adelevie

Me. See my other comment in this thread.

I've recently started exploring the Legal Informatics field. The problems in it are huge and typically involving adding some structure to lots and lots of unstructured text.

Also, Peter, if you do end up reading this, great work on the stuff you do :) Big fan here!

Why this poll? I'm sure there'd be no problem if tomorrow morning we see "I'm #{@name}, founder of #{@awesome_thing}, AMA".

This looks great. I'm building http://dokket.aws.af.cm. It's a database filled with documents from the Federal Communications Commission. From day 1, I've been looking for smart ways to make use of the thousands of documents of unstructured text. The customization you offer seems to be the killer feature for me.

I'll write a Ruby api wrapper if you give me an agreed-upon amount of usage when you settle on pricing.

Feel free to email me (HN name @ gmail) if you're interested or just want to follow up for customer development purposes.

Best of luck!

adelevie at gmail

There are many good paths to take, and I'd avoid discussions about the "right" language to start with. Pick any language and run with it. If, down the road, you need to use a different set of technologies, then that time will come. But right now, it's time to learn. If you decide to learn Ruby, feel free to email me if you need any help getting started. It's my HN username at gmail. Good luck!

I emailed you a more complete answer, but while you're here:

I'm focusing on building the dataset and alerts system, so it's more of a subscription service--for now at least. Looking ahead, there's a wealth of information buried inside these documents that I'd like to leverage.

I'd rather not waste the YC partners' time :)

Maybe in my case, school is a bit less of a zero sum game. I'm working on a legal research tool (prototype: http://dokket.aws.af.cm/about) that serves an under-addressed market (communications law). Think MarketBrief (http://marketbrief.com/), but instead of the SEC, the focus is on the FCC.

Not-so-incidentally, I'm about half-way done with law school in a part-time/evening program in DC.

I know YC doesn't like to accept applicants who are still in school (and who aren't dropping out). Makes enough sense, considering students at all levels can expect to spend ~40-60 hours/week on their studies. But what about part-time/evening students? The commitment for them might be much lower, say ~10-20 hours/week.

Should students in this latter category even consider applying if they have zero intention of dropping out of school?

Is there anything gem authors should be doing?

Are there any (dis)advantages between the two?

I'd love to try this out with RubyMotion.

Do backend-as-a-service databases count?

Check out https://github.com/adelevie/parse-ruby-client and https://github.com/adelevie/parse_resource.

Also, with properly-configured ACLs, you should be fine using the JS SDK client-side with a Rails backend.

To any programmers looking to work in Congress, there's a job opening for a "Software Technician" in the Office of Legislative Counsel[0]:

    MEM-098-12
    The House Office of Legislative Counsel is looking for a Software Technician to 
    augment their existing IT staff. This position is a support position that solves daily 
    software issues as they arise and performs preventive maintenance routines.4
    Core Responsibilities:
    To troubleshoot and maintain office drafting software, document management 
    software, and related supporting software. To monitor nightly scheduled jobs for 
    errors and fix as needed. To work with systems administrator in solving problems 
    when underlying operating system or network permissions may be part of the 
    problem. Assist end-users with resolution of system related technical challenges
    Duties:
    Check logs from nightly automated scripts on SQL server, and utility file servers 
    for anomalies; assist in deploying/installing software written by office 
    programmers as well as outside vendors; provide backup assistance to the system 
    administrator on desktop and operating system issues when necessary; 
    create/modify utility scripts in DOS batch and VBscript ; test certain software on 
    new desktops and laptops before they are assigned to users ; perform SQL queries 
    to assist in troubleshooting; performs or commissions network, personal 
    computer, and peripheral maintenance; adds, updates, and deletes users from the 
    document management and authoring systems; eventually provides computer 
    software training to staff; document tasks and fixes in internal wiki used by 
    office;  attend weekly staff meeting to discuss present and potential upcoming 
    issues; Performs other duties as assigned.
    Qualifications:
    At least 4 years technical training or equivalent work experience with computers, 
    software and hardware; at least 2 years experience working with Windows 
    networks (LAN); strong academic credentials; knowledge of current Windows 
    software and applications; ability to work with technical peers and users of 
    computer systems;
    some knowledge of SQL queries, XML markup language, PERL programming 
    language, and VB programming language helpful; strong oral  and  written  
    communication  skills; abilityto work cooperatively and courteously with others; 
    and
    availability to after hours and as needed (a few times a year generally)
    Applicant Instructions:
    Email resume and cover letter with subject line “Software Technician” to 
    legcoun@mail.house.gov.

