Hello, I am planning to create an innovative project around open-source and software development next year. Basically I'd like to build a team of 3-4 passionate seasoned developers (PHP/MySQL/Javascript, Artist, XHTML/CSS). We would develop paid projects as they come, get the money of which 25% would go to finance the development of opensource software (software development, advertising). All kind of development would be charged $49/hour from customers, no matter what field of activities, as all work is valuable. No cheap customer, always high quality. This is a "professional hobby", in other words it's extra money, done professionally, the few contributors can work wherever they want (in the office during lunch time, at home on the week-end, etc...). As long as the job is done and professionally, this is fine. There is no obligation, and they can accept/refuse the projects they want. I plan to follow these guidelines and have 5 stars for each project: http://guidelines.dreamhosters.com , I want the team to be the reference in terms of quality. The open-source software that'll be developed will be chosen in a forum using polls, where people will make suggestions and try to convince the community, I expect no more than one project per year. Last, but not least, contributors (customers) will have their name and logo in a special page, and earnings will be publicly released. What do you think about the idea? Do you have suggestions? Please let me know! -- Charles. landemaine at gmail
Is that 5-star concept yours actually? I like it! Would love to see the Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Web Site been included, though... Btw: great idea you got! If you need a javascript programmer, please feel free to drop me a line.
1 star (nothing special) 2 stars No pixelized photos No legacy or proprietary HTML tags Text should always have contrast to be readable properly Include link inside text instead of creating a "Click here" link No need to click Flash content twice Contact information with email address All this is basic things which should be included in any package anyway, so the one star package must be absolute %$#$ if it's not got these 3 stars Use style sheet Style sheet and Javascript are external if more than one HTML/XHTML page No Javascript errors Works in stable version of the the main browsers¹ Paragraph text font larger or equal to 11px Pop-up windows open in the center of the screen Links other than for advertising don't open in a new window No visible counter No background sound unless the user decides to Again this is basic things which should be included in the lesser packages. A style sheet needs to be used on a page now. CSS and JS should always be in external files for good coders anyway. JS shouldn't have any errors, why does this need to be declaired? If you create a website it should work in all mainstream browsers anyway, if it isn't in 1 and 2 star then you should reconsider. Pop-up windows shouldn't even be used. Links shouldn't use the target attribute anyway, it's depreciated. A counter is sometimes useful, depending on the site. Background sound should never be used. 4 stars Standard-compliant and valid code (HTML, XHTML, CSS) Tableless layout Works with and without "www" subdomain Correct use of image formats: JPEG for photos; PNG or GIF for low-color graphics No more than 3 different fonts used Differenciate visually the text when it is clickable Use HTML/XHTML tags properly as much as possible instead of using <div> Both client-side and server-side form validation Use UTF-8 character set Should really be coding standards compliant code where possible anyway. Why mention HTML now when XHTML is the new coding standard? Tables are sometimes better to use than divs/css The www shouldn't make a difference anyway, this is controlled by the host. Correct use of image formats should always be used to save load time if not for anything else. 3 different fonts can still be considered too much. Clickable text should be links and should always have a hover effect. Fair enough on this point. Your just repeating the validation point. I agree UTF-8 is good, but it's sometimes better to use other formats. 5 stars Works in the previous version of the main browsers¹ Hide file extensions Meta keywords & description Meaningful meta tags and title Favicon Not using transitional doctypes Preload images used for rollovers and screencasts Custom 404 error message CSS image concatenation Should try to get a page to work in previous versions of browsers anyway, by going back at least 1, if not 2 versions. Hiding file extentions isn't a great thing to do. Meta keywords & description should always be included in a page. Favicon should always be included as well. Trasitional doctypes are sometimes needed. Preloading images is a good idea. A custom 404 error message isn't great, I think it's just gimicky. Shouldn't be getting 404 errors on the site in the first place. Images should be optimised anyway to save load times/bandwidth. So basicly what I get from this is that anyone who goes for 4 stars or less is getting a $%#$ service which they could find much better (and probably cheaper, I don't know your pricing scheme) somewhere else. My 2 pence
Hey, thanks for this link, I like these tips. The author even wrote a book on loading speed: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529307/