brickcap

I am working on wrinq[1] an application that helps people manage their rental property. Not a niche domain (or maybe it is since I don't see many applications for the real estate sector except for listings) but we are using niche technologies.

It is built with openresty and couchdb both of which I feel are terribly underrated technologies.

"How is it working out?"

On the technology side. Everything is going great. I read a thread on micro-services a while ago and with couchdb (if you take time to think through) it is really easy to have micro-services that can be distributed. We've got 5. While they are not independently deployed yet they can be at any time. It's only a mater of replicating the existing data(very easy) and changing the urls(easy but needs some thorough testing).

openresty makes it really easy to communicate to in house as well as some third party services we use. I smile every time I write:

`local res1,res2,res3 = ngx.location.capture_multi{{"url1"},{"url3"},{"url3"}}

It is very satisfying to see the results of different independent apis coming together in a single call.

Both of these technologies are very resource efficient,openresty in particular. And we have tested high loads of traffic on cheap servers without making any effort to optimize.

On the business side. We are doing okay. Making sales is always a challenge but people are interested in talking to us which is a good sign, I feel. Only a matter of time before we perfect our product and pitch. We are in no hurry :)

[1]https://www.wrinq.com/

For me it's when you can start reading and understanding the code that other people wrote. This does not mean that you have to understand the "why?"(which can be a bit hard without context) behind the code just the "how?".

I think it is a good indicator of how comfortable you are in your chosen language.

Tactics training helps a lot. I like echess[1], it has a good selection of tactical puzzles. Try to solve one a day and you should see significant improvement in your game within a month.

For a game against an advanced player you must master the openings which can be hard (I always make mistakes in the opening stages).

[1]http://en.lichess.org/training/17424

>I try to focus on the small things

Great attitude. I feel the same way too. There is a line[1] in "Hey Jude" (a popular Beatles song) that I quite like:-

"Don't carry the world upon your shoulders"

No one can change the world all by himself but little things go a long way.

I love anything by Saki and Guy de Maupassant. Premchand was a great Indian short story writer. Many of his works are available in English.

Haven't found any mystery short stories that are better than Sherlock Holmes. Labours of Hercules was good though.

My all time favourite: The Bet by Anton Chekov

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1732/1732-h/1732-h.htm#link2H...

Good to see a fan of Wodehouse :) I like his longer works better. I read ukridge and mulliner nights a while back. They were good but not as good as jeeves and the others.

>Those agreements are pretty serious legal documents.

I agree :) what I am saying is, my observation has been that many people don't do agreements. If you have an agreement with an express expiry date (12-18 months as you say) it is all good. Most people don't. For many people the problem is lack of knowledge. For something as ordinary as renting they don't even consider the need for going to a lawyer/agent and getting a contract done.

What you say about Banglore is opposite to my observation and it makes me happy that people there are smart enough to enter into a contract before renting their house. It is good both for the tenant as well as the landlord.

Noida is also a pretty popular IT city and people renting out their homes make no contract. Even in my own city (gurgaon) letting without a contract is pretty common. Mostly there are no disputes. But when there are they are long and bitter.

This is very true. I have known tenants who adversely possess the property and make owners fight for decades before they are evicted. Generally as long as the tenant is paying rent there are very few grounds on which he can get evicted.

Most of laws favour the tenants(in one sense it is right) but it is not uncommon for them to take undue advantage. And people who rent without a contract of some sorts usually pay the price. Most of them though would rather prefer to keep it vacant than put it in any danger of dispute.

I've enjoyed reading murder mysteries while travelling. Anything by Agatha Christie is good. Generally speaking short stories,essays or something with a strong narrative flow makes for a good travel book.

Another good idea is to make yourself read a book that you would never have read at home. While travelling, if you don't have other distractions(internet,music etc) and only a book to keep you occupied (when you are not busy sightseeing) you might actually finish it. I read The Republic in two days on a train-- a book which I wouldn’t have touched otherwise. And I am glad I did :) It made me discover a completely new class of books.

Reading the reading list!

Library of worlds best mystery stories[1] and The oxford book of American essays[2]

[1]http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12758/12758-h/12758-h.htm

[2]http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40196/40196-h/40196-h.htm

Thanks for letting me know :) Yeah he is a good writer. I bought his book "The last Mughal" last year but haven't managed to read it yet. I'll also keep an eye out for "In Xandu"

Sounds great! what's the name of the book?

My troubles seem to have very low self esteem. If I can point finger and laugh at them they retreat in a corner and sulk there for weeks :)

10 minutes of laughing is a part of my daily routine. It brings in much needed supply of fresh air and fresh perspective.

