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It looks really nice, but I am not sure what I would use it for. But maybe that's just me. Anyway, I find the idea quite interesting!

Thanks for the well written summary of this problem! I'm in a similar position as you are. We have a "hero who gets things done" - he is really good at writing quick prototypes that somehow work, but his code is unmaintainable and not even correct at the corner cases. I am not quite sure what we - the rest of the team - should do about. We managed to get him back into a project he started from his new project to help us clean it up, and we hope that this is a step in the right direction...

This is great advice. I never thought about it that way - that it really is just a matter of combinating skills. But now, as I read it, it seems obvious. Also, becoming top 25% in two or more different areas might take some time (maybe even years), but it is absolutely doable.

Clickable links: https://github.com/dtanzer/resdroid http://davidtanzer.net/node/102 http://davidtanzer.net/resdroid

I guess I'll have to write a follow-up on my blog mentioning your site ;)

An embeddable widget would be nice - back then when we implemented it we simply created dynamic gif images you could easily embed anywhere you wanted.

If you have any further questions or want to bounce ideas off with me feel free to contact me - You'll find my email address in my profile or my blog.

It looks nice! It remindes me very much of an old project I had once - presentmood.com (now offline). I wrote about the history on my blog: http://davidtanzer.net/node/82

I hope you have more success with your project than I had back then. That is: I hope you are successful! All the best for the future - I still think that this idea has potential.

Me too, but for me this is just a gut feeling. I guess the OP was more interested in possible justifications for a decision than the decision itself. Can you provide some reasons for what you have said? I would be interested too.

I personally would neither consider Python nor NodeJS for such a project if it was somehow time critical. The reason for this is that I don't know any of those enough to be confident that I could finish the project on time.

So the best advice I can give here would be: If you have a hard deadline that is very close stick with the technology you know better. Otherwise stick with the one that is more fun. I guess that you can resolve any performance problems in both technologies. And when your site starts to take off you probably have to re-write and re-design lots of your code anyway (I don't know where I read this first, but it was a startup that took off).

Nice! What surprised me is that I gut relatively good scores despite not knowing very much about the subject.

Did you even bother to read the article? It is about free play - outdoors - that kids organize for themselves. And how they can learn self disciplin and social behaviour from that. Not about video games or any of the other stuff you wrote about. (I know, don't feed the trolls. SCNR.)

At home I have a Hag Capisco: http://www.haginc.com/products/hag-capisco/

I have the saddle seat chair without head support (the 8106) and I love it! It is quite expensive, but totally worth the money.

I have also brought this chair to the offices of some customers when I have to work on site and when they allow it (I work as a freelancer).

I only create folders for my emails when I am forced to use Outlook - like on-site at my current main customer. The search functionality of outlook simply sucks, I can't find anything using it. At my own computers, where I use decent email clients, I never create folders.

That's maybe the best way to drive a 12 year old _AWAY_ from software development. What's really interesting is building stuff and seeing how it runs. When working alone you don't need to design with models/diagrams (heck, you probably don't even need that in a team most of the time). You don't need unit tests or a deployment strategy or a schedule. Just build stuff, have fun and try to learn something.

I know this does not help the original poster. Most books about iPhone/Android development are probably not suited for a 12 year old. Maybe starting from tutorials or little open source apps is a good way: Read the code, try to improve it, see what works. Iterate.

Ah, I forgot, all generalizations are wrong ;)

Sometimes presenting every point on a separate slide works quite well - never done it myself, but I have seen some good presentations where this technique was used. I guess this could become quite annoying when overused. But it might work for comparisons: One slide for every aspect that is compared.

You could also prepare a separate handout that contains the detailed pros/cons or comparisons and keep the slides minimalistic.

You don't ever need bullet points. Also, I don't really like lots of code on slides (maybe one or two lines are ok), better code live in those situations (yes, this is possible, I have done it a couple of times). You should always have a story, even if you tell facts.

I did that by email for some years now: When I find an interesting project that I can't do myself I forward it to fellow freelancers, and I recommend my friends to potential clients. There's nothing in it for me in the short term, but I believe that this behaviour (if everybody does it) helps the developer community in the region where I live, so I might benefit in the long run. This website formalizes that process, so I think it is a really good idea.

