redguava

I don't see a problem with requiring Rails experience. It depends on the job of course. If I don't mind a slow ramp up and want someone right for the job that might last a few years then I don't care. If I have some complicated technical issues I need fixed quickly, I want someone that can jump in and go right away.

Particularly with Rails where it's convention over configuration, knowing the conventions is a great headstart.

Put a trial version and change the price to $95.

Also I would update the UI to look more modern. At worst take screenshots from a higher resolution screen so it doesn't look so cramped.

Good job launching something!

Find small businesses in your local area that don't have websites and offer to build them one for $500 (or whatever number you think). You just need a few to make your money and it shouldn't take you long to build a simple site. Use wordpress and themes to make it really fast.

Restaurants are particularly good candidates.

I am really surprised this is getting voted up and is on the front page.

What is interesting about this? What am I missing?

I think the single best thing you can do is tailor your resume/cover letter for the job you are applying for.

Every company wants to think that you really want to work for them and only them. If you send out an obviously standard cover letter and resume, it's very easy to get brushed over.

Spend 10 minutes on their website/blog reading about them and tailor your application to match. Include some comments that show you have done so.

You can't change what education/experience you have (well you shouldn't), but you can definitely show that you made an effort.

I believe opinions are welcome here.

I prefer a company that admits they aren't giving attention to a product and stops taking signups, than a company that is happy to let people keep signing up even though it's left to quietly die in the background.

I would say this is acting with integrity.

Clickable link http://www.redguava.com.au/amazing-developer-job-rails-or-io...

There is plenty of merit using a language you enjoy.

A certain language might be twice as fast to get work done in, but you can be 10 times as fast if you are enjoying yourself and motivated.

I just wouldn't kid yourself that scaling is the reason for the choice. Just enjoying it is plenty of reason.

The point where you are having scaling issues because of the language then you are really going to be past the worrying about bootstrapping/hiring stage.

It sounds like you are spending time/effort worrying about scaling way before needed. If you can solve your problems you have today faster then I would do that, not hinder yourself today for possible problems way down the track.

If the intended recipient thought it was perfect, then he achieved his goal.

We all have different preferences for emails we received, clearly he nailed it for his target.

@jaffathecake I supplied a single example. Also, you might have a very javascripty web application that the users will have had the files cached 99.9% of the time so retrieving the files isn't an issue.

Possibly. I am just saying that you might have things that are more important to do before the page loads that might warrant putting it in the head. It's not a set rule that javascript in the head is always bad, you just need to know the tradeoff and make a decision.

What if you are displaying different elements based on the users location/country (eg. currency, contact details), and you use javascript to detect and do this.

You wouldn't want the page to load first and then this appear.

"External JavaScript files in <head> – All of those JavaScript files nested inside the <head> tag, further delaying the start of page rendering."

Sometimes the head is the best place to put the javascript. I didn't look into what javascript they are loading there, but there are times the user experience is improved by it.

I meant cheapest. Also, I saw your comment above about once you are out of beta. I wouldn't wait. Set it at $9 or above and see what happens.

The longer you leave it at $3, the more expensive it will look when you raise it (and I really think you should raise it).

$9/month at the cheapest.

I think you should code in a language you enjoy. If Python seems fun, then stick with Python. If you become a good programmer, you should be able to find work no matter which language you choose.

Also, it's harder to learn to program than it is to learn a language. You are currently learning to program, you will find it much easier to learn your next language (and if you stick to programming, you will learn more languages... this will just be your first).

I would stick with Python, have fun and look for jobs when you're ready. A lot of people have opinions on a lot of things, just keep going. Constantly changing won't get you anywhere.

The comment you are replying to stated they find this unethical. That is unrelated to whether or not its a viable or successful technique.

I am in Australia and I often find this frustrating, I do completely understand why though. The United States has a population of 311 Million. In Australia we have a population of 22 Million.

When you consider the complications in making software global, I can see why our potential customer base doesn't make it worthwhile.

Even the simple things are tougher than they seem (post code vs. zip code). It seems easy enough to detect their location and display the right wording... but then your help documentation is going to be wrong for some, or will you create multiple versions of that too.

I wish it were different, but I suspect until we have the same needs/laws, it's going to continue like this.

I like the design of the website aesthetically and at first it's what kept my attention.

After reading through the site though, I am not sure the tone/feeling of your site suits your purpose. Looking for a job is a very serious thing, I wonder if your site is a little too comical for your audience/purpose.

For me, it doesn't have the feel of a site I would want to use for job hunting.

Heroku has already simplified deployment and hosting. I am not sure I see the need to put a further wrapper around it.

One size fits all seems nice for it's simplicity, but you end up leaving too much money on the table.

Some users will pay less, some will pay more, you want a pricing scheme that allows them to do that.

I don't understand why they are dropping the price. They wanted 10,000 users, they got over 20,000. Surely that tells them the price wasn't a problem.

Why give up so much revenue when it seems like price isn't holding them back?

I believe a much bigger indicator for success is the person rather than the idea. I don't know what this person is like, but I wouldn't get hung up on the idea part of things.

He already got to the front page of Hacker News and garnered some attention, that isn't a bad start.

I question the idea of having a meeting every day whether you need it or not.

I have used stand-ups in the past, but found there was a lot of information being shared that not everyone cared about or benefited from knowing.

I like the idea of keeping everyone up to date about what's going on, but I am not sure stand-up meetings are the solution.

The subject matter of your software doesn't really matter. Building software is what is fun, using the latest tech is fun. Who the end user is, won't affect your day-to-day very much.

I always find this to be terrible advice. Most programmers have similar itches, if you scratch your own itch, you are going into a lot of competition with many other developers. Why not solve a problem for an industry that gets much less attention? Maybe success rates would be much higher if we stopped all building the same things.

Exactly. If you value yourself at $65 p/hour or more, that's a few hundred months of paying Chargify to break even.

I am as optimistic about my software product as anyone, but I need the break even point to be sooner than that if I am going to spend the time coding.

This is also completely discounting the fact that they probably have a more comprehensive system that you wrote, it's all they do. They keep updating it too.

I like those type of answers. If you are encountering an issue doing something, and there is a better way of doing it (as opposed to just solving the problem in your current method), I think it adds a lot of value to offer those suggestions.

In your example, perhaps you didn't know about homebrew and this was going to save you a lot of time, well that's great. There can still be other answers that help your specific issue, but someone has thought outside the box and offered a completely different way of doing it.

For me the value of SO would be greatly reduced if people didn't do that.