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What programming language to use? | MoeDrippins: The biggies have been mentioned. Ruby/Rails has a very fast time-to-market, but suffers runtime performance issues. However, it might very well be "fast enough" for what you want to do.Python has a screaming gajillion well written and supported libraries, and the language itself is very...orderly. That suits some people very well, and others is an anathema.A new one on the block is Scala and /Lift/. Probably not as mature as either of the above, but runs on the JVM so you can stick it on Tomcat or any other java web container, and as such you have a lot of hosting opportunities. |
What programming language to use? | BlueSkies: I program in PHP and Perl (intermediate skill in both) and had to decide which one to use recently for a new project I'm starting. I plan on using Amazon Web Services including SimpleDB and SQS. This made my choice of language a little easier.Perl natively supports multiple threads whereas PHP does not. Multiple threads can assist greatly in speeding overall access to SQS, etc.I also prefer the structure that Perl provides. Coupled with the Catalyst framework and lots of module availability on CPAN, I'm happy with my choice for now.Does anyone else have any feedback on my choice of Perl for its multi-threaded capability for use with AWS - I'd appreciate a sanity check :) |
What programming language to use? | abstractbill: I suspect flash may be a greater learning curve, but I could be quite wrong.Flash actually doesn't have much of a learning curve - in particular, actionscript doesn't have many ideas you won't have seen already if you know javascript.The trouble with flash development isn't that it's hard to learn, it's that the environment and tools are incredibly ghetto and hard to integrate into a sane tool-chain. |
What programming language to use? | typedlambda: If you really want scalability take a look at Erlang
though ErlyWeb (erlyweb.org/) is not that mature, Yaws (yaws.hyber.org) really is. Ruby and Ruby on Rails are really great for development i had never been that productive. Rails seems to scalo quite ok wenn adding more servers and rewriting som/lots of code. In an feature product I seed more safety and scalebelity so I will implpmpnt it in Erlang |
Ethics and laws regarding scraping websites? | toddcw: This might be informative: http://blog.screen-scraper.com/2008/04/21/screening-scraping... |
What programming language to use? | matthewsimon: It's not as "hip" as Python or Ruby, but I remain a big fan of Perl for server-side self-hosted web/database applications -- depending on what you're building, you can often find pre-existing modules on CPAN that provide a lot of the plumbing you'll need.And of course, Perl's syntax is very similar to PHP, so the transition might be a bit easier than to a Python, although your milage will vary.Lastly, it's worth noting that the choice of server-side and client-side technologies are mostly independent... You can use either HTML/JS or Flash as the client interface to talk to server-side logic written in any of the PHP/Perl/Python/etc. languages discussed above. |
What programming language to use? | rcoder: I'm going to buck the general trend here, and recommend that your next language not be Perl, Python, or Ruby. If you really want to become a well-balanced programmer, you should either learn a lower-level, compiled language like C or Java, or you should stretch a bit and try Lisp/Scheme or Erlang.Working only within the "scripting language" space of the typical LAMP stack will limit your thinking in ways that could hurt you later on. |
What programming language to use? | manny: C, Perl, bash.Currently on my way to buy SICP so I can learn Scheme LISP.edit: it may interest you to know that I do absolutely no web development. |
What programming language to use? | Hexayurt: Unless proven otherwise for a specific application, the answer is python.In general, the reason is simple: python programmers tend not to worry too much about the language, although there's a fair bit of fretfulness about the folks trying to do functional stuff in Python, or people who want Python to be LISP. But apart from those groups, pretty much everybody else just sits down and writes their code, and generally pretty soon forgets they're writing in any language in particular, they just sort of churn out code that pretty much works as expected.And that's really the point of Python. You stop noticing it after a while. It doesn't reward extremely subtle cleverness (much) and it doesn't severely punish stupidity, it just sort of does what you expect, and pretty soon there's your working application, stable, maintainable and clean(ish.)I can't give a language higher praise than "it doesn't get under foot, and there are very few nasty surprises."Python. Unless there's a specific reason to do something else.PS: web frameworks in Python kind of suck because they're mostly a bit abstract. You might well wind up bolting together something dirty for your own needs. |
Where did you top out in math classes? | jimbokun: I was required to take two semesters of Statistics as an undergrad. I didn't think it was especially difficult, but I didn't see applications for the things I was interested in (mainly Computational Linguistics at the time).A few years later, pretty much all Computation Linguistics/Natural Language Processing research revolved around Machine Learning approaches, which is largely Probability and Statistics applied in various ways. I really kicked myself for not taking Statistics more seriously at the time, and not learning more.I was away from this field for about a decade, but have been working with researchers in this field again in my current job and have been taking classes to catch up. In addition to Probability and Statistics, I've been learning Linear Algebra as fast as I can and want to take a course on Optimization.So, I suppose the moral of the story is: you never know when that particular branch of Mathematics that doesn't seem at all relevant to you might suddenly turn out to be very relevant. |
What programming language to use? | gexla: Forget about the academics (Lisp? SICP?.) You want to make a web app RIGHT NOW and make some cash. If you are good with PHP then look no further. Start working on your apps ASAP and update your PHP skills as you go. Take a look at the Zend Framework and CodeIgniter for some good frameworks.If you must learn a different language then learn them on the side (hobby) while you are making your bread with the rest of your time using skills you already have. |
experience using big LCD TV (42"+) as monitor? | cconstantine: This sounds less like a second monitor, and more like a test environment that is meant to mimic real life usage.I've found TVs to not be very effective second monitors. |
experience using big LCD TV (42"+) as monitor? | brk: It all depends on what you expect from the display.A 42" plasma/lcd/etc doesn't have as much resolution/pixels as even a standard 22" monitor these days. So while your image is larger, it's also going to be less crisp. Text will generally be less readable as well.If your use is primarily graphical, then it may work very well for you. If you think it's going to function as a true second monitor for day-to-day stuff, you'll probably be disappointed.FWIW, I have 2 42" displays and a 60" display, all with Mac Mini's attached to them (along with various other devices) at my house. They work great for watching movies, general/occasional web surfing, weather, etc. They do NOT work well (IMO) for reading emails, reading text-heavy sites (like HN), doing heavy photoshop work, etc. YMMV. |
experience using big LCD TV (42"+) as monitor? | jsjenkins168: A 42" screen 4 feet away will only appear the same size as a 21" monitor 2 feet away. Remember its all about view distance. Any distance at least 1.2x screen width is usually considered acceptable but if you want the screen further away for being able to show more people thats fine. It will just diminish the perceived size.If you use it frequently you might strain your eyes though, focusing between near and far all the time. If you start to get a headache you could just try moving it closer. |
experience using big LCD TV (42"+) as monitor? | pmjordan: In my experience, TVs are terrible for displaying anything but video. Driving a TV from a computer can be problematic for a variety of reasons: signal timings, available resolutions, overscan, etc.You'd think that with HDMI being essentially the same as DVI (leaving aside audio and such) we'd be rid of this issue, but no, it's been dragged into the HD era too.Personally, I've had the best results with the VGA (analog! gasp!) inputs on TVs that have them. Basically nothing apart from computers provide VGA signals, so the TV knows what to expect. This avoids overscan, running at the native panel resolution, etc. I realise that for something as high as 1920x1080 this might not give decent results, but I would check in the specs if your TV's panel REALLY has that resolution. I've seen all sorts of weird resolutions in TVs. |
experience using big LCD TV (42"+) as monitor? | spydez: I have a 42" plasma TV hooked up to a Windows computer and Mac Mini. I use it for playing games and watching movies.At 'couch distance' (~10 feet), normal size (10-12 pt) text is pretty much too small to read. I have 20-20 vision. 16-18 is readable, but my eyes get tired of it after a few hours of following chat on WoW.I had no problems with crispness of image or anything of that nature.Granted, I'm talking 10 feet and you're asking about 4, so... grain of salt.Also, in my not so honest opinion, things you stare at all day are not things you want to go cheap on. Buy a decent TV if you buy one. If you have the time, find a model you like then set up alerts on FatWallet.com to tell you when one's on sale. I did that for my TV and got it (new) for $1000 (it's $1700 normally).If you want an actual data point at 4 feet away from a 42" TV, I can pull a chair up to 4' away tonight and use the TV instead of my laptop. Just ask. |
experience using big LCD TV (42"+) as monitor? | SwellJoe: My girlfriend bought a 46" Sharp Aquos LCD 1080p TV a few weeks ago, and I built her an HTPC to drive it. It's a tolerable monitor, but only for games (for which it rules) and movies (also awesome). Since it's the only Windows machine in the house, I use it for testing our UI with IE, and even briefly using it for development it is apparent that this is not the ideal workstation monitor.And on the Costco front, we checked out their stock, and they didn't have any of the models we liked. We were mainly shopping for the high end Sharp models, as most of the rest of the LCDs we looked at were a bit blocky in high movement scenes. The Sharp also had a better contrast ratio, 10000:1, than almost all of the other LCDs, which leads to clearly deeper blacks. We found a great deal on the model we wanted at BeachAudio.com (we'd intended to buy the 42", but the 46" was gonna be about the same price). Even shipped, it was about $250 cheaper than buying locally. |
experience using big LCD TV (42"+) as monitor? | radley: At home I use my old Mac workstation as a media/internet server and have it plugged straight into my HDTV as the monitor. I use Teleport for controlling mouse / keyboard on the workstation from my laptop instead of running cables.I don't think I'd want to run my HDTV as often or as long as I have my laptop open (which is 18-24 hrs/day). I still prefer a dedicated 2nd monitor (which I have at the studio). |
experience using big LCD TV (42"+) as monitor? | paulhart: Quick observation. Your eyes will need to make a dramatic focus change between a monitor on your desk and another on your wall, or it's really close to your face, in which case you'll be scanning all over the place looking for stuff). Either way you're probably going to tire them out faster.My boss (day job) has a flat screen TV on his wall that he uses as a third monitor. Some observations:* He doesn't use it very frequently for himself.
* It's somewhat useful if he wants to show you some content online without you squinting at his on-desk displays
* The resolution isn't that fantastic.
* My boss is a Costco freak, so I'm sure the Aquos display he has is from there.So, in my research with a sample space of one, I'd say that it's an okay thing to do, but if you were intending to use the display as a day-to-day second monitor, you'd probably be better off getting something that'll sit next to your laptop. |
experience using big LCD TV (42"+) as monitor? | thehickmans: You've got to look at the native resolution of the LCD, which for a 1080p TV would is 1920x1080. For a comparison, a 30" Apple Cinema Display is capable of 2560X1600. So, fewer pixels over a greater screen area = kinda chunky! |
easiest way to set up secure development environment with public urls? | epall: Use HTTP Basic authentication, probably with .htaccess files? Seehttp://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/howto/htaccess.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_access_authentication
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/howto/auth.html |
What programming language to use? | andrewbadera: C#/ASP.NET specialists are pretty well paid. Microsoft has a lot of architectural pieces you can plug together for extremely scalable solutions. Remoting servers for your application tier give you a TON of cheap scaling. Clustered and federated SQL Servers give you a beefy backend when you eventually need it. Decent amount of freelance/independent work here, if you're patient and know where to look. Also Windows Mobile still stands a fighting chance as a leading mobile platform, at least in the enterprise world.Java is kind of like .NET, only, at least in markets I'm familiar with, it's fading. Sure, it can scale to no end, but it has a pretty high TCO. Unless you're going into financial programming, I'd leave Java aside. Knowing C# gives you an entree into Java should you ever need it.Ruby, RoR is up and coming, but not, from what I've seen, highly well paid.PHP is often underpaid, but has potential. Being pretty mature, there are a lot of roles out there. It _can_ scale -- Yahoo! proves this -- but not exactly out-of-the-box. Lots of freelance work available here.Erlang has a lot of value, and I suspect will continue to grow in this world of multi cores and multi processors. Concurrency is soon to be king.Python is a good utility language, but unless you're a Python guru, you probably aren't getting paid squat to know it.It's always good to know C/C++. Heck, it's good to know Assembler insert platform here to boot. Excellent fundamentals, if not a lot of LOB work around these days. C++ is good for mobile work. I bet Android increases the amount of mobile work here as well.Knowing Obj-C/Cocoa is growing in value as well. Even with low market penetration, your potential audience is pretty upmarket. Room for high margins here.Lisp, Perl, eh, not bad to know, especially Lisp for fundamentals. For that matter, Smalltalk has value as well. Smalltalk even has a web framework these days ...If you want to be highly employable, I'd suggest some combination of C#, Ruby, PHP, Python. |
What programming language to use? | JohnReel: Thank you for your suggestions everyone.I was expecting much different answers, so this is interesting. It sounds like there probably isn't any real reason to not continue with PHP, which will be quicker to get up to speed with current standards.I'll do some more research on the options suggested though.Thank you,
John. |
tutorials on using the file system for storing data? | jsjenkins168: Have you considered using Amazon SimpleDB? Its a very simple and fast way to persist data. Avoids the scaling and implementation headaches associated with a typical database. |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | ichverstehe: http://www.instapaper.com/ – definitely.
It's so darn useful. |
tutorials on using the file system for storing data? | Maro: Maybe you want something like Berkeley DB aka. libdbIt's a library that you link to your application which exposes a database API for storing and retrieving records in tables (which are stored in files). No DB server is involved, and since you use the programmatic API, there is no need for SQL (and it's not supported).Reference guide: http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/berkeley-db/d... |
tutorials on using the file system for storing data? | typedlambda: consider using sqlite made for being an allmost universal fileformat also allowing transactions. Its fully
ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability)
and even allows concurrent access (serializes writes)it's probably the most deployed "database" (thousends of embedded devices, it's the fs one some ;-) . |
tutorials on using the file system for storing data? | ajross: Generally, sane file metaphors try very hard not to change stuff in the middle of the file. Try to keep with one "record" (which might be a bigger object than a single row in a database!) per file, and read/write them all in one swoop. If you need indexes other than the one you get for free (the path name, of course), keep them in separate files and make sure your toolchain can rebuild them as needed.The filesystem has looser rules about data loss than the database will by default, so unless you want to handle this yourself (which can be done), you should probably to turn on "ordered data" journalling in your filesystem (e.g. for ext3: "mount -o data=ordered"). Then you only need to be able to recover from a crash (or killing) of your own software, which is a problem you'll have to handle anyway.The classic application for this sort of technique is a mail server. Software like sendmail and postfix has been doing reliable on-disk storage for decades now, and they don't have to jump through too many hoops to do it. |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | BSeward: I find http://www.sprymedia.co.uk/article/Design Design to be really handy when I'm making sure text line cadence is right. It's handy all around for design: powerful grid, rulers, measuring, and targeting tools.http://westciv.com/xray/ XRAY keeps a spot on my bookmark bar. It's an HTML-traversing bookmarklet that lets me figure what's going on with underlying HTML and positioning CSS without leaving the page. It's been somewhat marginalized since Safari's Web Inspector started rocking so hard.They; InstaPaper (also great); and Delicious/Facebook/Yahoo Bookmarks share/post bookmarklets are what currently dominate my bookmark bar. |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | strick: "Gmail This" is great: http://contrapants.org/blog/2005/07/gmailthis.html |
tutorials on using the file system for storing data? | bayareaguy: I would recommend reading Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques by Gray and Reuter, particularly the sections about ways to construct Atomic commits.SQLite's atomic commit design is also good food for thought - http://www.sqlite.org/atomiccommit.htmlHowever, while it's good to think about low-level consistency (e.g. disk writes) I think you're better off spending your time on your application's high-level consistency (e.g. procedures for identifying inconsistencies, logging your changes, recovering from backups). Your os developers have already spent countless hours on the issue of getting your blocks to disk, but you may be the only one who has spent any time thinking about what things are important to preserve in your application. |
tutorials on using the file system for storing data? | yaj: Among other document-oriented databases mentioned, also check out CouchDB http://incubator.apache.org/couchdb/ |
tutorials on using the file system for storing data? | Hoff: For transactional file systems and transactional databases, the lower-level software deals with this for you. This whether a transactional SQL, or Mac OS X Core Data and its undo, or otherwise. ACID is goodness.For non-transactional databases (and non-transactional file systems in general), look at the concept of "careful writes". At its simplest, you seek to allocate and work and read and write structures outside of the live application data structures and only add your structures into the static storage with a single-block or other canonical write as the last step of the update or change. To always avoid having inconsistent structures.In the event of an application or system crash, you can (will?) need a clean-up daemon that finds and releases any dangling allocations.And one that threw me: there are cases where multiblock writes might not see all blocks written. Some storage devices might either cache the data, or might (due to a power failure) not write all blocks.You'll find various discussions and papers on "careful writes" around. And ACID. And related.Once you get the hang of this sequencing, the next level of complexity upwards here can involve distributed access and coordinating and sequencing write operations. This can involve locking or queuing. |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | joshwa: The bookmarklet for the app I'm building... :) |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | vanekl: http://turtle.dojotoolkit.org/~david/recss.html |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | faizur: http://www.plum.com |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | tlrobinson: This JavaScript console w/ autocompletion, etc: http://tlrobinson.net/misc/console_bookmarklet.html |
Good Web UI Designers | izaidi: I'd recommend a listing on the 37signals Job Board (http://jobs.37signals.com/). It costs $300 for a 30-day job listing or $100 for a gig listing, but it'll get you by far the highest quality crop of applicants. |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | ivankirigin: I tip sites I like with this: http://tipjoy.com/bookmarkletWe're going to expand on the functionality soon. |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | bigtoga: Tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/ |
Good Web UI Designers | bigtoga: I've done some posting on elance before and I will suggest to start with the smallest job (i.e. cheapest) first to get used to working with bids and vendors. Start with a logo + business identity for $300-$500, go with only 5-star people with 6+ months of feedback. Once you have that, do a 3-5 page website for $300-$500. By now you should have a good feel for (1) the process, and (2) the people so now's the time to bump it up to a $1000 or $2000 project.Those places really aren't the place for $2000+ projects IMO. |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | noodle: option 3) build and grow your own business, if there are enough opportunities and the money is good.i know that i'd be willing to jump into something like this if the pay was good, with a small group of consultants.and i wouldn't mind joining, either, though i use codeigniter. ;) would have to learn cake. also, have the experience in large corporate development. |
Good Web UI Designers | josefresco: There are some (not many) UI designers on HN, like me for example./shameless plugI would stay away from Elance type sites unless cost is your only factor. 37signals job board will attract the exact opposite candidates as Elance (read: expensive/overpaid)Ever think of hiring local?Attributes to look for would be experience not only in creating the 'web 2.0 look' but also solid experience in eccomerce and application development. Too many designers only know how to make something look good, and fail to consider that you're doing business on the web. Avoid designers who rely on wiz-bang features, even a boring business like portfolio is better than one filled with tons of Flash and AJAX. |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | TFrancis: 4) learn a framework other than CakePHP. |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | JimEngland: You could try expanding your current company with additional developers and tackling more complex client work. If you add on cakePHP developers, perhaps a more collaborative environment will spawn a unique idea to develop into a web application. |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | natrius: Working on an open source project is extremely different from working on a large corporate software project. For example, there are few consequences for missing deadlines (if there are any deadlines), there is little to no management structure, and there are no perpetually changing requirements that you have to meet. There are plenty of things you can learn from working in a large company from both positive and negative examples, and it sounds like you want to learn those things.I don't see how working for a big company would be more against your entrepreneurial/hacker spirit than school was. You're going there to learn something. It won't always be pleasant, but it's a means to an end.Also, as an entrepreneur, you'll eventually have to manage people. I assume it would be much harder to do a good job of managing people if you've never had a boss before. |
Good Web UI Designers | bmaier: It always surprises me when people go looking for good AND cheap. There is a difference between cost and value. |
Good Web UI Designers | richesh: I am in the same boat as you and am actively seeking a UI designer. We are willing to pay up to $5000 or maybe even more for this service, but it has to be good and the chance of someone getting it wrong or asking for double the money is what's keeping us from taking the plunge.But I digress, the point of this comment is to try out 99designs.com. I've seen some really good designs on that site if you know exactly what you want.We plan on experimenting with 99designs once we have our site up and running with UI we can come up with as developers and hope to get lucky! |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | lux: Use Cake to build an app that you can sell online as a service. If the service takes off, there's all kinds of opportunity for learning as it grows and technical requirements change (scalability, security, etc).I've been doing client work in my one company for years (7 to be exact) and while it's an okay model for making a living, the revenue is connected with the hours you put in, which to be honest sucks. It means you can grow by adding people or becoming a bit more efficient, but neither of those allows for exponential growth. As such, it's not the right model for startups.Instead, you want something where you make residual income every month off something like subscriptions. With that type of model, you make steady income (if you can sell it) and there's the potential for exponential growth without exponentially increasing the number of people involved.As for ideas, most software you can write that you install on your own server (Cake type stuff) can be made as an on-demand service as well. And most jobs that are done in a consultancy can also benefit from software to make those jobs more efficient. I say pick one and go for it! |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | richesh: Option 1 - seems like an easy way out, and would probably negate your experience so far since "big companies" might not value your skills.Option 2 - is very hard to do unless you have an idea that the community really really needs.In my opinion you two other options:
Option 3 - try to expand your company by getting project contracts and not hourly contracts and get a decent size project to hire a partner, then go from their hire as you find more projects. (this is harder than I make it sound here, but worth it).Option 4 - Come up with 10 ideas that you think you can develop within 40-80 hours (2 weeks) using cakePHP, this is the 6 month road. If any one of these generate enough ads revenue to allow you to not do client work all the time then it will give you time to think about what to do "next". You can then try to hire more employees, grow your business, go back to school, or even join a big company. |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | thorax: Isn't addons.mozilla.org written in CakePHP? They might need open source helpers.If you did the same sort of thing for the Code Igniter framewor, then we'd be willing to help/donate a tad bit in that endeavor. |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | sosueme: You could work with/for me.Seriously.I am one of those "non coding" founders.
I come from the entertainment biz and know first hand that there is a need for web app suite that would help about 1.5 E+3 people each to do what I did for the last 5 years.The tools that exist for what I want to have developed either are no tools at all, something like a business process checklist, or do 30% of what is needed or required for the final outcome and does it poorly because the company that provides the tools does not want to give too much control to the user over the process.I have personal seed money (not a ton, about 10k usd) to develop a demo with someone, and would rather have someone interested in startups than a dbase programmer off Craigslist.I did some interface diagrams/sketches and wrote quite a bit on needed features. The 1.5 e+3 entertainment professionals (like me) in question work together twice a year to do about 3 e+9 euros worth of business each time.If done properly the web app would be self enlarging/viral within this community. |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | jacobbijani: The only ones I use are "Post to Tumblr" and "Save to pHome.us" (my site).I submitted this handy bookmarklet the other day: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=206066It translates between local and remote urls, including the stuff after the domain. http://example.local/user/foo becomes http://www.example.com/user/foo |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | danw: I'm in a similar position to you. Since going solo I've missed working with other people and have found that I'm learning new skills slower without regular code reviews, pair programming, etc. Here are some solutions I've been looking at:1) Join a small company, such as a startup or web dev studio. The small size will ensure you have a chance to have a varied role and to do lots of different things.2) Team up with other local developers to form a cooperative or studio of your own. |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | petercooper: The one that I use to post the current page to del.icio.us with. I've clicked it several thousand times in the past few years. |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | mudge: http://newsconomy.com/ |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | Harkins: You do web dev, you could also consider getting into a JS library.And I recommend everyone who works in a team read http://producingoss.com/ -- its insights aren't just good for open source code. |
tutorials on using the file system for storing data? | elad: I started using the filesystem for storage a while back, and then realized that I'm re-implementing a lot of DBMS functionality in my own buggy code. I switched over to using a database.I'm just saying that you should consider all of your requirements first, figure out how much code you're going to need that just manages your data, and then decide whether a database is really such a bad idea. |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | randy: Adventure time!> Do you actually want to work in a large dev team? -- Yes
>> Why ?
--- Want to gain knowledge about 'working in a large dev team'
>>> Why?
---- Because... it might be useful?
>>>> You're stupid.
---- Don't know.
>>>> You're stupid.
---- Some actually valid reason.
>>>> Wonderful! Please state it next time.
--- Want to learn about [insert hard thing here].
>>> What's stopping you?
---- Nothing.
>>>> Damn strait!
---- Not motivated enough to learn it by myself.
>>>> Join a start-up dealing with [insert hard thing here].
----- But... but... it's against my entrepreneurial spirit. (Which, by the way, please don't lump together with the hacker spirit, you insensitive clod!)
>>>>> Wipe off your wah-wah tears?
--- Want to be around people.
>>> Hint: The open source community doesn't hit up bars after work.
--- Need large team experience to tackle cool problem X.
>>> Are other people tackling cool problem X?
---- Yes.
>>>> Join them.
---- No.
>>>> You don't need large team experience. Take your passion and just get to work.
--- Don't know.
>>> Read 'Getting things Done'. Also: You're stupid.
-- No
>> Then why did you post this?
--- Because you're silly. |
Good Web UI Designers | mark_ellul: I would say odesk is is good for 1 reason only.... you can see snapshots of what the UI developer is working on as they do it. So you should be able to see if they are going down the right track early before they finish!It depends if its pure GUI or UI ... I think you should split up the project into 2... GUI is to get design and colour scheme. UI is to get the interactions you want and the flow...We have used odesk, and we found that we can get GUI design done, but UI is really dependant on your target user market... This is difficult to outsource unless you really direct what you want done... |
Good Web UI Designers | mark_ellul: also if you have the design in a psd... you could try http://www.psd2html.com/order-now.html |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | seregine: I like the one for http://faves.com, primarily because it's the social bookmarking app most of my friends use. Del.icio.us is the other one. |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | wenbert: I rented a cheap room. Got an internet connection and then invited my friends over. We hack a few hours every night after work. We each have our own projects (outsourced ones or pet projects).The good thing about this is that we never get bored. and we share our ideas. |
How do I beat the solo development blues? | vikram: If cakePHP works for you then use that. I'd look to build something that uses something that PHP and cakePHP is good at.For a while I've been thinking about a wikipedia for apps. Where people contribute code rather than text and help others build applications out of it, by using a plug-n-play sort of functionality.From the 10 minutes I spent thinking about PHP, it seems to me that the one thing it has going to it is that it makes it easy for your users to upload code onto the site to modify it. E.g. Ning and Jotspot.So maybe instead of a cpan for cakephp. A cpan for web apps.
Where I can go to create a basic application, by choosing modules and plugging then together or adding applications that others have built to my stack. |
Most Useful Bookmarklet? | akirk: http://www.blummy.com/
"The bookmarklet management bookmarklet"Sorry for the plug, but it fits well :) Since I wrote Blummy, I have not changed it much, but IMO it is still useful. The database contains 400 bookmarklets to add to your own blummy.Also see http://alexander.kirk.at/2006/08/02/unknown-blummy-treasures... |
How do you track user data? | mdasen: For #2: You simply need to change the session store in PHP. You can easily make PHP sessions database backed. |
What web language for server side scripting? | chuchurocka: If speed really is key i'd say Perl, otherwise I would just stick to PHP. Ruby and Python are nice for writing code really fast in but Perl / PHP execute much faster. |
What web language for server side scripting? | icey: You're going to have to define what sort of speed you need for #2. If you're talking about basic CRUD, then all of the languages you've specified will work just fine. If you're doing a lot of scientific work, then you might want to look at Python, along with NumPy / SciPy. If it's a small core of calculations that you know you'll have to execute over and over again, then all of the above are fine if you're happy to interop with C.So... whatcha building? |
What web language for server side scripting? | yourabi: Python, reasons follow:1) Django
2) App Engine
3) Highly expressive |
What web language for server side scripting? | lr: We use Ruby on Rails for the web app, and our sys admin scripts are written in Ruby as well, as they can easily integrate with our DB via our Rails setup. |
What web language for server side scripting? | ii: Python, of course.#2. Python usually wins: http://www.alrond.com/en/2007/jan/25/performance-test-of-6-l...#3. Django was written with Postgres in mind. |
Offers to help with webapp | webwright: You have enthusiastic users and you think you're going to sneak up on an incumbent?
(suggest reading: http://www.unionsquareventures.com/2008/06/the_spooky_econ.h... )I'd add a donate (or tipjoy!) button. Or a bounty page where people can buy their favorite feature request to the top of the list.If people want to help, maybe you could release an API? Or open-source your software? |
What web language for server side scripting? | davidw: Ruby on Rails or Django. |
What web language for server side scripting? | sadiq: If speed of execution is a key requirement, beyond C++ and some good programmers, your main options are Java and C#.I use Java with Struts on Tomcat for a couple of projects and it's served me well. |
Offers to help with webapp | abstractbill: From what he's told me, axod has had a similar experience with users offering to help with mibbit, and he's managed to put some of these offers to good use. Care to say more axod? |
Offers to help with webapp | tptacek: I don't care what else you do, but you should find out more about each of them, and take the information down. You will be surprised how valuable that list will be down the road, and how hard the list is to develop on your own. |
What web language for server side scripting? | anonym: If you want speed, why not Common Lisp? Nice, high-level, a pleasure to work in, fast and compiled out of the box, with the ability to optimize the hell out of specific critical parts of your code (using, e.g., optional type declarations, speed and safety settings, inlining declarations, etc.). Hunchentoot is a nice web server, Postmodern is a nice library for working with Postgres. |
What web language for server side scripting? | tachibana: I myself am a strong proponent of Java. There are enough tools out there that take much of the tediousness of all the common functionality (basic CRUD, form handling, workflow, etc).The real strength of Java presents itself after you've moved to production; I almost always am able to hand somebody an .ear or .war file and completely offload deployment/operations to somebody else.As a plug for EJBs (a lot of the negativity around EJBs are carryoversr from EJB 2.1 and earlier), EJB-based application can be easily scaled by putting a request into operations for an additional app server and administratively changing the number of "processors" (session beans). App server failover and recovery is also fairly transparent as well.Just my $0.02.. |
Whats a Good Karma Score? | nostrademons: It doesn't really matter. Post when you have something useful to say and don't worry about the karma. |
Whats a Good Karma Score? | rms: yeah... it's really just a measure of activity on this site. If I could give you some I would.At 250 you get to change the color on the top navbar! that's pretty cool. |
Is there any other web-business as easy as online dating and blogging? | smoody: User-submitted news sites that allow people to vote articles up and down. ;-) |
Is there any other web-business as easy as online dating and blogging? | josefresco: If you want no hassle, affiliate sites are the way to go as you only generate the sales lead and they do all the rest. Once you find something that works, you just replicate. CJ.com is a good place to start.I'm not sure what you mean by "blogging business" though, you mind elaborating?Social sites where the users generate all the content are good as well, look into scripts like Pligg which are easy to install and customize to suite your niche. |
Is there any other web-business as easy as online dating and blogging? | gaius: But the people making money in ANY business are the ones who aren't looking for something easy. As PG says, they're the ones looking for an opportunity to get rewarded for working harder than their competition. This is truer than ever on the web. Sure match.com or whoever may have cheesy ads but in the boiler room there will be talented geeks working their asses off. |
Is there any other web-business as easy as online dating and blogging? | thedob: Gimmicks work well - http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/ |
alternative news management sites, worth the effort? | josefresco: You opened a rather large can of worms here, the short answer to your question is that you're kind of late to the game, there are hundreds if not thousands of Digg/Reddit competitors and taking on FriendFeed/Twitter has and IS being done on a daily basis (Plurk etc.)Anyone familiar with Reddit or Digg will tell you they are about as similar as a Ford Taurus and a Honda Accord. They share the same basic function but vary vastly in audience, content and culture.All that being said, if you can build a better mouse trap but all means do it. I'll be waiting on the sidelines cheering you on and sharing my thoughts on what you're doing right and wrong ;) |
Is there any other web-business as easy as online dating and blogging? | babul: Most service based business like this have been done e.g. fininding jobs, houses, love.If you want to go that route, just do what many others are doing - use web 2.0/3.0 tools to do them better and play the niches. |
alternative news management sites, worth the effort? | wheels: You don't want to end up in a pissing match in a dominant market unless you've got something that will truly differentiate you up your sleeve. This isn't to say that you couldn't compete, but even in your best case scenario, you've captured part of a market that is heading towards being a commodity. Sure there are lots of IM programs out there. How many of them do you think generate revenue of interest?Maybe consider open sourcing it so that folks can build their own friendfeed-ish sites. |
Is there any other web-business as easy as online dating and blogging? | noodle: drop shipping on ebay, i would argue, is easier if you have a good product to drop ship.blogging requires effort to write content. online dating software requires effort to build the community and improve the site to a level that makes people actually want to use them. both require active work on the website that doesn't necessarily pay off, at least initially.with drop shipping, you find your source and post it on ebay. the item sells, order an item and send it to them. |
Is there any other web-business as easy as online dating and blogging? | pg: To make a successful web startup you have to deal with problems much harder than pedestrian ones like inventory and shipping.Creating a successful dating site "doesn't require anything other than building a web-app" in roughly the same way that being a successful novelist doesn't require anything other than writing a novel. |
Developing an Online/Offline Web App, Where to Start? | noodle: google gears or adobe air.here's a good summary of their differences:
http://almaer.com/blog/gears-and-air-the-open-source-differe... |
Is there any other web-business as easy as online dating and blogging? | byrneseyeview: Why would you deliberately look for low barriers to entry? If it's so easy that people will do it for free, you may have some trouble making a profit -- especially if your motivation is to do a minimal amount of work. |
alternative news management sites, worth the effort? | adrianwaj: I'd like to see a way of comment aggregation, eg for 1 article there are comments and duplicate articles at multiple degrees of separation:- Article + same story elsewhere on news site + each one's comments- Blog reference to article + duplicate references on other blogs + each one's comment- Digg + competing social news sites + each one's comments- Social network references + other social networks + comments- Comment communities, eg co.comment- Friend aggregators eg Friendfeed and competitors + their commentsWould be great to see framework or system to see all discussion in 1 place, not necessarily forcing users to discuss in 1 place, but to see from a historical perspective the different viewpoints. Maybe some type of tag that an original author can insert. Trackback V2 perhaps. |
alternative news management sites, worth the effort? | geuis: Go for it. I've sat on my own ideas and watched the world go by to see the same ideas become popular websites. Ignore what you see as competition. The worst that happens is you gain no users. You learn from it anyway and its a springboard to your next great idea. Fear doubt and just start coding n |
good hosts for static files? | johnm: What's your usage model? Lots of files, long tail? Very few files but very popular? Are the files really large (videos) or medium (images) or small (text)? How much are you willing to spend? Do you care about latency or just throughput? Etc. |
What are the requirements for TC50? | aneesh: TechCrunch wants you to launch your product at TC50 - so you should have a product. A beta is fine (I'd guess many of the TC50 are in beta stage).If you want to build the product between June 23 and TC50, after submitting just the idea, I suppose you could, but I don't like your chances since TC50 won't know what it's getting. |
Bet the farm. Python or PHP? | lakeeffect: Python, It is more responsive than php. |
Bet the farm. Python or PHP? | jrockway: Why throw away Perl? You already know Perl, and Perl has lots of things that PHP and Python don't. Before you ditch Perl, look at DBIx::Class, Moose, and Catalyst. And the other 10,000 libraries on CPAN.Then look at the 500 or so libraries available for PHP.Perl has a really insane library culture, and it's very hard to give that up. I like the syntax of other languages better (Lisp is my favorite), but it's hard to give up the millions of hours of free work called the CPAN. Perl also has great tools for testing (see how many Test:: modules there are), and it has a culture of testing. So the libraries you download from the CPAN aren't some untested i-hacked-it-together-while-drunk snippets of code; they're all very carefully tested. What it boils down to is that when you move your app from development to production, you'll be reasonably sure that your libraries (and app) still work.One line summary: Perl has more features and libraries than the alternatives, and you already know it! I think the choice is a no-brainer. |
Bet the farm. Python or PHP? | iamdave: >calendar/scheduling/notifications with some social networkingWhy?More and more web apps are coming out with social networking tied in, and very few of them succeed BECAUSE they have social networking tied in. Socializing a site is a bit more than giving people profile pages and enabling them the ability to "friend" people, at least that's how I look at it.So my question to you is this: how are you planning to make the social aspect of your site actually work? How are you going to make the ad hoc benefits of social networking replicate to an online presence? Will people actually benefit from socializing, or are they just going to have friends who they will have the extraneous ability to leave comments about? |
Bet the farm. Python or PHP? | underscore: What are your feelings as a beginner in each language? Have you found any little design decisions that leave you scratching your head, or make you start cursing loudly at the computer? Have you built anything with them? If so, did you run into any issues that you feel were a result of the language?I'm a bit of a hedonist, but if I were in your situation, I'd probably try to pick the one that was the most fun to work with. As you say, once you've started building, it won't be (or maybe for you it will be?) as easy to switch, and you probably don't want to figure out that you hate coding in whatever you've chosen while trying to finish your web app.When in a variant of your situation (PHP/a PHP framework versus Python/Django), I chose Python. I'm not you, so we may have totally different tastes and may have come to a different conclusion given the facts. I've been pretty happy with my choice, though. |
Bet the farm. Python or PHP? | rms: Python... both languages are along far enough that they will meet all four of your points, but people that program in python are on average better programmers than PHP programmers. So it makes hiring good hackers easier by eliminating many of the bad hackers.Other than that, if you like the syntax of PHP, it is as good as python as long as you program using the MVC paradigm. Personally I like the syntax of python a whole lot more than PHP. |