MacGyver was a childhood hero of mine. I loved the way he could always get out of a tough situation by crafting some ingenious device with duct tape and his handy Swiss Army pocket knife. My nostalgia for that TV show recently prompted me to buy it on DVD. As I watched, I realized something important about MacGyver’s solutions: they were all temporary. He built a duct tape and bamboo Go Kart to escape from terrorists, not for his daily commute to work.

 

In web development, MacGyver-style solutions are common. Difficult project objectives collide with tight time and financial budgets; the result is often something jerry-rigged to get the job done. There’s nothing wrong with MacGyver solutions if your problem is temporary or an immediate emergency. But what if your web project has a long term perspective?

 

Most programmers and developers will tell you that there is no single “right” way to solve a problem, but there are certainly “wrong” ways. One of those wrong ways is to ignore design and coding standards in lieu of a MacGyver solution when building a website that is expected to grow or function for more than a few months. A website or application that is built with some sense of standards and logical design will be easier and cheaper to maintain and enhance over time. Most importantly, if the original site is built with standards, the maintenance and extensions can be done by any programmer. If your duct tape Go Kart breaks, you’re stuck with MacGyver and whatever he wants to charge.

 

1.       Set a realistic time frame. If you put your developer in a tight spot, he’s bound to become MacGyver. Give your developer time to lay a good foundation and strategize the best way to build your site or application.

 

2.       Let your developer know what features are on your “dream big” list. What would you like your website or application to do if money and time were unlimited? Even if you don’t plan to implement some piece of functionality at this time, the sooner you tell your developer about potential additions or extensions, the better he’ll be able to plan for them and design the site in a way to make them easier to build in the future.

 

3.       Get a head start with community software. There’s a lot of inexpensive and free software that you can leverage as a starting point for your project. “Open Source” and community developed software by nature imply that the software has been created by multiple developers who have agreed to a design style and standards. Developers appreciate good code and a software project with a large community is a good indicator that the code will not be a duct-taped collection of parts.