jackbean

"Should Product Mangers wear black? Steve Jobs did..."

Isn't that just a ridiculous argument?

Am I the only one who finds VC telling entrepreneurs "everything is going to crash soon, so you better close soon and on whatever terms you can get" disingenuous?

That's too bad. I'm surprised none of the mobile browsers have some kind of reading help.

Pulse looks pretty cool, but isn't it more of a replacement for Google Reader?

Can I use it for any url?

Slightly disappointed the book is almost entirely empty.

Is it possible to see couple sample pages?

"I don’t mind hosting in SF.. we could seat about 10 (with chairs) or 15-20 (if 10 people don’t mind taking the floor…"

mochaleaf.com posted in the comments that they are hosting one in SF.

I'll probably be working on it most of saturday afternoon in Peets in Berkeley, if anyone is interested.

Hey Jon, don't see an email in profile. Also any reason you can't outsource the technical development?

Thought about getting my own studio, but don't really want to sign a 6-12 month lease, not to mention furnishing the entire place only to have to move.

I don't mind where as long as there's BART nearby. Been looking outside SF as well, but again too much noise in the listings.

I've done one of those things and its true what they say "All the good ones are taken." Most people I met didn't seem qualified to run a business.

I'd start off by assuring people that you're not just an idea/business guy looking for code monkey to do all the technical work for 1% of the company.

How about https://github.com/josevalim/inherited_resources, very active (last commit was yesterday).

I don't have kids and it is highly hypocritical of me to say so but "Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace while living with his wife and 13 children."

You're looking to learn, that's all that matters. Now its just matter of doing it.

I'd be glad to help, do you've an email I can reach you at (mine's in my profile)?

"There's your problem. Start reading just one, commit to finishing it. If it doesn't keep your interest, then commit to closing it for good and start reading something else."

I disagree. Perhaps this is a personality issue and not a fault, but like the person above I'm always in the middle of many books. This is optimal since I'm letting your mind ruminate on the info, rather than just taking it all at once for the sake for completing it. They key is to take good notes (assuming technical books) and reviewing them each time before starting on the new info.

That's said there's certainly something to be said about sitting still and doing absolutely nothing.

This isn't specific but saw a post about weekendhacker.net last week. You might be interested in that.

If you find one, please let us know.

Glad to help. Care to let us know which way you're going?

Just curious: why are you using MongoDB with ActiveRecord and not say MongoMapper or Mongoid?

I think I might've given off the wrong impression with the title here. Lately been coming across multiple "CEOs" and "VPs" and thought it was a bit funny.

A better title would've been "Isn't it silly to cal yourself CEO when you've 0 employees?"

But I completely agree with what you've said.

"I have written some scripts for code analysis needs via git/grep/awk/ruby. code metrics, top committers, frequently committed files, duplications etc"

That's exactly what I was looking for, something that shows my commit habits. Any chance those scripts are open source?

The first time I applied as a "non-technical" founder, needless to say that didn't work. YC seems to have a bias towards hackers (don't quote me on this, but I think they've only funded one non-technical founder project ever), and probably rightly so.

You could always try to learn php or Rails (I'd recommend latter since that's what I do for a living and fun these days) and apply to y comb. Like you mentioned you don't want to become a programmer, so are you motivated to spend weeks, maybe months hitting your head against the wall?

Or you could validate your idea and build your business in that time. Get something out asap, sell like hell and maybe if it works out and apply again (you'd probably be one of the few with a proven model and market).

If I had the option back then to outsource I would've gladly done so. That said I wouldn't trade learning Rails, then Ruby for (almost) nothing else.

This isn't a cut and dry question, can't get any more specific than this. Hope that helps a little better :)

I think Fb/Winklevosses situation is an outlier, very unlikely to happen to you. I don't know the size of outsourcing market, but its probably pretty big and as far as I can tell there isn't overwhelming evidence that outsourcing means someone else will steal your idea and get rich off it.

Besides how much did they get from from the lawsuit anyway?

P.S. I freelance and I'm glad to sign a NDA before starting, not that I need one to stop me from stealing their ideas. First I don't really care. Ideas are great, but they need lot of work to make it happen. Two, my projects list (like almost any other programmer's) is full of stuff I'd try if I had 36 hours in a day and needed no sleep.

"but my goal is to build a business not become a programmer."

I believe there's your answer. Outsource for the former, learn for the latter.

I assume when that happens everyone would feel its effects, but it wouldn't be because of a tech bubble.

Based on reading around the past hour or so, I think the only ones set to lose right now are angel investors, the few wealthy with lot of money.

That's actually a really good analogy and a great link. But I don't think "full stalk developer" is what really suits me. Maybe my definition of web developer is more limited than its original meaning, I was thinking more in terms of designing a decent sized, complex web app, but not going as far as building hulu or facebook singlehandedly without an actual scalability engineer.

That was more of a general example rather than personal practice. I completely agree when you say using proven design patterns makes you more confident, just the other day I was implementing something I read from Design Patterns for Ruby. What I'm more curious about is whether I should stay the course to try to become an intermediate Ruby programmer or try to learn some basic computer science stuff, since everything I know about programming comes from Ruby related books. Not just half pay online tutorials, but "real" ones like "Meta-programming for Ruby" and "Ruby Way." At least from what I can tell, they are one of the most advanced Ruby books around.