Web site statistics

I have always found the traffic patterns on the various Web sites I maintain to be interesting. This morning I was working on updating the White Light Computing site and decided to poke around the statistics to see what developers and potential customers have visited in an effort to improve the site and provide more material.

It should not surprise me any more that the number one download from the site is the Programming Standards and Guidelines PDF file. Over the last year this file was typically accounted for 20% of the downloads for a given month. I attribute this to the fact there were very few files to download. Over the last six months I have moved more of the freebie developer tools over to the White Light Computing site from my personal site in an effort to provide one stop shopping for developers. Still, the Programming Standards and Guidelines are numero uno on the downloads (10% of all downloads in June).

The free versions of HackCX (8%) and the ViewEditor (6%) are catching up and if trends continue, will surpass the Programming Standards and Guidelines in the next six months. The free tools have always outpaced the commercial tools and associated Help files (available for free) downloadable from the site. No surprise the Fox Community (and developers in general) prefer free stuff.

I have on my to do list a set of blog entries about programming standards and their critical importance for all developers. I think these Web site stats prove there is definitely an interest. I am hoping to open a dialog on this topic and provide an update to the standards in the future. I have made some changes to this document internally, but I am hoping the numerous people downloading this document and reading this blog will provide me feedback.

In the last year several companies have asked permission to publish this document for their IT departments and programming staff, and I know many others have adopted parts of the document. I have always granted permission. I may own the published document, but these standards are not "owned" by me. The majority of the document is industry standards I have adopted over the years. I just made the effort to write them down.

Are you using programming standards and guidelines? Why? If not, why not?