[0] http://www.house.gov/content/jobs/members_and_committees.php (free subscription required)

This is one of many features requested that Parse has promptly delivered. I (among others), expressed interest in this feature just a matter of weeks ago[0].

Cloud Code opened a floodgate of functionality on the Parse platform, and HTTP requests open another such floodgate.

[0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4506888

The FCC uses (and open sourced[0]) a Drupal module[1] that provides API access to much of the site's content.

[0] http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/content-api-drupal-module

[1] http://www.fcc.gov/developers/fcc-content-api

> I haven't met programmers who became lawyers.

For what it's worth, I'm a programmer in the middle of law school.

This looks incredible. I've been wanting a clean way to select multiple random objects from my Parse db. Until now, this was the best answer: https://parse.com/questions/random-search-its-possibile.

Also, it seems possible to combine this with IronWorker. You could create a worker in Ruby, then in the Parse Cloud Code, call that worker's endpoint. Something like this (rough sketch):

worker.rb:

  require "some_ruby_email_gem"
  cgi_parsed = CGI::parse(payload)
  email = payload["email"]
  SomeRubyEmailGem.send(email, "Welcome, #{email}!")

upload.rb:

  require 'iron_worker_ng'
  client = IronWorkerNG::Client.new(:token => config['iw']['token'], :project_id => config['iw']['project_id'])
  code = IronWorkerNG::Code::Ruby.new
  code.merge_worker 'worker.rb'
  code.merge_gem "some_ruby_email_gem"
  client.codes.create(code)

  url = "https://worker-aws-us-east-1.iron.io/2/projects/#{config['iw']['project_id']}/tasks/webhook?code_name=#{code.name}&oauth=#{config['iw']['token']}"

  puts "Add this url to to your Parse Cloud Code:"
  puts url

Parse Cloud Code:

  Parse.Cloud.define("welcome, function(request, response) {
    var user = request.object.get("user");
    var url = "https://worker-aws-us-east-1.iron.io/2..." // the url from upload.rb
    http.open("POST", url+"?email="+user.email, true);
  });

EDIT: HTTP requests to 3rd parties within Cloud Code are not possible yet, but Parse will add the feature soon. (http://twitter.com/ParseIt/status/245584646686003200)

Give away some kind of free software that is useful and production-quality. That something should also be related to a larger, growing trend. You'll generally get higher quality clients, a non-low rate, and a more fun project (since it's centered on using a tool that you built). And you also don't have to make cold calls--the software should stand on its own and send the leads to you.

I've learned this from my own experience writing/maintaining various open source libraries centered on using Parse with Ruby. The rapid growth of Parse has caused at least a handful of their thousands of developers to want to use it with Ruby (either for a Rails app, or a native iOS app with RubyMotion). Of those people, at least a handful have contacted me looking for a freelancer. Of those people, some have become paying clients.

If anyone is interested, the FCC has a fairly comprehensive list of Developers pages for other federal agencies: http://www.fcc.gov/developers (on the right column).

Also, for further reading on the topic of .gov APIs, http://ben.balter.com/2012/06/02/publishing-government-data-... is a great start.

Laurent Sansonetti (creator of RM) was on the Ruby Rogues podcast (http://rubyrogues.com/055-rr-rubymotion-with-laurent-sansone...) and made a compelling case for the current pricing scheme. I won't paraphrase Laurent, but if you're interested, listen for yourself.

This is really cool. Suggestions:

- index all public Ruby gems when searching for gems to add

- include files for easy Heroku deployment (Procfile, for example)

- include travis.yml files

Kind of my point. OP's dependency arguments boil down to a matter of comfort. Discomfort with depending RubyMotion seems at odds with discomfort with depending on maintaining good favor with Apple.

I find both dependencies are well worth it.

OP makes good arguments, but they seem out of place considering he's already dependent on the Apple approval process.

You might also be interested in this: https://github.com/adelevie/ParseModel

It's an Active Record(ish) syntax layer for the Parse iOS SDK.

Would this facilitate JRuby in the browser?

Check out Weary (https://github.com/mwunsch/weary/wiki). It's a framework for building REST clients in Ruby. Clients written with Weary are also Rack apps which can can be mounted in a Rails app, for example. Then you can add your own layer of authentication/whatever to the Rails app which will act as a proxy to your Parse db.

Sorry for the late followup, but thanks for the link. getFile is a callback for when a file is uploaded, not a way to just get one file (I'm coming from an ActiveRecord/Ruby view of things).

Not only is your comment incredibly rude to some really nice folks, but it's also wrong.

Here's some data I exported from one of my Parse accounts: https://gist.github.com/2475461.

I'm not a js guru, and am having trouble understanding the example code. Could you post a more thorough example?