Re: [tlug] Running multiple web development environments on one machine

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Dave" == Dave M G <Dave> writes:

    Dave> I mean, I'm willing to do some work to set things up, but
    Dave> one does have to consider a balance between constantly
    Dave> setting things up and actually doing the work the set up is
    Dave> intended for - in this case making web sites.

Don't kid yourself.  The tradeoff is not between setting up
environments "constantly" and making websites.  It's between making
fewer websites for the next six months, and suffering delays and
fixing bugs *that are customer-visible* "constantly".  After six
months, you'll have set up maybe a dozen systems (including the three
that you had to redo from scratch, but your customers don't know about
that, only your wife :-), and you'll be pretty good at it.  At that
point the version skew problem becomes routine, and you devote about
the same effort (at a guess) with much less variance (== delays or
RFPs you can't bid on) as you would fixing bugs.

Which would you rather have, a customer who pays top yen and comes
back at some interval because your sites have an order of magnitude
fewer bugs, or two customers who will expect low prices because you're
delivering the commodity level of bugs?  I know which kind of customer
I'd rather work for, but in this economy, which kind of business does
better for you I don't know, and how hard it is to find and hold "Type
A" customers I don't know.

The other thing to consider is finding somebody with similar taste in
websites who would rather do (most of) the sysadmin work and let you
do (most of) the design.  That's not easy, but it can be very
rewarding.  Your partnership will also be in a position to provide
meta-consulting and/or hosting to designers who can't afford the
luxury of such systems.  (Your hardest task will undoubtedly be
keeping your mouth shut about the heinous designs you see. :-)

Regards,

-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.