Tools Of The Trade

Posted At : February 1, 2007 3:46 PM | Posted By : Greg Nilsen
Related Categories: tools

Ok, this is one of those interactive topics where I'm going to ask a question, answer it for myself, and you can respond as well in the comments below. Here it goes:

What tools/software do you use to help you develop and maintain your church website?

Here's my list:

  • ColdFusion - The backbone behind all my sites, which I picked up at an old job and get to get back to full-time this coming Monday (YAY! Laughing). Here's some more background if you're interested: Coldfusion @ Wikipedia. I'm currently using version 7, which has built-in features like generating the graphs that I use for the poll results.
  • Eclipse and cfeclipse - Eclipse is a great open source development platform for all kinds of languages, including Java, HTML, and CSS. cfeclipse is the plug-in/package that allows for ColdFusion development in Eclipse.
  • mySQL - For my databases, staying with the tried and true (and popular) open source database.
  • SQyog Community Edition - A great GUI front-end for managing mySQL. This version only has the basic features, but it's still very good. For MS SQL 2000 people, think Enterprise Manager and Query Analyzer in one.
  • IrfanView - I'm no graphics guru by any means, but IrfanView is my favorite image manipulator. It's small and powerful enough for most of my use.
  • TinyMCE - This little package handles the textareas in my sites (like the comment area below) to both ease of input (WYSIWYG) and security (restricting allowable tags in the input). Two birds with one stone, and very customizable (each textarea can have it's own settings).
  • Web Developer Extension - I use this Firefox toolbar to help me test, debug, and validate my code. Also works with several other browsers.
Well, that's everything I can think of now, at least for the bulk of my work. What do you use? Got any packages you really like you think others could use?

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Jeff Whitmire's Gravatar

Dude, if Jesus were creating website, he'd definitely be using Ruby on Rails instead of Coldfusion ;)  (Just because I use rails, don't think I'm biased at all)

 I've got some interesting projects in the works, but nothing that can be shared yet.  For an idea that might be helpful, go check out http:/crossconnector.org.  It's a rails app designed to support missions teams.

# Posted By Jeff Whitmire | 2/3/07 9:50 PM
Josh Pratt's Gravatar You know, I've really been considering if I should take the time to learn Ruby on Rails.  Reading your comment and checking out crossconnector has pushed me over the edge to check it out.  It was recommended to me to get the book "Agile Web Development with Rails" second edition.  So, I bought it.  Ruby on Rails is still quite a mystery to me as to what it does and how to do it, but, hopefully it will be worth my time learning about it.
# Posted By Josh Pratt | 2/5/07 9:17 AM
Greg Nilsen's Gravatar

Jeff,

I actually looked in to Ruby a few years ago when it poked it head above the surface of the internet tide.  I was already doing ColdFusion programming at the time, and just didn't find Ruby flexible or powerful enough to do many of the things I wanted to do.  You could also say that I'm not a big fan of frameworks like that either.

That's not to discourage your or trivialize Ruby, but I just found ColdFusion better suited to do the work I wanted to do. 

# Posted By Greg Nilsen | 2/5/07 12:22 PM
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