I like stackoverflow quite a lot. I use quora on and off. I am also a member of gamefaqs. I have been lurking forever on rpgfan and rpgamer forums.

It seems to me that this person has taken a lot of time researching about contracts. Much of text is filled with legal definitions rather the actual terms of agreement. No lawyer writes a contract like this (at the very least I've never seen a contract written like this) .The intention clearly is to give off the impression that it was drafted by a lawyer, which I highly doubt.

Also the quality of language in the definitions and the quality of the language in the actual clauses does not match. Which could mean that the definitions were simply copy/pasted from internet but when it came to writing the actual stuff the person making the offer had nowhere to turn to.

So what you fear is that the client is asking to to fulfil your promise to the contract that you linked. Reading the contract and the context that you have given, here are some of the things that I've noticed. My responses are with respect to the Indian contract law :-

_"and any designing or development you own or have or will have rights to, any that you have previously created or will create in the future ..."_

This is void since it is not legally enforceable. A clause must be specific as to what the promise or the consideration for promise should be. What this clause says is neither specific nor foreseeable.

_"in return for you services and full agreement to the above terms in condition I will be allowing you to purchase a website with control panel through us or the company we use"_

Okay this was funny :) So the author of the contract reads up on contract law and decides to draft one. He puts forward some absurd clauses and says to himself

"Gee what should I give the other party in return for consideration of the promise?"

And he gives you the _right_ to buy stuff for him. This is like when you go to a fruit vendor and pay him Rs 40 to buy a dozen bananas and he says "Brother since you have given me Rs 40 to buy the bananas I give you the right to buy apples from this shop". Won't work in a court of law.

_"You also give up all rights to file a suit again my self or anyone involving me , you will give up the right to lawyer up and file a suit against me or anyone I associate with."_

This clause is void. The right to file a law suit can not be taken away in any case by anyone. It does not matter if you have agreed to do so in a contract or not.

First the promise required is not specific. Then there is no consideration of promise. On top of that the person is taking away your right to appear before a court of law. All three clauses are void. The contract is void. You have nothing to fear.

Impressive.Can it play skyrim?

My top 5:-

Dog Day Afternoon, Clue, Murder By death, Fearless Vampire killers and Down By Law.

As is usually the case with me, next time someone creates a similar thread the list will be totally different :)

I liked reading Joe Armstrong's thesis[1] on erlang where he describes what it takes to build fault tolerant systems. Though he talks about erlang some of the concepts stuck with me and helped me in writing code in other languages.

For example one of the recurring themes is the concept of "intentional programming" that I found myself using in my code more often and it resulted in drastic simplification of ideas.

His other ideas like supervision are pretty much tied to erlang unless you want to dedicate effort in "porting" them to your preferred language.

The book is small (<300 pages) and quite readable even if you don't know any erlang.

I also liked reading about programming habits from @edw519[2]. Especially the part about reading code and analyzing it everyday. Following his way I can pretty much reproduce the entire codebase that I am currently working on from my memory right down to the unit tests.

Why is it helpful? Because if you have the entire thing in your head then your brain keeps working on the problem even if you are not. Faults in design and implementation are easier to catch. This practice of self critique is the second best thing to code review and the best if you can't get your code reviewed. It can also lead to "analysis paralysis" if you are not disciplined :)

[1]http://ftp.nsysu.edu.tw/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/erlang/armst...

[2]http://v25media.s3.amazonaws.com/edw519_mod.pdf

I've been working with openresty (ngx+lua) for a few months now and I love it. If you know nginx you can get started with it in a couple of days.

The idea behind it is simple. It introduces a set of directives that allow you to execute lua code. Some of these directives are completely new while others are meant to compliment nginx's native directives. Eg:

the `access_by_lua` directives is meant to execute lua code after nginx's access phase handler. Where as `content_by_lua` has no nginx equivalent.

I haven't used the MVC frameworks built with openresty myself but that was only due to lack of research on my part! I wish I had taken time to see what options were available.

Mine's erlang.

I walk. It is pretty easy to integrate into day to day life. I tried going to gym once or twice but didn't enjoy it. Walking in a park is much more refreshing. My grandfather (from my mother's side) is 81 and he still walks to this day. Which is why I feel that going to gym is not really sustainable. I don't think I will be able to lift weights at 81, supposing I live that long. Better to get into a habit of walking and do it as long as I live.

Reading and writing are very good mental exercises. If you combine the two it is even better. The idea is really simple. First read what you like and then write what you understood. Benjamin Franklin used to do it. If you read something good it is impossible to not think about it. Writing is just like thinking only more concrete and disciplined.

