🚀 go-pugleaf

I don't know if I have replied to the right message, but I thought I would offer my little story about GoLive, dynamic content, etc.

One year ago (summer of 2003), I was excited to learn about dynamic sites. Couldn't wait to get started in GoLive. Didn't know anything about databases or scripting languages. Had a helluva time with getting the "pre-config. server" set up. When I finally did, happened to go to the Adobe site, and lo! the new version of GoLive dropped dynamic content.

So I immediately started learning MySQL, set up a server on my Mac OSX, learned lots of SQL for a few months. Then I picked up PHP (and set up a PHP module on the already installed OS X Apache server). Learned the the language itself (i.e. no functions, just if( ) statements and everything). That went well. I was very amazed at how logical the whole thing was. Lots of trial and error, but I was driven and I went ahead. Learned all kinds of functions, including the mysql functions. Spent whatever free time I had here at work (I am business form typesetter, dull) learning, testing, building scripts, etc.

Then only a week ago, my boss called me in on the proverbial carpet (and the personalle manager) and said what the heck was I doing and why was I spending so much time at all this stuff and he could find other work for me to do in the plant. Man was I glad he waited a year! I knew so much PHP/MySQL that I was ready to roll! So I told him, ok, I agree I should have been a good dooby, but NOW we can start making some extra $$$ here. Of course, money is all he understands, and that changed the whole tune of the meeting.

Now I am working on our own company site and we will be offering complete web services soon (so I can escape the typesetting side of things!).

So, I say, "God bless Adobe" for making that decison, because it really has changed my life. I am now so much happier in the programming side of things than the design side (so much frustration), but I will never forget all my graphic design experiences, so the whole thing wraps up quite nice.

Again, I am grateful that Adobe did this. I hope others will ditch all dependancy on third-party plugins real or imagined or any integrated dynamic site tools. Try and learn PHP and MySQL. Its really not that hard.