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Here's the letter on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=HpgNSVS6fUYC&pg=PA390&#...

I hear this one a lot, but no one ever explains why. Would someone like to explain their reasons for suggesting to get a lawyer?

Can you share what your fees are for authorize.net? They don't disclosing anything on their website...

I interned for the company that provided Accoona's search engine software. This same software has been deployed successfully in many enterprise environments, is based on solid IR theory and research, and had powered a large web search engine in the late 90's.

However, any company trying to use it to compete with Google/Yahoo/MSN today, has 0 chance of succeeding. It's like trying to use Lucene to compete with Google. While these IR systems are solid and great for special purpose deployments, they provide little means of dealing with spamdexing, and all the other things a full web search engine needs in modern times.

It was obvious to me two years ago that Accoona was founded to capitalize on the search engine craze of the time as opposed to delivering a competitive product. I'd stay really far away from their stock if they ever go IPO.

Sounds good. I just wanted to suggest Andala Coffee House nearbly because they have free WiFi in contrast to 1369.

Here's the link: http://www.yelp.com/biz/QAbqOn5VhO4k15_wfSQdvg

Adobe Flex a very different approach to the rich client model. GWT will be on the same side as Prototype, Dojo, etc. if there is a showdown with Flex. Flex is not an alternative to GWT but rather an alternative to AJAX. I suspect both sides will continue to coexist peacefully.

Keep in mind that GWT is not a full web framework. So it's pointless to argue which is better, web framework or GWT, just like apples and oranges. You can use GWT with whichever back end framework (e.g. Rails) you want if you choose to go that route. Like I said earlier, GWT is an alternative to JS frameworks like Prototype, not server frameworks like Rails. What GWT does allow you to do is not use a web framework at all since its server-side calls are very easy to implement. But if you require a DB, etc, you can still use Rails and GWT.

There are a few misconceptions about GWT in the above comment:

"most frameworks are evolving FAR quicker than GWT is."

GWT is only a year old and has had 4 major releases. It just went open-source recently, so it's too early to tell how fast it will evolve.

"GWT does not have anywhere near the community or IRC users that most frameworks do."

GWT community is huge - there are over 600 posts a week on its Google Group. I'm not aware of an IRC channel for it though.

"using GWT can be even slower than using traditional desktop development tools like Visual Studio because you not only have to compile, but also upload the files to get a real idea of what you're doing."

No, you only need to upload files when you're actually doing a release.

Viaweb 2.0 :)

I'd be happy to discuss in more detail. Email: alex "at" mystorespace.com

When I was a kid growing up in the USSR, "stuff" was really important to everyone because everything was really hard to get. Those who grew up in the West can't possibly understand how valuable even the most insignificant stuff seemed there. Petty theft was rampant. If you left a load of laundry unattended you could come back and find even your socks missing.

The "stuff" mindset is very difficult for some people to break. Over the first few years living in the US, my mother had accumulated more useless stuff than most people who'd spent their whole lives here. After 15 years in the US, she still worries about leaving her stuff in the laundromat.

I've been thinking about the subject a lot over the years and Paul's essay is spot-on. The more money I make, the more I dislike "stuff". I hardly bought anything since I started my first job after college. In contrast I used to buy a fair amount of junk before. My room was always cluttered and I hated being at home because I felt like the stuff drained all my energy.

It's true that stuff owns people and not the other way around. My neighbor in Cambridge, MA keeps a backyard (more like a junkyard) full of used construction materials and equipment, including 3 dead trucks. He spends every single evening trying to straighten it out, but ends up just wheelbarrowing stuff from place to place without any noticeable progress. I, on the other hand, am now able to spend every evening working on my startup, and not having stuff makes me feel great!

Hey Kul, it was good running into you guys at eBay Live. Unlike Auctomatic, we (mystorespace.com) went the guerrilla route that day :) Our story is at mystorespace.blogspot.com.

We also got swamped with requests for accounts the week after eBay Live. Working around the clock, we managed to launch our Beta two weeks later (also after having given more optimistic predictions up front - not the best way to go :).

