next release. Microsoft, though, is showing that they’ll do awesome things with .Net, Silverlight, and the Expression Studio/Visual Studio combination.

So on that note, I hope to learn a lot about these various things in the next few months, and make an intelligent decision. It would be easier to make one based on emotions. “Microsoft sucks. Use Adobe.” “Adobe sucks. Use GIMP and Ajax and LAMP.” And so on. Everyone can make arguments based on emotions.

The struggle is in figuring out what the best decision is, and how it lines up with the core of who I am and what I want to accomplish.

From A List Apart:

People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Let’s do something to change that. Presenting A List Apart’s first annual Web Design Survey.

As I’ve said before, I read a lot of blogs. At this time, I use Google Reader to aggregate my feeds, and thoroughly enjoy it. I typically mark the blogs I actually like to visit from an aesthetic perspective with a different tag, so that I can go and look at the site itself when time allows. In any case, the blogs I read are typically about faith/spirituality, art, business, or the web (anything from design to development to cool stuff and beyond). And I like that. But some of these blogs mix some or more of these categories.

As it is developing, my blog does and will probably increasingly mix the world of faith/spirituality/theology with the world of the web/design/development. It is a core belief of mine that the two worlds have much to say to each other, and much to learn from each other. This brings up some interesting thoughts and questions. Is it appropriate for me, as a web professional, to blog about, for example, theology? What if someone, from either world, doesn’t like the mixture? Does the mixture hurt me professionally? Can it help me professionally?

“Conventional wisdom,” as much of it as there can be with the relatively small age of blogging, says that professional bloggers should stay away from things that could be controversial, or too personal. Especially if they are freelancers, or searching for a job. Meaning, of course, religion and politics, among other things. I talk about both. I’m not freelancing at the moment, or searching for a job, but the idea still gives me pause. In searching the web, one finds people on both sides of this question. Many web professionals who blog are quite open about their personal lives (just to list a few), and for a more specific reference, the Godbit Project exists to merge theology and technology. Others have almost nothing to say about their personal lives, whether from lack of time or other reasons.

While I’m not sure what I think about this question, I intend to continue blogging about the things I want to blog about. I want to observe what effect, if any, it has on my professional life, specifically freelance as time allows.

The other day, I was part of a conversation, or a series of conversations. Among other things, one of the topics was workplace spirituality. Most of the other voices in this conversation are quite a bit more conservative than I am, which may or may not explain our differences of opinion on several of the issues.

In any case, one of the topics was prayer in the workplace. The observation was made that Muslims are allowed to take regular prayer breaks in order to comply with the pillar of Islam that states that one must pray five times daily. I’m fine with this. At my workplace, anyone can take prayer breaks, as far as I have heard. But in any case, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt, and assume that this might not be a stated thing at other workplaces, and that there might be workplaces where Christians, or Jews, or whoever, is not allowed to take prayer breaks.

The most obvious thing, here, is that if this kind of discrimination did occur and was reported to the right people (hey, maybe the ACLU isn’t that evil after all), it would be a huge public spectacle and would almost certainly be righted very quickly with a lot of financial gain. The ACLU has stood up for Christians and churches on several occasions when they were within their rights. So, where public life meets faith and spirituality, I cannot believe that this kind of discrimination would survive, apart from a victim mentality that didn’t bother reporting it.

But, I think there’s also a more private way to consider this. Many, and probably the vast majority of, American Muslims (who the conversation was concerning) are very faithful to the five pillars. More faithful than the majority of Christians are at anything. If Americans who claim the name of Jesus were given prayer breaks, what would they do on them? Talk on the phone… gossip with other coworkers… maybe talk about how spiritual they are… take an extra smoke break… eat… and any number of other things. I venture to guess that most would not actually pray. American Christianity is so separated from discipleship, and from everyday life, that I think it’s an assumption that Christians don’t need prayer breaks.