PFD New York
The initial plan for the PFD New York website involved presenting data
entered into an in-house Access database subsequently transmitted to the
server, processed and rendered.
However, the awkwardness of synchronising a separate, US-located fragment of the UK-located company database prompted our clients to enquire "Can we keep our data on the website and edit it there?"
Time was pressing and, although it was quite new technology, the Python-based Django web application development framework seemed a highly suitable candidate.
The option of using Postgresql for Django's persistent store chimed nicely with the Postgresql-held corporate database. The result is that the New York database can be integrated into the corporate database at some convenient time in the future.
Django's integral templating engine made it easy to design clean and valid pages of markup, a matter of increasing importance in gaining good search engine listings.
Django uses code introspection to generate automatically a very usable
Ajax-enhanced data administration interface providing full CRUD (Create,
Retrieve, Update, Delete) facilities.
We plugged in a handy little PHP-based image maintenance facility to complete the package.
Our clients pronounced themselves satisfied with the results.
We're quite satisfied too. Using Django required slightly less than a week to design and implement the site. We are also happy with the fact that maintenance is a snap.