Building this Web site has proved an adventure...and a true exercise in patience and persistence.  In these pages we'll tell you how we did it (in case you can benefit from our experience), and explain some of the mistakes we've made.

     In short, I have acquired a finely honed respect for the teams who put together some of the really exciting and robust commerce sites on The Web.   The current status of the technology can best be described by metaphor:

Imagine a world in which you can't actually buy a home.  You have to build your own.  From descriptions of the homes in the catalog, they'd seem easy to knock together in a weekend...just pay for the raw materials, and follow the instructions.

Ah, but the catalog and the glossy brochures don't tell you that beautiful home comes without plumbing or electrical wiring.  Furthermore, the order in which you construct things means you won't discover that until you've already erected the walls and nailed in the drywall!  So, you have to tear it all out again and start over...several times.

And, when you're done...it isn't done.  The nails have a tendency to ease themselves out of the wood under use, and nobody told you about the importance of positioning the foundation so the proper windows would face the Sun.  And, you still aren't living in the house!

That's what it's been like.  We started in early November, and planned to "bring the site up" over the Thanksgiving weekend of 1997.  That slipped to December 1st, then the 10th.  As this is being written, Christmas Eve day, we're up...but I have this unsettling, nagging feeling that things aren't all working quite the way I want.

     Here're some of the gory details: