andrewacove

I've always felt the problem is that class projects never have to be production ready. You're expected to show that you've learned and can implement the theoretical material, but you never have to turn that proof of knowledge into a complete, well tested project.

That's one of my biggest regrets about my CS degrees (BS/MS). I took so many classes and did so many class projects that I never had to see one project all the way through to complete, tested, usable release.

And I don't think it's a CS department's responsibility to expect class projects to be built to a shippable standard. However, I do think that it's the school's duty to encourage students to work on a real, production project, of their own creation or as a contributor, on their own time - even if it means taking on a reduced academic load.

About a paragraph and a half of that, I'm hoping to avoid by using Heroku.

But I can see marketing/SEO on the horizon, and I could definitely use some other hands on deck so that I can do new development in addition to improving what's already built.

A question: would tighter control on your own growth (if feasible) have made it easier? or did you need the growth to find out what to do next?

Yep. It's easy to get started. I wrote a lightweight logging system on top of it before I switched to logworm.

Really? I would certainly hope that's not the case. Relying on customers overspending due to technical deficiency seems like a pretty poor business model.

I'd certainly be happier paying more per pro-rated unit of time that I actually use than I am feeling as though I'm in an arms race to not be fleeced.

Is there really that much revenue to skim off the top? Either way, they're paying Amazon out of those charges.

But I'm not so cynical as to think that their success is reliant on this income.

Yes, I was aware of this, though I haven't had the need to use it yet.

But my question stands: why isn't this stuff very visible - i.e., on Heroku's DJ doc page: http://docs.heroku.com/delayed-job , or at least linked from there? Or published as an official piece of code on the Heroku github page?

Having been a Heroku user for a while, and having looked into autoscaling for dynos and workers a few times (but not having really needed it yet), I really think they could do a better job of publicizing that these solutions exist.

I imagine that tons of their user base (especially for small hobby sites that only occasionally, if ever, see high traffic or run background tasks) look for this, and yet there's nothing pointing to it other than old posts on the mailing list. At least put information and resources for autoscaling in the Docs section of the site.

Acquiring resources only as long as you need them, and then releasing them when you're done, should be the standard service - complete user control should be the advanced feature set. They already do this for websites on a single dyno: they spin them down when they're idle for a while. But they don't do it with workers (what effect does the latency of starting a backup job up really have? it's already running in the background).

>> legitimate search results have become cluttered by old, stale web forums and mailing list postings.

QFT. I spent the beginning of the year teaching myself Rails, and I can't count the number of times I cursed Google's search results. Multiple different copies of the same mailing list post, just from different mirrors. And almost everything pointed to some old version of Ruby or Rails that wasn't relevant anymore.

And searching on Google Groups is worse.

I sent an e-mail to the address listed, and it failed.

-------------

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

    nyc@adoptahacker.com

Technical details of permanent failure: Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 "Unknown User" (state 14).

I love this. I'm thinking about NYC for the future, and this will be awesome for it.

But...

Right now I'm focused on a startup in SF, so I can't apply.

I'd love for this to turn into some sort of community site - first and foremost so that I can follow/join and keep track of events and gatherings that will inevitably occur under its umbrella. But also because I think it'd be very cool to let hackers sign up, without a timetable, to indicate "hey, I'm interested in being a hacker in NYC [any city] if I find a cool project and like minded people."

It could be a city-centric talent-pool. When companies exhaust their local options for new blood, they can turn to AdoptAHacker and try to attract people who want to go to the city but aren't ready to go without something lined up in advance.

I agree, post your resume for more feedback.

That said, if you've got specific companies you're targeting, your best move is to tailor a version of your resume for each company, highlighting the projects most relevant to each company on their specific version of the resume. If you have an unrelated project that is your most significant work (e.g., a senior thesis), put that too.

But I agree with hugh3 that you'll potentially receive undesired judgement for the weakest projects, so listing them all can work against you.

Also of note, projects listed on your resume often become talking points for interviews. So whatever projects you list there, make sure they're fresh enough in your mind, and interesting enough in their implementation (technical challenges), that you can talk about them in a way that reflects your knowledge and mastery of the skills involved.

As for what other things to include on a resume, 'relevant coursework' is always a good one, again tailored for each job.

Sorry for taking too long to comment on this. You were the first to point out that the homepage is lacking, and that is now very clearly the consensus.

Thanks for taking the time to look at Quirk. I've been putting a lot of effort into figuring out the right message to send, and how to present it. Hopefully that'll appear soon, and moreover, hopefully it will get more people past the front page and into the signup process.

Thanks for the comments, Sam.

