One of the issues I have with the design of Genentech site is the incredibly messy UI (html and jsp). Vignette Portal has a framework of "Grids", "Themes" and "Styles" to deal with different layouts and templates required. Instead all of that is being done in code with tonnes of "if else statements". The resulting code is complex and difficult to understand. Any changes required will take a lot of extra time because of it and will break things and otherwise throw up lot of unwanted errors.
I do not like how Bob just shifts blame on client for changing their mind too much! Anyone who has worked on web development project needs to know that there is an element of educating the client and acceptance of change throughout the project, especially UI. That is the reason people have tried to make it easier to change stuff with frameworks and such. The mentality of doing a requirements then design then code then test then client just accepts the result does not work.
I foresee a great deal of problems with this implementation and it wont be far fetched that the client (Genentech) will decide to just rip apart the implementation and do this from scratch again. Because it will just be too hard to make any changes/adjustments.
I am particularly not impressed with developers on the team (nothing personal). I am not impressed with Bob at all. I think any sizeable implementation project he leads has very little chance of succeeding due to him being too steeped in the old model of software development not suited to web projects at all.
