If you want to know more about forking processes vs threading. You should look at TCPServer.py in the standard libary. You can look at the ForkingMixin class and the ThreadingMixin class.
A good Python server source code to read is the CherryPY WSGI server. You can read it in the web.py git directory here.
I've had some experience using drupal and while it can be frustrating at times, my overall experience with it is pretty positivie. I've used it mainly to build websites for clients, these are the usual bread-and-butter variety sites for small businesses. So let me address some of his points.
>>> Drupal is Freaking Hard to Use and Has a High Learning Curve <<<
The author uses the "layperson" as the targeted audience yet the only alternative he offers is rails. Yeah, enter rails, a layperson would have to learn programming, database, deployment just to get a rails site up. Comparing this with the WYSIWYG interface of drupal, I'd say the latter is much much easier for the lay person.
in my experience of working with clients clients, most of them haven't found much trouble making minor edits to the site itself after I've set it up given them some instructions. For me this is godsend compared to 1, doing things the old way of giving them static pages and having them email me every single time they need a change or 2, using my custom cms-like solution which is buggy and hacked together.
For these simple CRUD type operations, drupal is simply the easiest way for the lay person to modify a pre-built website.
>>>>Drupal’s Design is Piss-Poor<<<<
Inheritance? Objects? Keep in mind that drupal was started back then in 2001 when PHP didn't have any real OOP capabilities and that heritage carried through. As for the issues with upgrades, most modules and templates..etc shows prominently what version they are compatible with and if you use the correct versions, it usually doesn't break.
>>>>consider hiring a Ruby on Rails developer<<<
There are so many useful things that are built out of the box for you in drupal, the taxonomy system, thousands of modules for all of the most common operations and a generally helpful and supportive community. Through modules, you can get internationalization for free, you get a free forum, a free user-groups, blogs..etc. You also get a pretty good degree of customization with the Views and CCK module for the edge cases. I really don't see how building it yourself from ground up can be a money saver for 95% of the common cases.
And why specifically rails? compared to other web frameworks like Django, does rails offer something that makes it especially scalable, easy to learn or especially suited to the CMS type application?
From what I know, the Django admin site, its apps system, better documentation and python's consistent syntax makes it easier to learn and more suited for CMS type applications. And if you use Pinax for the some of its out-of-box functionality, it makes life even easier.
upped because I hate it when every time i try to search for something, there's a scribd link for something TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to what I'm looking for on the front page of google masquerading as real content. I don't like their SEO practices and I think the company should change its tactics.
From the article: "2) reducing the aggressiveness of our SEO, which reduces total traffic in the near term but increases the relevancy of Scribd links in search engine results"
That, and, if I am not mistaken, incorporating search terms of previous visitors into the page. Somebody would search for 'iPhone widgets' in Google, click on the Scribd link about totally unrelated'wooden widgets', and Scribd would put 'iPhone' on the page, making it much more likely for the next person to be misdirected.
Well, its like saying that you should sue the police when your house got robbed instead of the robber. Scribd is the one with the intent of gaming the system, Google just wants to provide relevant search results, so its clear to me who should shoulder the blame.
no, its not clear at all, the failing is with Google for preventing what you call "gaming the system", and your analogy is flawed for the same reason. Using your analogy lets say you hire a security firm to protect your most valuable asset, then you get robbed. Who would you blame? Clearly the answer is a function of both.
However, I'm not even convinced of that Scribd have managed to game anything. Can you provide a link to google search results that backs up your claim?
Ok.
So we've had Thinkature, Yvew, Dabbleboard, dimdim..etc..etc and a bunch of others. Did any one of them really make MONEY after webEX was sold? So whats so different about this one besides a nicer interface?
That being said, Congrats on the execution, its a very nicely done flex app. However, you might want to set
horizontalScrollPolicy=off
verticalScrollPolicty=off
for the itemRenderers of the HList of your Camera chooser page, because on my mac, the Label control overflows and cauese the scrollbars to popup.
Dabbleboard is making money, just with the whiteboard. And we started well after WebEx was sold; thankfully WebEx doesn't care about the whiteboard.