I've been trying to work out the best response to this. I think that you're correct in that there is a hole to be filled by a QR-to-URL service - essentially a bit.ly for QR codes. Despite availability of QR codes from existing players (Google being the most significant) and the ready availability of both websites and libraries for producing QR codes from URLs (and any other text), branding will play a big role in making them take off. ScanLife is certainly a player in this space: http://us.scanlife.com/ . They have QR codes on the Inception movie posters as part of the advertising campaign, as well. But anyone can do it. And given that ZXing is an open source scanning library, anyone can build the apps.

It may be shortsighted, but that's not the business I want to build. Scanning a QR code to follow a business is something I actually want - something that came directly out of a need in my own life - and it's the connections themselves that are interesting to me. QR codes are really only the beginning of what I want Quirk to be - I just think they're a good place to start.

That said, you're not the only person to suggest that Quirk should provide a tool for converting URLs to barcodes, even just as a promotion for Quirk itself. And if that turns into the biggest aspect of Quirk, then so be it. So, I guess we'll see.

Thanks again for your comment - definitely made me think (thus the slow response).

Thanks for the comments, cool meeting you too.

It's definitely apparent that pointing users at the FAQ was a lazy and ineffective move. I'm working on making the front page a much better introduction to Quirk.

We're not generating Quirks pre-signup (e.g., on the front page as you've suggested) because we think it's better for the encoded URLs to have each user's vanity URL, rather than a random key. This'd be a cool thing to add via Facebook's Instant Personalization, though.

I agree that a good utility for encoding URLs in QR codes is a viable product. Sites and libraries exist for doing so, though none have any real mindshare. If the QR code flood is coming, a bit.ly for QRs is probably going to be a very useful tool. That said, it's not the product I want to build right now.

Thanks for pointing out that error. I'll fix that ASAP; the home page too (right now logged in users are automatically redirected to their account views from the home page).

One of the benefits of Quirk is that only one party involved in the connection needs to have a smart phone. In other words, you can set up a profile and download your QR code (and store it as a picture on a less-featured phone, or have it on a business card), and contacts you make can scan your code to connect. You can follow up on that connection later from the web interface.

We're going to have data about the types of businesses you connect to, and eventually where you're making those connections. We think that's data that can be monetized. In the case of specific communities making concentrated connections (like conferences), that data can be honed into valuable insights into the community, and hopefully the organizers of those communities will find high value in those insights.

Hopefully, there's a business to be built among nurturing customer relations, fostering communities, and analyzing the social graph.

Thanks for the comments.

I've been working on condensing the value proposition, especially given the comments here.

As an individual, scanning a QR code once is a faster way to connect than typing a person's or business's name into a search box and wading through results [and repeating across multiple networks]. The premise is that connections are good, and the easier they are to make, the more you'll connect.

Building on that, for businesses, the easier it is for a customer to connect to you, the more likely they'll connect (though I'd love to back this up with some research data). Hopefully, a prominently placed QR code (e.g, on a door, menu, or advertisement) will be a strong visual cue to a customer to connect (since the business can't actively initiate the connection).

All of the core service will always be free. Creating QR codes, linking accounts, downloading apps etc. We think we can generate value from the connection graph without selling the graph itself. The goal is not to farm and exploit the network.

Conferences started out as a good way to seed viral/network-effect growth ... and QR codes on badges are conveniently effective for connecting in that environment. We can provide additional value to conferences by providing analysis and custom content, and that's certainly something we'll look to monetize.

Thanks for pointing out that bug. It's an artifact of an earlier layout for the FAQ page.

Great feedback, thank you.

Thanks for the link. That's a great presentation.

Distilling Quirk into something simple has been a challenge since the start, especially overcoming the novelty (for most people) of QR codes, and emphasizing its use in connecting businesses and customers, without disregarding connections between individuals. That's not to say it can't be done - it's just something we need to focus on.

I'll be giving alot of thought to the 'why' instead of the 'what,' as I go forward. That's a great approach.

Thanks Jared. I really appreciate the feedback.

> permalinks

Your suggestions have convinced me to make two major changes: 1) Users will be auto assigned a permalink and 2) users will be able to change their permalink at any time. I think that having the QR code immediately available will definitely have a greater impact, as you've suggested.

I had reservations about user reactions to generated permalinks (for the case when their screenname on the connected network is taken), and about having stale QR codes floating around after a user changes her permalink, but making those changes improves the user experience and mitigates the first concern. Having stale links to Twitter profiles on the web doesn't seem to have been much of a problem, either. There will just have to be very clear, very visible notices that the QR code has changed when a user change her permalink.

> FB Connect

Detailed profile data is available in mobile profiles, but relies on a separate authorization step. Rather than asking for complete profile access when the user signs up with FB, we request authorization for the individual parts of the user's profile as they choose what to make public. The actual authorization process is (in my mind) the worst part of the Quirk UX right now.

