Hacker News Reader

Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

Does this have anything to do with Django whatsoever? The title is misleading.

Django have an "engineering is important" philosophy so developers attracted to Django have a similar mindset. In this case they're showing how despite superior engineering and a proven market is insufficient on its own - the start up required more effort in marketing, sales, financing.

This is building a business 101. I still feel it's disingenuous to begin this long winded post with the connection to Django.

As an aside, I'd argue that any modern web framework with decent community interest also attracts the same "engineering first" individuals.

If you're betting the farm (read: assuming your progressive choice is going to do anything more than speed up dev time) on your choice of web framework you're definitely doing it wrong.

The software you create is a means to an end.

Yes. I think if we think of ourselves as Django developers while building a business it's possible we will fall into the same pattern as exhibited in the article. That's how I see it's helpful to me as a developer who works with Django - it's a warning not to identify myself with the tools I have.

interesting. I've always thought of 'engineering' focus in software as being close to the metal, using the hardware efficiently. But in this case they seem to think of it as minimizing time to market, and amount of code. Even with that, python based solutions don't really fit my idea of good engineering, because there is no reason you can't have a language and ecosystem that nice, plus good performance. But just because a thing could exist doesn't mean it will I guess.

This talk was given at DjangoCon

The product was built using Django and the author is a big Django contributor.

Sure, but the title is link baitey. It suggests Django had an impact on the failure of the company when in actuality it has absolutely nothing to do with the outcome.

I dont think it had to do anything with the failure of the company either. Although Ill have to ask the author for more info privately. And yes, the title is a bit click bait, but I think it relates more to the person (a django contributor) than to the tech.

It was a business process improvement startup, not a Django startup.

And he implied their product was on mobile devices so may not have involved Django at all.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com