learning-website-framework1-1  Exercise 2: A Decision Record for the Languages Site
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DECISION RECORD 001: Where do the language courses live?
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Status:   Proposed
Date:     [today's date]

Context
  The language courses (Hungarian, German, Japanese, French) are growing
  faster than any other area and are written as numbered volumes of about 400
  pages each. They share their own design rules (accent colours, dialog and
  vocabulary blocks) and are meant to be browsed as a group.

Options
  A. Keep them at osztromok.com/languages/ (path on the existing site).
  B. Give them their own site at languages.osztromok.com (subdomain).

Criteria and scoring (1 = poor, 3 = good)

  Criterion                              A (path)   B (subdomain)
  -------------------------------------  --------   -------------
  Build time and size of one site           1             3
  Independent deploys                       1             3
  Shared login/cookies and localStorage     3             2
  Search authority kept in one place        3             2
  Setup effort (DNS, certificate, vhost)    3             1
  Clear identity for learners               2             3
  Cross-links to other areas stay simple    3             2
  TOTAL                                    16            16

Decision
  B, because build size and independent deploys matter most for the area that
  grows fastest, and the extra setup is a one-off. Revisit if search traffic
  drops after the move.

Consequences
  - Needs a DNS record, a certificate covering the subdomain and a web server
    virtual host (Chapter 8).
  - Cross-site links become absolute URLs held in one configuration file
    (Chapter 5).
  - Old URLs need redirects (Chapter 11).

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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A decision record writes the options, the criteria and the reason down before
anything is built, so you can reopen the decision later with the original
reasoning in front of you. The scores here are made up to show the format:
the point of your own record is that it names criteria and lets you defend the
result. A tie on points is a sign that the weights matter more than the
scores, so say which criteria you weighted most.