That begs the question, would it be better to just ask for full profile access directly from the start? Or will that turn users away?

> fast access to the QR code on the phone

Making the QR code easily accessible is a major component of the Quirk app. We'll need to find a temporary solution until that's released. Perhaps bookmark and save-to-dashboard buttons are a good step (possibly with HTML5 local store support).

> conference customization/branding and analytics

Branding conference profiles is definitely a goal. Alot of the focus has been on the mobile experience (which is what most users will encounter if they're scanning other people's badges) - Once the conference features are ready, the conference organizers will be able to push content to profile pages. Branded web(non-mobile) profiles aren't something that has been explored much yet.

Analytics of how users are connecting is potentially a huge part of the value offering for this use case. That's a path that I'm very eager to explore now that people can actually connect through Quirk.

> profile data

Initially, rich profiles are only presented to mobile users. It's primarily a resources issue, and a rich web profile hasn't been built yet primarily because there are other, likely better, places to consume that data from a non-mobile device - the social networks themselves. The stub that's presented now when viewing a profile on the web is mostly a stopgap, but for the moment, traffic is heavily skewed to the web experience instead of mobile, so it probably needs to be built out just to capture new visitors' attention.

Thanks for the feedback. I've struggled over a number of iterations to come up with a concise description for the homepage. So far, I've either come up short (as it is now), or needed way too much text to get the message across.

I've been taking the approach of trying to get new visitors to try the service, without requiring an in depth explanation first. The demo page, http://www.getaquirk.com/demo , which I should probably give a prominent link from the home page, is my attempt at that.

I'm starting to wonder whether it can be explained clearly with a good graphic. I'll be exploring wording options and potential visuals today to try to deliver the message more effectively.

I'm concerned that the FAQ page isn't effective at getting the message across. I would have thought that, in the least, the first question http://www.getaquirk.com/faq#what-is-quirk would explain what the app actually does. Is the FAQ page just the wrong place to be delivering that message? (I've been debating that over the last few days).

Thanks!

I quit my job in November '09. My intent at the time was to spend 3-6 months developing new skills and reading about/learning all the cool things I'd seen on HN and pushed off until "when I have time."

Midway through, an idea that began as a learner project turned into a startup, 3-6 months turned into 9+, and I'm learning more than I ever have, and about more than just the programming topics I'd planned on.

Meanwhile, I've gone to meetups and startup events (like the Work at a Startup Day), and my personal projects -and my commitment to developing the skills to build them on my own- have been the starting points of lots of conversations with cool people from cool companies, opening doors to opportunities I'd have never had if I'd still been working at a full time gig that my heart wasn't into.

The most important thing for me has been making sure to use my time well. It's easy to squander the time, so it's paramount to have a plan and stick to it. That said, the plan can be pretty flexible since you set the schedule (assuming you don't have dependents limiting that).

My biggest concern is whether I'll be able to go back to a "regular job" after the freedom of working on my own projects on my own schedule. But I'm hoping that I won't have to find out.

Do it!

Add some details to your HN profile. That was the first thing I looked at after reading your post, and there isn't anything there. (Not that mine's a particularly epic tome).

When I moved to SF, I (fortunately) had a couch to crash on for a week. The city is eminently walkable. I spent the first few days just walking through neighborhoods and looking at whatever apartments on Craigslist I could schedule walkthroughs for. I walked the Mission from 26th and Potrero back and forth to 14th and Dolores, all of SOMA, up and down Hayes Valley and the Haight. I knew from doing a little research beforehand that the Marina and North Beach weren't my scene.

Once I found a neighborhood that felt comfortable, I narrowed my focus and drilled down on finding a place.

If you can do something similar, I highly recommend it.

It's probably noteworthy that Wolfgang was Rockstar's graphics lead for quite a while and is the editor of the ShaderX books, and Erwin is the simulation lead for Sony Computer Entertainment. Pretty strong pedigree.

My mom's an Australian, but she's been in the US for 30 years. When people detect an accent, their first guess is always Boston.

Not sure that I'm the right fit for you, but we should meet up. I left the game industry in November, and I'm about to launch a social/mobile web startup. Might just be good to trade stories/knowledge.

Not that I've ever submitted anything before, but based on experiences at other sites, getting throttled sucks. Having to sit and wait for the clock to reset for each subsequent submission is a pain and extremely unfriendly if the content isn't actually spam.

What if instead of rate-limiting the submissions, HN accepted all the submissions, but then controlled the rate at which they're released into the mix. That way, the user's experience is unencumbered, but there's also not a sudden flood of posts from a single user all at once?