When you hear the phrase "From Scratch" does it make you think of baked goods? My Grandmother made fruit pies that were extraordinary in every way, and would never have even considered buying a pie crust from the grocery store, because hers, she was confident, were better than what any "factory" could produce. Some years later, my then mother-in-law, who had several college degrees in food sciences told me that "the housewife's best efforts" were no match for a "factory made" cake mix. This is due to the factory's ability to precisely mill and sift the dry ingredients to a more uniform and predictable mixture regardless of temperature and humidity. She even confided that the factory had the technology to include consistent egg protein solids along with the "dry" ingredients, but that the eggs were deliberately omitted from the recipe so that the "baker" could feel more a part of the process.

Similarly, when I started building websites back in the internet stone age, we built them all "from scratch". Every page a little different from its peers, every navigation button hand-carved from the finest imported pixels. Every link painstakingly crafted by the artist's own keystrokes. And it was done that way, for me, until the day I discovered a little software package called "Mambo".

No more drudgery, no more slaving away over a hot keyboard baking one "cookie" at a time. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, Little Harper Vance suddenly had all the same productive capacities as the biggest "net sweat shop" on the East Coast. Fast forward four years later and now it's Joomla!, but the concept is still the same: More Power, More Freedom, Less Drudgery! CMS's RULE!

Today, my partner and I got an inquiry for a B2B (that's "Business to Business") web site "From Scratch". Honestly, we thought he was joking, but a careful look at his scope revealed that he has considerable web savvy and experience, and an unusual business model that is beyond the capabilities of any "cart" with which I am familiar. He was probably right to say "From Scratch" because it would require extensive hacking of an open source cart to do his bidding. After the hack, it wouldn't bear much resemblance to the original code.

We are still going to try to get him to save the time and expense necessary to construct the standard parts of the site by going open source. He wants us to build him a car, starting with hand built tires. That just doesn't make sense now, does it?

Here's hoping he listens to reason - because we loved his request for proposal. He seems like a mensch, and would probably make a great client. Those are hard to find.