drd

> switched from PHP/Kohana to Python/Django

Would you mind if I ask why you switched?

BTW, nice design on your home page.

I think it is better to call it model-based development rather than visual programming. Apart from those visual tools (e.g. Alice) which can be used to teach children the programming concepts, there are serious tools such as Simulink and SCADE (missing from the list) which are used to develop safety-critical applications in medical and aerospace fields. The reason to use these tools is to allow experts in other disciplines to specify an abstraction of their designs for computer.

Here is a simple game I did. You can see the software life cycle data on the blog. Check the source code of the game. It is pretty straight forward.

http://www.drdacademy.com/?id=a-simple-html5-game-the-design...

Unfortunately, there is a chain of dependencies that forces some people to do the wrong things. For example, the number of papers you publish is a major factor among others: - in receiving grants, - in hiring you as a researcher by universities, - in getting your papers accepted by journals.

All these force you to write papers in bulk. But, how many original papers you can write based on a set of data, analysis, and results?

Rob, I think your idea (your book) is really innovative. Many people don't realize what they can do with what is available to them. It is a long time I am using PHP for text processing, e.g reverse engineering on embedded systems, impact analysis on requirements, collecting information from web, etc. I have rebuilt the architecture of many legacy systems for refactoring

I believe, given your situation (being a dad), you should continue to introduce innovative applications of available technologies in the form of books, and perhaps video tutorials. Though, this may end up to consulting.

And, don't forget, things don't work in passive mode. You always need to do some light marketing. Even, it you want just to publish blogs. Good luck.

Humor, smart way to collect HN Karma :o)

I think VCs and Angels work based on a set of rules similar to Wall street. They take risks most of the time blindly to gain more. Who can test every aspect of the idea? Who can analyze and predict all the outcomes? They make money like middlemen. They don’t make money because of production. Here are the rules:

- If one of many ideas works, it makes big and it compensates for all those failed

- Create hype through journalism, this is performed by using big numbers, which are not necessarily always correct numbers. Who can prove the numbers are not correct?

- Ideas funded by previously successful investors are more likely to get higher valuations and then being sold. That is why on the front end of every new company you would see the name of investors. Does the consumer care about the investor’s name? Obviously no.

Ooops, I apologize pal, I guess I hurt your feelings, I didn’t mean that. But here is another example:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/07/30/montreal-tunnel-coll...

BTW, I don’t need to sound smart and still I like you.

After introducing the ring, still bridges collapsed in Quebec while in service not at construction and people died. I am not sure how effective is this ring.

Trevor, great work, I got another approach performed on Android market. The problem with categories in app markets is that they are high level classifications. Therefore, considering them as niche doesn’t tell us much. I performed a functionality-based analysis. I think this gives us a more precise niche definition. Here is my analysis: http://www.drdacademy.com/?id=an-analysis-of-the-android-app...

By the way I don’t think fitting a curve on two points on your result plot is right. Normally, we need a reasonable sample size.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Your old flow is like you go to a bank and ask for opening an account, they get your address and tell you we will mail you the forms to fill out the required information. Not many people like to change the context to finish something. I think these types of design flaws are well known that they should have been prevented in the first place.

No, I didn't get to that point. I bet Ken had a lot of fun by his article and probably in his talks too. This is a good way to create buzz.

No need to be that harsh. It is good enough to recall a fact,a software engineer is a producer but a product manager is an overhead.

I think he needs to go back to school. He even doesn't know what the job description of a software engineer is. He says:"Software engineers write code ..."

Moreover, he contradicts himself. He compares himself with Steve Jobs. He says:"Don’t bother with the details." But, Jobs said:"Details matter. It's worth waiting to get it right."

Building the product is the easy part of the work. First we have to sell. Here is the summary of my experiences:

[http://www.drdacademy.com/?id=first-solve-the-selling-proble...]

Afshin, I think it would be good if you add an example (usecase, scenario, etc.) to the website for a quick introduction of the functionality.

Actually, it is a very useful function. It has usefulness and simplicity. Would you mind to give ROI analysis for your project? This will be helpful to the audience here.

They are using different sources. This site is using eBay information. Priceonomics is using classified ads, I guess mostly from Craigslist. Actually, the user can benefit from both by comparing the results on two different market-places.

Locksley, keep up the good work. You need to clean up the results. Removing the unrelated items is desirable. This has a good monetizing potential.

I just simply think those people who always talk about a specific gender’s rights in fact are helping to create more and more distance between two genders in the tech world.

It is always about women’s rights and animals’ rights. When somebody is going to talk about men’s rights? All the things she talks about, I have seen happening to male developers too.

Higher price is justifiable from a developer point of view as long as the support is included. There are gazillions lines of crappy code out there. A general rule in software management is “try to reduce your dependency as much as possible.” Not because of the price of dependency, but, because of the maintenance costs that the dependency will create for you later on.

To get those positions such as your example of Google you don’t even need a PhD. A master would do it as long as you are graduated from one of those famous Californian Universities. Apparently the graduates of those Universities are celebrities. Of course with a good connection you can do it too.

Moreover, don’t believe those numbers. It is just buzz. If Google pays you 200K, it is not for your PhD, neither for your genius research. It is only about business.

The major barrier in penetrating the corporate world is that the decision makers (the customers) don’t accept this fact: ”their software tool is a product of a software engineering process.” You cannot believe how many proprietary software tools I have seen in corporates which are developed by mechanical, and electrical engineers. So, they lose thousands of hours of work every year due to problems with their software tools. But, nobody cares, simply because the lost money is shareholders money and is attributed to production costs. Another reason that decision makers don’t care is that they only see themselves in that position for a short period of time (max 5 years) and they move on to another corporate. So, they only try to keep things look good during that period.

To sell to corporates you should find close friends among those decision makers.

The article contains pretty interesting predictions. Most of them have come true today. But, we should consider the fact that tablet cannot replace a personal computer for now.

“… PC has undeniable processing power that won't be available in mobile devices at least for the next few decades. This will stay true until we start to use another type of computing philosophy such as quantum computing.”

[http://www.drdacademy.com/?id=will-pc-and-consequently-softw...]

Elon Musk got competition on the colonization of Mars

Also, You can always create new “needs,” after a while people realize that the new need has been a pain. Here is my thoughts:

http://www.drdacademy.com/?id=18

“Calls for stricter weapons laws after the massacre at a Connecticut elementary school have gun enthusiasts scrambling to buy firearms before they’re restricted or banned outright …” [LATimes]

Just tell people they are going to lose something, you are going to get a huge boost in your sale!!!!!