Why does our Backend Programmer handle SSL in this fashion, with a redirect?

Question

Hi all!

Here's the page in question: www.mchenry.edu/parentorientation. My question is: why does our Backend DB person handle the SSL this way, as a redirect? Isn't there a cleaner way to do it? BTW, we're running IIS. My suspicion is that she doesn't understand what needs to happen in order to make it cleaner, and she refuses to discuss different ways of doing it. I'm a front-end guy so if someone could explain to me why she's doing it this way and if there's a better alternative, I'd be much obliged. BTW, our SSL is at the root, so I'm guessing that any directories beyond this can utilize SSL? Is that correct?

Thanks for any input you may have.

Answer 1

It is normally handled as a redirect, when a user enters an HTTP address the server will redirect to an HTTPS location.

The other thing is that redirect is usually done to the same location. The way you have it right now is not good and there is no obvious reason for it to be done this way.

Ask her firmly to explain what is the reason behind this decision. You may want to hint her that doing things your own way without sharing them with other developers is not an option when working in a team.