We're working on a broader solution that'll compete more with the likes of WebEx (coincidentally our focus -like TeamApart- is also on 'few-to-few' rather than 'one-to-many'). To differentiate, we're considering adding more Asynchronous collaboration features (inspired mostly by wikis and less so by Google Wave).
We're not up against WebEx (at least Twiddla isn't). They can't hang in the quick & easy department, which it seems is the area this thing is targeting too.
And yeah, we're making money. Maybe not MONEY, but money, which is all I really need.
Well, posting on YC is a good place to start. There are also a lot of events tailored towards geeks, startups, programmers which you can attend and try to make some friends.
Also, Instead of emphasizing on your personal stats ( 30 year old, wife, kids ), why not talk about your vision and ideas, if people find them interesting, they'll probably be more willing to talk to you about them.
My suggestion is to chop it up and develop it piece by piece.
Looking at your app, it seems to do a lot of different things such as:
- Form Editor
- Calendar
- Permission based file access system
You could build just one of these components and get it out of the door and see how the market responds to your product and then evolve the product from that point onwards. Chances are that what you will end up with will look nothing like what what you have in mind.
Its kind of unfair that only big companies can get this sort of competitive advantage while smaller startups are stuck paying taxes through their nose under the draconian tax policies of the US government.
There should be a guide or services for smaller companies and Startups to incorporate in tax shelters so they too can enjoy the tax benefits and thus level the playing field with the big boys. Are there such resources around?
These resources are called tax lawyers, and they are very expensive. The knowledge required to do this is very specialized and guarded with extreme zeal by its possessors. As is usual in any situation involving government regulation, the biggest winners are the lawyers. If you want to get an idea of how complex and draconian these things really are, try looking up PFIC and "controlled foreign corporation".
Its kind of unfair that only big companies can get this sort of competitive advantage while smaller startups are stuck paying taxes through their nose under the draconian tax policies of the US government.
There is nothing preventing you from moving to a country with more favorable tax laws, especially with a business based around the Internet. If your sentence was meant to reference money, well that's something every company goes through in the early stages. At that stage the best you can hope for is to turn a profit and get to the point where barriers to entry kick into effect.
Look into the Belizean IBC (international business company) system. They provide easy registration (fully automated) and you pay nothing but a yearly fee. Belize has become a great location for basing companies, although dealing with banking can be a PITA.
As an example, consider that no matter what interpretation of any tax law you get from an IRS employee, it will not hold up in court - if an IRS agent tells you to do A, then the IRS decides later to disallow A and that you should have done B, they will hit you up with taxes and penalties and you have no recourse.
UNLESS, you pay money for an IRS administrative ruling; then, you can use that response in tax court. The key is that the cost for such rulings are $50K. Each.
Some feedback and thoughts on Picurio after playing with it for a bit
1) Sweet interface, looks very iPhoto-like
2) I like the fact that the interface is built with Objective-J/cappacino, it feels more "native" than flash, which is what a lot of similar apps use
3) At the same time, the interface can be "broken" sometimes in that it doesn't react like you expect it to, for example, modal dialogs don't close when you press the "escape" key and the alert dialog ( after registering ) don't close after pressing the enter key.
4) Right click doesn't work.. would be nice to have a context menu to do various operations.
5) Shouldn't the loader only allow image files? I tried to upload a .pdf and it seemed to work (progress bar showed up..etc ) but afterwards it doesn't show up in my library.
6) I don't know about the whole "room" concept, I mean.. whats wrong with albums??
7) Although the cappacino based interface is super awesome, I could also see this limiting what this app can do, I mean, if its done in flash, you could do all kinds of cool stuff like the rest of the functions in iPhoto..etc
On 3), 4), 5), and 7) we definitely want to sand the rough edges. We have a "launch early, launch often" mindset though so erred on the side of getting something out.
On 6), rooms take a bit of getting used to but we think turn out more useful than simple albums. It gives a group of people a common URL to return to multiple times for different events and you can say things like "I put the photos in our room, go look for them there."
A good Python server source code to read is the CherryPY WSGI server. You can read it in the web.py git directory here.
http://github.com/webpy/webpy/blob/master/web/wsgiserver/__i...