(note: I don’t support the skinning of cats)
While I’m relatively new to web programming, there is a fairly large barrier to entry to this wonderful world of creation for someone like myself. You see, I like to choose the best tool for a job and get to work. The problem is, there are too many damn good tools for web programming, and I’m not knowledgeable enough to decide on which is the right one to use for any given project.
Collaborative design describes many people working towards a shared vision and iteratively communicating their discoveries and decision processes. Then members of the collaborative effort take the developed concepts of greatest utility and leverage them towards continually higher level applications. Collaborative design can have a single leader, a group of influencers, or a be completely headless (I keep dreaming about organizations like this, but I haven’t studied enough of emergent properties of intelligent networks). (more…)
You’ll probably notice the friendfeed embeds are now gone. It is with great regret that I discovered today that Facebook has purchased friendfeed for ~50 million bucks. I’m happy for the dev team (woohoo cash), but I can’t help but feel there was greater potential for the friendfeed service than an early facebook purchase. There are already plans to move some of the founders of friendfeed into upper engineering management positions and other developers into various supporting roles. With little doubt the friendfeed team will no longer be spending their efforts soley on building friendfeed into a stronger social media platform. Instead they’ll be helping Facebook to grow and move forward. (more…)
An Ideal IDE is a thing of beauty, easing code development
The reality of using certain IDEs is an incredible rat’s nest
If you’ve used the older microsoft visual c++ IDE or the .NET express editions you’re familiar with how fast you can go from installation to digging into the code. The experience has gradually improved over generations of the IDE and now setting up projects can done in short order. Functionality like “go to definition” and “code completion” are a joy to every programmer.
I foolishly expected my Netbeans and Eclipse installations to be just as smooth. And as long as your only developing in one of their default install languages they aren’t bad. You may have to set some environment path variables in order to get up and running, a mild nuisance but no deal breaker. As soon you go off the beaten path by using something like scala, lift, or the Google App Engine (GAE) you’re in for some hair pulling. (more…)
The Internet is evolving in layers of applications. New programs and businesses reside on top of multiple web functional layers, as well as providing APIs to external, potentially higher order applications. One sharp example Semanta has a high functionality API. Their interface has available effective semantic tools to extract meta data from natural written language. I’d like to fulfill a user need to have real time search information based on thoughts they express within social media. This could facilitate discovery of others who are interested in discussing similar topics. The long term goal I have for a business I’m working to startup (along with some sharp friends) is to create the ultimate web based virtual assistant. (more…)
I’d say 95%/5% (for members vs. outsiders) of planned expenditures should be focused on improving things for your members following my earlier stated top 4 business priorities. Without Member Satisfaction you don’t have a business, plain and simple. Your business will be based upon providing value to your members which include: (more…)
While reading Fred Wilsons post on spamming your followers, a series of thoughts triggered as is usually my experience. The post discusses how he inadvertently spammed people that follow him with an automated message. Fred goes on to describe how he self filters his stream as not to spam his followers with more than about six messages per day.
Dave Winer commented via friendfeed that he wants Fred’s genuine status stream, not a self filtered version that Fred Wilson believes would please the majority of his followers. (more…)