The design needs a lot of improvement, though.

I have not read it myself (yet), but Garr Reynolds (http://www.presentationzen.com/) recommends this one "Brenda Ueland: If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit". Maybe that helps.

Chad Fowler wrote an interesting blog post roughly about this topic in 2003: http://chadfowler.com/2003/02/06/attention-span-challenged - Working like this also works for me (at least most of the time ;) ).

If you are interested in computer programming and electronics, than do that. It is a fun field to work in, and you can get very good jobs in IT (for various definitions of good: Interesting, challenging, well paid, several career paths, ...).

Even more important: Don't do anything you do NOT like just because you can get a good job.

I hate it when I go to a website and there is no information about the company/thing/whatever, but there is a field where you can leave your email. I don't like the idea that I have to be invited to learn more about what you're doing!

It's really just a little twitter-like web app. Nothing big or special, but maybe I'll put it online when done - just to ensure my web server doesn't get bored ;)

Did you read "The passionate programmer - creating a remarkable career in software development"? I really loved that book, it contains a lot of practical tips and advice for how to improve your skills (among other things).

I read books on the commute to work (on the train) so this time feels less wasted. I especially liked: - Implementing lean software development - Implementing scrum - Domain Driven Desing - Head first rails - The leaders guide to radical management - Presentation zen

This is not only technical stuff, but I think the non-technical books are important too - they give you context and perspective.

Data visualization in .NET for a client (I'm a freelancer). http://gclimbing.com (written in Java with a custom web framework) and my blog as side projects. I also want to start another little side project, either in Ruby on Rails (I want to learn it) or in Java - not sure yet.

5. Diversity. As a freelancer, I have worked on several large projects and a couple of smaller ones in the past few years. I saw many different processes and learned the advantages and disadvantages of them. I had to learn and use new technologies in every project. I worked with a lot of people, some of them really talented, some not so much, but I learned something from all of them.

All of this was interesting and exciting. Working 9-5 for a company would have exposed me to exactly one development process and one set of technologies. Not much to learn here, and less fun too.

Learn by doing - yes, this is very important. I also like the points "post your code for review" and "ask for help". I guess you can improve the quality of your code pretty quickly with a little bit of help from others.

You are absolutely right. For my current client I had to pick up C# very quick. Before that I had only created a couple of "toy programs" to play with the language. But I already knew a lot of the concepts behind C#: Inheritance, delegates, properties, lamda expressions, ... so learning the new language was really easy and I completed the first programming tasks within the first week.

Unfortunately some recruiting agents only do simple pattern matching and they won't forward you CV to a client when you do not have $language_name skills :(

That depends on a lot of factors.

Do you really, honestly think you can make it better than what already exists? What is in it for your customers, can you make their lives better? Does your (financial) life depend on it or do you do it as a side project for the fun of it (1)? Can you refine your idea with real user feedback or are you on your own? etc...

(1) I develop a community climbing blog and a web framework as side projects, just for fun. The rules change when you do things just for fun - see also my blog post "Why re-invent the wheel" http://davidtanzer.net/node/81

Disclaimer: I never launched a really successful site (but I am still trying ;) ). This is just a guess.

Overnight success takes years of preparation (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/01/overnight-success-i...), so ten days is just a start. I would suggest the following:

  Try to get a lot of feedback from real users
  Keep improving the site over the course of some months
  Blog about it
  Keep doing everything you do now (HN, reddit, twitter, facebook, ...)
  Read Seth Godin's blog (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/)
  Read everything Kathy Sierra ever posted (http://headrush.typepad.com/)

When you become successful please tell me what worked, so I can copy your success ;) I want to close with a shameless self promotion: I wrote about something similar in my blog some weeks ago: "I wish I had invented Twitter" - http://davidtanzer.net/node/82

Some aspects of Gimp are a little bit annoying (especially on a Mac), but you can do pretty cool things with it once you get used to it. I do some artwork for some web sites I created and Gimp is a good tool for this. Photoshop probably would be better, but for as little as I do me it is way too expensive.

The accounts of the OP and all critical comments were created some minutes ago. I wouldn't trust them too much.

I think I might like a single window mode. I am not a "power user", but I regularily use Gimp when I do artwork for my homepage or climbing blog. I'll have to give it a try soon.