What's the right tool for a web project?
I often seem to come across the age old question of what is the right tool for the job?
It seems many times this is being asked before proper consideration into what the job actually is, Everyone’s seen it right, and it seems that a lot of time a product is considered as this right tool, without to much thought what that job is.
- you want a brochure site? wordpress
- you want a shop? wordpress
- you want a static site? wordpress
you may see a pattern here, little thought into what is actually best for the client or the individual project and more what is easy, and what have we done before.
Every project is a different one, and I certainly don’t think that what is best for me, is best for clients. This site is developed with ghost blogging platform. It’s great for a blog, and for me, as its node app and all js which I find fun, but for clients who rarely want blogs its not that great. There’s little in the way of point and click stuff, and technical (slightly, involves editing templates!!) to install themes etc.
Surely we, as professional (developers|gardeners|engineers), should first focus on what the client would like to achieve, before jumping to conclusions about which framework/product best suits their needs.
If someone asked me fix their car I may be reaching for the hammer before I even know what they want fixing, but then I’m a shit mechanic. Whereas my brother in law, who is an amazing mechanic, will start any job with a discussion about the issues experienced and how they happened before even reaching for the tools, and probably not a hammer.
I’ve heard Woody Zuill speak a number of times and I think what he says rings true a lot, that we should try to deploy the smallest solution of value to the client possible, rather than rolling out some big, and possibly bloated, solution. That chances are they will need 10% of, but have to pay for 100% of the upkeep and maintenance.
I think we can conclude that there is never a right tool for a job, and we as professionals should ever be expanding the tools we are able to use, or create, to make every job as valuable to our clients as possible. This is the trust they are putting in us, and the skills we should bring to the table time after time, the day we stop finding the best solution available, is when we become the dodgy mechanic that no one wants to trust.