www.sonic.net, the website of my benelovent employer, needs a bit of a makeover. “But why, John?” you bleat passively. Look close, then read the source code. Then watch your brains leak out your ears in wet pinkish-gray clumps.

A lot of professional web designers like to stand on soapboxes and extol the virtues of CSS and web standards but even when they’re actually giving practical advice they fall short on the monumental task that the aforementioned site faces: a complete overhaul from an organically piecemeal site that has bloated far beyond its original conception, under the care of multiple part-time caretakers into something maintainable that looks good and is efficiently assembled.

This is the philosopher’s stone that separates the casual web dabbler such as myself from folks who really make it work. I’ve been scratching around looking for some solid shortcuts but am seriously of the opinion that a rebuild from scratch is the only real answer. This is the kind of stuff you take home with you from work: not some sassy DSL customer who thinks $60.00 a month entitles him to top-notch on-call Cisco firewall support. Actually, the Cisco guys are generally good for an uncomfortable chuckle after the fact.