lfborjas

Hi there! You seem to know your stuff, or at least like it (in a computer scientific sense), so I have only a couple of things to say: first, if you've already written socket and networking software, you could be better off starting with "raw" web development frameworks (or no framework at all, writing a tiny web server could be a really cool challenge: http://docs.racket-lang.org/more/ ), to get the knack of how a web-app works, without all those layers of specialization interfering: try to write something in flask or sinatra, or even in ruby's "rack" or it's python equivalent, to be familiar with the http request-response cycle and how the different moving parts (building html with css and javascript, interacting with file systems and databases and network operations) really work and why is it that frameworks exist (which boilerplate code they do for you). Since you know javascript, you could also check out node.js, which is raw enough. And then, when you've got how is it that web development works in its guts, you can move on to more easy going stuff, like rails, pylons, django or whatever.

The second thing is, although someone else might say that scheme sucks for not having lots of libraries, I've found it very eye opening, specially by watching -and reading- the lectures in MIT's "structure and science of computer programs" (here it is in ocw: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput... , videos and book are free), if you go through them and thrive to get it, you'll be doing yourself a great service, learning funtional programming, no matter what language it is, will make you a good programmer, because it will force you to think not in terms or how to make stuff easy for the computer, but in how to make stuff "elegant" and easy for yourself, the programmer (kinda like when you do math and it "feels just right"). I personally have found myself to be a better -more productive- python programmer by learning scheme with the SICP course and how to write javascript in the functional style.

Godspeed in your studies, CS is a great thing to study :)

cool!

I actually get ideas like this: do something -be it work, browse the internerd, learn music, etc- and if the little developer voice in my head says "oh man, this sucks, we can do it better" or "oh, this could be automated!" or "oh man, THIS. IS. RAD. I wanna do it too!" then there I have my idea. I think everybody, at least people that are accustomed to creative work, like coding, get tons of those moments everyday; listen to them, write them down, your own everyday life is the inspiration :)

I know this is no complete answer, but AFAIK they use binary diffs to detect changes in the client and a dæmon that monitors the dropbox folder. I'd also assume that the server has binary de-duplication. In their YC application they explain some other stuff: http://files.dropbox.com/u/2/app.html

wtf?

oh, well, that's swell; I finally sticked to rails (finally got the knack of it) and am using mongoid for mongodb interaction, if you're interested, here's a fine example of mongodb in a simple working rails 3 app: http://github.com/fortuity/rails3-mongoid-devise

I guess that what you miss about rails is the MVC architectural layout, but that's not specific to RoR and you can use it wherever you want, even in the webapp microframework for google app engine: have a file or module for models, another for controllers and another for views and get them together in a main module; you can also use django (I've used django 1.1 in gae with no problem) or use Jruby on appengine (there's a whole project for that: http://code.google.com/p/appengine-jruby/) to run ruby on rails, padrino or sinatra, if you really miss ruby. I've also run ruby projects on app-engine (in sinatra, which is the coolest microframework out there, IMO) and it's been easy, I actually felt it easier to set up that a django project, as it was hack free.

I'm in your exact same situation, man; I've developed in php , python (with django and webapp) and little webapps in ruby with sinatra. I begun with rails 3 (and rails in general) two weeks ago, and am feelin' the progress rather slow. I think some of it is due to the usual learning curve and the kinda hard to find documentation and broken plugins. I'm starting to get it, but I'm also being tempted by the fact that I read the documentation for padrino (www.padrinorb.com) last night and felt that I understood more than what I have gotten from rails 3 in two weeks. So, you're not alone, and, if it weren't for the fact that padrino is really new and doesn't have as large a community as rails, I would have made the switch without hesitation right away. Still considering it, though.

Well, sounds like you got some `chown` to do...

Some security considerations can't be overlooked, granted; but don't fret, it was possibly put there client side(One might even hypothesise that a WYSIWYG editor put it there by default, but I deem you would have seen that). Just give the url to someone and ask them if it appears in the source. If it does, delete it and see if appears again. If it does, then do get paranoid with security, I guess.

That "injection" was probably done by internet explorer, as stated in the first sentence of that msdn site. I don't have IE, so can't give you a certain answer. Check your site in another browser to see if that motw isn't there. I bet it won't be.

I thought that `import unittest; def TestMyModule(unittest.TestCase): def test_simple(self): self.assert_equal(1,1)` was short enough, it is shorter than the ruby equivalent and all that `nose` stuff ends up being the same thing as writing the same kind of stuff in a Rakefile...

Man, that's boring: I scored 19 :( I've always seen myself as an introvert and self-centered guy, but I seem to work very well on social stuff, it's like some superpower I refuse to acknowledge.

You're right, it is a pretty strong assumption and I agree with providing a WYSIWYG interface, even though the language in question is WYSIWYM-oriented, I think the editor could be a sort of what lyx is to LaTeX.

I think I made a mistake in my statement: it's not some random markup like textile or markdown, but the idea is more akin to a LaTeX-y interface, a WYSIWYM web-based editor. You have a good point, however, 'cause, coming to think of it, I wouldn't be targeting very non-tech people after all and they might very well expect stuff that's already done in git.

This just popped into my head, might be terribly wrong, but I would just do ajax. Like the way you implement autocomplete by listening to keyup events and returning stuff to fill the list of results. The thing is that this should be wicked fast to be instant, so some optimizations with load balancing and cache related things must be going on there as well.

If you're a developer and want a free solution and don't mind hacking up your own blog, I totally recommend http://pages.github.com/ it's powered by jekyll (http://jekyllrb.com/). I used to use tumblr because it's easy and highly customizable, haven't used posterous but the fact that you can post via mail with very granular control and integration with other sites looks awesome. Yet, if you feel like hacking a little, github pages is a rad choice -you can write in the markup language you like better and the text editor you love; and can even do it offline, you just have to git push when you want to update stuff. Also, it allows custom domains.

This app looks rad, I've been using [calendar about nothing](http://calendaraboutnothing.com/) for my opensource hacking needs and the seinfeld calendar way of being motivated definitely works for me, I saw some of the teasers on forrst and am eager to give it a try; keep up the awesomeness!