Frequently-Asked Questions

How many people know how to develop websites without using products that create bloat?

Thousands. Want proof? Take a look at the technical forums like stack overflow. Every day, hundreds or thousands of technical questions get answered by people who know intimate details about the technology. When you ask a question, you often get lots of valid answers about web-related technologies like HTML5, CSS3, Javascript (ES2015), NGINX, Linux, SQL, etc.

Want more proof? There are thousands of consultants worldwide who offer their services on the underlying web-related technologies, and at low cost. ALC Press uses these consultants when we need specific expertise.

If there are so many skilled technical people available, why do so many get hired in jobs where they must work with products that create this bloat?

Because they're not the people who decide on the tools and technologies and do the hiring. Those decisions are generally made by managers who always seem to choose the popular commercial products that are most responsible for the bloat.

Why do managers have a preference for commercial software products when open source/free software is just as good or better?

Good question. One answer is, “It's what they know.”—or it's what their peers recommend—or it's the politically-correct choice in their organization—or they want their resume to say, “Managed a multi-million dollar budget...”

But I know technical people who are non-managers who choose the commercial products.

The majority of technical people in the industry are like that. Once they invest their time in learning a product, they have a committment to it even when something better comes along.