I don't know about you but my mind starts to wander easily. Writing demands from me an absolute attention to my thoughts. Which means I think more deeply and clearly when I write as compared to when I don't.

According to socrates to live the best life one must be trained in music and gymnastic. Music he refers to a poem of the soul. Something to lift the desolate spirit. Thoughtful words of wise men can become socratic music. Gymnastic he refers to physical exercise.

Yes. I had a couple of posts on 1up.com[1], IGN bought it and decided to shut it down.

It was only then that I decided to create my own website and write what I wanted to there. I am still sad 1up got shut down but I probably wouldn't have created my website if it didn't.

[1] Don't know if any one here read 1up? I was a big fan of their "retronauts" and "The grind" podcasts. I loved the analysis of games by Kat bailey and Jermy parish. Jermy has his own blog where he still writes and Kat posts on US gamer. 1up is still online though in read only mode. It seems like they have also disabled the user accounts.

Firefox mainly because it is less resource intensive. When I made the switch firefox was also the first one to offer new features (as far as I know) like ctrl+shit+m to change to browser into a "responsive mode" where you could test your website on various browser widths.

I haven’t used the "hello" firefox feature much at this time but I can certainly see the use for it in the future.

I don't have favourites I just go up on gutenberg and look for collections. This way I get to read essays from authors whom I hadn't read before.

For example couple of months back I found 'all things considered' [1] a collection of selected essays by GK Chesterton. While the entire collection is good my favourites were in no particular order:-

1. On running afters ones hat

2. The fallacy of success

3. The worship of the wealthy

These days I am reading Oxford book of American Essays[2]. I liked Benjamin Franklin's essays (The whistle was also in his autobiography). Consolation for the old bachelor (Francis Hopkinson) is very funny. Calvin a study of character (Charles Dudley Warner) is the strangest thing I have read in recent time, it is good though.

[1]http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11505

[2]http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40196/40196-h/40196-h.htm

Yes I do and it helps me to relax :)

I think you are discounting the "helped people" part. Your boss says what he says because he sees little value in your efforts. You answering questions on stackoverflow does not affect him. But it does affect the people you've have helped.

>And it probably has some economic value too, doesn't it?

Yes it does. It has economic value for the person whose job you probably saved. It has economic value for the person whom you probably helped get a job by explaining a difficult concept. There is economic value for the person whom you helped in shipping a feature for their customers. Your boss does not see from this prospective but the people you've helped do.

>That says I'm worth something, doesn't it?

Absolutely. I remember reading a quote, I think it was from Lewis Carroll. One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others.

> $3 would buy me a cup of coffee

With diminishing returns. An answer on stackoverflow is more valuable than a cup of cofee simply because it provides far more value to far more people for a much longer time.

You should stick with what you know. If you are comfortable with LAMP stack then you should keep using that. I am assuming that a good chunk of your work comes from maintaining what you wrote for a previous client and for these type of jobs it is best if you follow a standard (which you define). That way you won't have to think (as much) about your code before you start to make any changes to it.

A vps provider like digital ocean or linode can certainly be a good choice, if you also take care of hosting. With them you could set up a proxy server (I prefer nginx) in front of the apps for your clients and serve them all from a single vps. The traffic of 10-1000 of users is not too big but if you feel that performance of an app is degrading you can always migrate it to a managed hosting service like heroku. That way you can also charge different fees from your clients based on how you are managing their applications.

Great quote :)

For me sometimes it's the books and some times tv shows. But the idea should be to build a capacity of looking at things from a different/funny perspective. Which means developing the skill of taking an existing mundane scenario and finding something to laugh about in it and not just relying on external stimulus to do that for you.

For book recommendations gutenberg has a nice collection of humour classics (http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Humor_%28Bookshelf%29) any book by pg wodehouse and three men in a boat comes with a (personal) guarantee.

I am using openresty,couchdb and jquery.

Openresty because it so much fun :) It uses lua which is a very pleasant language to work with (I love the idea of multiple return values from functions) and it built on top of nginx which is a big win for me since I always use nginx in front of my app server.

With openresty I can use nginx both as an app server and as a proxy. I think that if anyone is already using nginx they should look into openresty because it opens up so many possibilities.

couchdb because of it's ease of use. It has a simple http api that works well with openresty's `location.capture/capture_multi` capabilities. It has a server side javascript environment which can be used to validate data/render templates etc,the common js module system is very capable. It also gives me an excuse to have erlang in my stack, ready just in case.

jquery because it is reliable. The other javascript framework that I like is knockout js but I use it only when I need to have a complex client side logic and knockout js works well with jquery.