On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 09:28:56AM -0400, Bobby Powers wrote: > Hi Joseph, > > Joseph Graham wrote: > > The principal is: most of the website is static. Static index pages. Static > > item description pages. The item description pages link to a CGI script* > > with > > an ID for the product in a query string. So for example > > /cgi-bin/order?item=burgundy_shoes_23 > > First, it sucks to expose the fact that you are using a "common > gateway interface" script to the user - Use a URL scheme like > "/checkout?item=dope_shoes" or something. >
Hiding the internals of the system just for the sake of hiding them sounds like Microsoft's philosophy. > > So what happens when you are out of stock on something? Do you > re-generate the static pages? Or do you throw an error when the user > tries to checkout? In the first case - you are re-generating (or > re-caching) HTML in response to a user request, in the second, it is a > sucky experience. Just throws an error. > > > Becuase payment is by bank transfer user's data does not contain any > > financial > > information, just address, name and email etc. However for privacy perhaps > > user's data can be encrypted with asymmetric encryption before writing to > > disk? > > Bank transfer? How is depending on the user to visit another website > (which certainly uses JavaScript and all the things you are trying to > avoid) decreasing the overall suck your users are experiencing? > Well, they can just phone up. > > -One CGI script, everything else static. > > Hopefully you are generating/compiling this static content from > something, and not hand coding HTML on a ton of different pages. > Yep, hand coding. > > -Can only buy one item at a time, no shopping basket. For shopping basket we > > would need cookies. > > Buy one thing at a time, and re-enter my info a bunch of times in a row? > Suck. > Well it depends what type of shop it is... if it's a computer shop it doesn't matter since people don't normally order 2 computers at once. > > -Payment by bank transfer. > > Ever wonder why existing web sites don't do this? Because it wire > transfers are terrible. Either you force users to use a bank website > (Cookies + JavaScript, so you have just lost your moral high ground), > or you force them to drive to a bank, or call up a bank. Such suck. > The thing with card payments is that you give your card details to dosens of different shopping websites, creating a large "attack surface" for those details to be stolen. With bank transfer there's only 1 point of failure instead of dosens. > > If you are just thinking of suck as internal implementation > complexity, you have the wrong mindset. You should be making APIs and > user experiences that don't suck, even if that means you have some > amount of (hidden to the user) internal implementation complexity. I > don't care that YOUR life sucks less, I want you to help me make my > life suck less. > > Besides, if you expect users to fill out an identical form for each > item they want, and initiate a wire transfer on their own, you are > going to go out of business. > > yours, > Bobby > Thanks for feedback I appreciate it. -Joseph
