Support » Fixing WordPress » Is it better to develop live or locally?

  • Hi there

    I am interested in feedback as to whether it is preferable to develop live or locally (MAMP in my case) and move the site live once it is complete.

    It has been suggested I use Coda and develop using a subdomain ie. sitename.testsites.com then move to the actual domain once live. I have done some research and there appears to be mixed views on this, mainly relating to speed and problems with urls.

    Thanks!

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Pete

    (@perthmetro)

    I prefer live… it’s got a greater degree of accuracy in showing exactly what your doing.

    Thread Starter calicosun

    (@calicosun)

    Thankyou much for replying. Would the following system work do you think:

    I have been working locally (MAMP). Reason for not choosing live was because I was told that 1) it was really slow and 2) moving from a testing area to live mucks up the permalinks. I have been told recently that using something like Coda makes it really easy to develop live which rules 1 out as a problem. Not sure about 2.

    The system I was thinking of using live would be:

    Secure a domain purely for testing: mycompanytest.com
    This is where all my development sites would live until completely finished.

    Build sites under: clientsite.mycompany.com
    Would have several sites ie. clientsiteA.mycompany.com, clientsiteB.mycompany.com etc depending on how many sites I was working ont.

    Then move the sites once complete to:
    clientsite.com

    Is this something that would work do you think? I am a bit nervous about moving sites. Sounds very complicated and easy for things to go wrong!

    Thanks!

    review this – not complicated
    http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress

    Locally would be my vote… i don’t think i’d like it any other way…

    Q?

    I prefer live… it’s got a greater degree of accuracy in showing exactly what your doing.

    Would you mind elaborating?

    Thread Starter calicosun

    (@calicosun)

    Thanks samboll – have had a read through ‘Moving WordPress’ – that is what scared me! Just kidding… well sort of. It all looks straight forward and is easy to follow.

    Samboll – Do you think my file structure would work if I was developing live? Or is there an easier way that is less likely to cause problems?

    t3los – cute kitten! Thanks for your input also.

    I have found working locally really fast, and once I had my system all set up, easy to work with. I use MAMP and TextWrangler (plus VMware Fusion for cross browser testing – now that was fun to set up!). It is quick to flick from one site to another when testing or checking code etc. Have a million windows open in TextWrangler and Firefox sometimes – well, ok 20 or so! I am one of those people who whizz around the computer at 90 miles and hour… great for speed but can accidentally ‘do things’ I didn’t mean to. I also get frustrated with slow – attention span not that great – even having to wait a split second gets me started on day dreams… tropical beaches, palm trees and… sad to say, sleep!

    However, locally does prove a problem when I need support from wp and wpec forums. It also would be helpful if customers can see what I am looking at when I am discussing issues with them during the development stage. And I guess every server is different so any problems with the host I am with would be ironed out sooner rather than later (hopefully) so when I am at the end of a long project, tired after weeks of toiling away, the change over might be more issue free?! … or not? As above, it has been suggested I use Coda which I am trialing at the moment. Is a little slower (that split second!). Beautiful interface! Little pictures of your site – him, that is the graphic designer side of me coming out!

    flick from and easy to flick from site to site

    your file structure isn’t a problem – it’s just a matter of preference.
    I like the local scenario myself as it is so much faster to see changes but with clients involved would think a live server might be better for you

    Thread Starter calicosun

    (@calicosun)

    One reason the local works well for me is I have quite a good backup system for my computer (3 different types – almost lost everything so now do backup overkill!). It means that if I need to revert back to something even as far back as 6 months ago that I may have deleted in error I can. Hmmm. Maybe I will do both depending on the site!

    Thanks so much for your input. Very much appreciated.

    Of course, there are ways to use your local PC as a webserver, if you really wanted to, you could actually use your local PC as demo site ..

    Of course you may not wish to be a publicly accessible server for the sake of a client looking at it here and there, so you’d proberly be better of with a live dev site for these cases…

    All i’m simply saying is, that should you want to, the possiblity is there, there’s no reason you “must” use a live dev site for showing off to clients..

    I think this is really down to requirement, i’m sure there’s numerous arguments for using one over the other, but in honesty i think both have their use cases, so just use whichever suits your needs best..

    Pete

    (@perthmetro)

    Would you mind elaborating?

    Ultimately to get the most ‘true’ results then you have to simulate the setup as true as possible… making it live is as close to true as you’re gonna get.

    I always develop locally. I don’t want to bother visitors with strange things happen on the live site during their visits. And of course it is just a bit more professional.

    Like i said my PC could act as a server if i so choose, it’s then online, and is available for viewing, so if it’s about viewability, it’s now a moot point.

    Web servers are just computers, whether it’s a remote computer or my local one makes very little difference in reality.. someone installs the software onto that server, in the same way you install stuff on your own computer…

    So what in particular do you mean by…

    simulate the setup as true as possible

    Locally you have control over what you install, is there something else on the server that can’t be installed locally, PHP, MySQL and Apache can selectively be installed as you choose (and you get more control), so there must be something other then those i’m missing?

    I work locally. File transfers are one way, from local to live. Honestly, I break stuff too frequently to work on a live site. Plus, I once had to work on a live site written in ASP (the ‘p’ is silent) and that was awful.

    As far as simulating the setup, WampServer claims to let you “add as much Apache, MySQL and PHP releases on your WampServer as you want.” Never used it though.

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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