Well Billy, as you have not cared to explain -- not that its always
pertinent to do so -- nobody who has been responding knows the context of
the financial information you are interested in making available. I usually
do not take the time to rationalize or make apologies for my ignorant peers
as they can make @sses of themselves without my help even though I know they
will not not can not argue that I often show them how to do it "the right
way."
That said, if you think you are on to something why not seek out somebody
off-line to discuss your ideas with? As for how to learn and where to
start -- web development -- I must recall the advice of given to Alice [1]
when she asked the same question and was told by the Mad Hatter to "start at
the beginning."
ASP.NET development is a state-of-the-art web development methodology that
you can start reading about at
http://msdn.microsoft.com. Many books have
been published and there are thousands of articls published on the web. To
become professionally competent you'll also have to learn and master HTML,
JavaScript, and CSS.
FrontPage is not a panacea. In fact it is antithetical to web development in
many regards. The spawn of Satan. Dreamweaver too. This because these types
of "authoring" products attempt to automate the complexity of developing
software programs that run on the web. When all is said and done that's what
most websites need to become; software programs.
On the other hand, FrontPage is a great tool to create and publish basic web
pages that just about anybody can learn to do well. In the hands of a well
seasoned web developer who has in fact mastered web development FrontPage
can also be used quite successfully as a software development tool. Most of
those I refer to have various professional competencies and rarely if ever
rely on the push button monkey code generators which lead to a dead end
faster than spitting into the wind. This stuff is crippleware and the nature
of computer science and programming languages guarantees there will never be
an authoring program that can be used to design and generate a software
program of any reasonable complexity.
Because I nor anybody else actually knows or understands what you actually
want to achieve not much else can be said Billy. Perhaps a blog for example
is all you need to make financial information availabe. Again, I don't know
the context, the scale or the scope of your aspirations.
All I can tell you is I can rationalize copying and pasting code snippets
when I have them, from time to time I write code on the fly to help people
out. I reply to many newsgroup articles offering opinions as well as sage
advice. All on my dime.
To be honest I also do so as an act of good will to motivate people to hire
me. If that's a matter of consideration I (and others if I may speak for
them in this matter) would ask you to fish or cut bait. Someone involved
with financial matters should one can reasonably expect understand these
principles as I've tried to convey them.
<%= Clinton Gallagher
METROmilwaukee (sm) "A Regional Information Service"
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL
http://metromilwaukee.com/
URL
http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/
[1] Alice in Wonderland
