Development Area?

[PaulG2]

Hi, I'm new to Bluehost. So far so good. My programmer tells me he is working in the development area, where do I find this area? I want to check up on his progress.

Thank you in advance;
Paul

[farcaster]

That is information you would have to get from your programmer. We wouldn't have any idea. And Bluehost Support wouldn't know that either.

[PaulG2]

Barry- Thank you for the reply. Let me put it this way. If I wanted to have a development area on Blue..........where / how would I access it from cPanel?

Thank you.

[farcaster]

The File Manager to see what was out there. Under public_html would be where a web site lives.

[BearState]

Hi, I'm new to Bluehost. So far so good. My programmer tells me he is working in the development area, where do I find this area? I want to check up on his progress.

Thank you in advance;
Paul

Paul,

Let's try to help you out a little better than what you've been told thus far.

It's true that it is not completely possible to say where your programmer is doing his or her development work. That may be being done on BlueHost or it may be being done on a separate development server. It is generally not a good idea to do development work on an ISP public server. That's where the work should go when it is done. A separate development server is the better choice. And if your developer is using a separate development server, you'll need to consult with them about how you can check progress.

For example, I use a separate development server to do all my development. I do not want incomplete code exposed to search engines and the public. I have also set up development servers inhouse at clients, so that they always own the code. It is always under their roof and I have worked on it there, where they control access to it. That's not typical however, because it prevents developers from working on the code on a server whey they have assembled all their tools, such Adobe's design suite, for example and other things as well. Developers are also better off when they can work on a project as they have time as well as when they have their own resources available.

So if your developer does have a separate server, don't fret. But make sure you can trust them with regard to their hours worked.

Sometimes, a live host ISP can be used to provide access to completed code to clients, if and only if, it is properly set up to prevent search engine and other public access to incomplete web pages and in development or under construction sites. Screening the outside world from all but the client who has special access is possible and in that case, the client can check periodically on the progress of what a developer loads out to the ISP host.

Good luck on your project and here's hoping it produces the production results you are intending.

[Bob Barr]

Don't you think that setting password-protect on under-development subdomain directories is sufficient to prevent unwanted search engine access? By providing the client with a username and password, only someone with the password can access the site.

I also have a bit of a concern that some slight configuration difference could make a site operate somewhat differently when it's moved from a development server to the actual hosting server. While I do use Wamp for my own local testing, my clients see work in progress on the server on which it will be hosted.

[BearState]

Don't you think that setting password-protect on under-development subdomain directories is sufficient to prevent unwanted search engine access? By providing the client with a username and password, only someone with the password can access the site.

I also have a bit of a concern that some slight configuration difference could make a site operate somewhat differently when it's moved from a development server to the actual hosting server. While I do use Wamp for my own local testing, my clients see work in progress on the server on which it will be hosted.

Bob,

The truth is that there are bots and spiders that are not respecters of .htaccess, robots.txt and other protections which in truth are meant to help regulate the behavior of ethical search bots like google-bot and others. Further, it is not difficult for someone really intent on doing so, to visit a site and probe their way into those sub-domain directories or even just sub directories. Empty index.htm files are helpful against the naive only. And more to the point, many developers are just plain dumb about such things. They know how to write some html, some css and some javascript, php or ruby, python or whatever else have you, and are otherwise ... naive. Yes, it is not sound to put unfinished code on a public host, unless you know what you are about or just plain know it and accept that it is so and do it anyway.

I've seen a certain well known search portal's site developers cluster f..k that site so many times that it's laughable. I just love logging into check my long standing email account on this portal, and have a pop-up say something witty like "entered function x with params y and z". After seeing this site's development methodology at work by being a user of their portal, I know better not to answer any hiring notices they put out. I don't want my name associated with that sort of incompetent and ill-managed thing. And it is tragic and perilous.

The best thing to do is keep the development and maintenance on a separate development server and, if and only if, the client insists on being able to check the work, put it out on a public server in a hidden sub directory with at least the normal ethical access and bot setups made to prevent the good bots from publishing it on their search lists. NO INDEX is the robots meta tag content and disallow is for access files. Empty index files, although they can be defeated should still be used to prevent at least the naive from probing the works. And there's a lot of other things that can be done as well.

But again, the separate development server is the gospel.

[sobko78]

P.S. Were going to buy our own Gentoo server in a month or two where well be hosting our clients, this will allow us to focus on PHP5 branch development.