Just emailed you guys with some ideas.

Their form also asks for like 7 different URLs (canvas, ToS, unistall, install, etc), while many FB apps don't care about all these URLs. It would be nice if they had an option "use the same URL for everything", or, better yet, made everything but the "canvas" URL optional.

I think this is the way to go. I am taking this approach for a multi-player game I'm developing - you can play without registering, but you can register afterwards to save your score.

My primary project, mystorespace.com, takes a similar approach. We have a fully functional demo accessible without an account (you will be automatically logged in as testuser@mystorespace.com). I really don't like having to register in order to try something, so I assume most users feel the same way.

What kind of application takes 15 minutes to fully build? (I'm genuinely curious - not sarcasm).

I hear you. Right after grad school, I turned down an offer to work in a small (and very profitable) CAD company with good people mainly because I didn't want to code in C++ (and wanted to work with the web). A year later I chose a smaller web company over Microsoft partially for the same reason.

Java, one the other hand, works pretty well if you have a lot of experience with it and use the right tools (IntelliJ IDE). I feel like I am more productive with Java+IntelliJ than with Python.

Good luck with your decision.

Well said. I was just pondering this the other day - how did did I manage to get really cool/hard coding projects (AI, systems, etc.) done in school in just under a week while it takes many months to get a decent web application built. I realized that it's because the things you build in school are prototypes that deal with very specific use cases, while web apps require you take care of lots and lots of details so that ordinary people could use them.

Please don't reply saying "maybe you should consider Ruby on Rails" because that's not the point of my comment :)

If I was a potential buyer I'd see someone selling a site just 4 days after launch as a big red flag. Was the developer's confidence in it's potential so low that they chose to take a sum equivalent to 4 months' salaray (assuming they're not 16) rather than ride the wave?

On the other hand, maybe they're on to something - repeatedly build sites with cool design, get a mention on Tech Crunch, and flip.

Migpwr, you sound jealous and negative for no apparent reason. I don't see how my article could have offended you personally to warrant your string of hateful replies.

Let me repeat - I didn't go to eBay Live to start a controversy. I went to get some users to try my software, which I worked hard to build for the past 5 months. Things took an interesting turn, so why wouldn't I try to use this opportunity to get some attention for my software?

I posted the story at YC news because most startup founders would hopefully find our low-budget marketing story interesting and maybe even inspirational. If I just wanted free publicity I would have digg'd it or something instead. I don't even have a digg account.

You're right, I wore my Google shirt because our product uses Google Checkout and I wanted to show support for it as I felt it was dealt an unfair blow by eBay. However, I didn't expect to get thrown out of the convention for it.

Just to clarify - only one of us wore a Google shirt. My co-founder was wearing business attire, so only I was singled out by the security personnel at first.

We don't yet have our own shirts and our appearance at the convention was spontaneous (planned the night before). I wore my Google shirt because our product uses Google Checkout and I wanted to show support for it as I felt it was dealt an unfair blow by eBay.

How else should one try to write a startup's first blog post? You're right in noticing that a major goal of the article was to market our product, but that doesn't mean that any of it was made up. It's a true retelling of the events.

I think I tried to convey that exact sentiment to their VP at one point during that unpleasant encounter. And yes, it's a true story. The Auctomatics can vouch we were there :)

I would appreciate some more constructive criticism about our product. Keep in mind it's just entering beta. What about it seems like nonsense to you?

Update: "sfo" appears to be a troll - his account was created 10 minutes ago.

I had this exact idea for a startup about a year and a half ago! I really gave it a lot of thought and tried to recruit my friends, but then I heard that Microsoft was doing it, and I (rightly) assumed Google would be too.

Even if I had time, I probably wouldn't have done it either way due to the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to execute it well (360 degree cameras, trucks, drivers, fuel, etc). I didn't know much about startups or investors back then.

But still, it's nice to think that I was able to look into the future back then! I'm sure others shared this vision too - anyone know of startups that attempted to take this on?

I agree with the stuff about summer jobs, as I had a few totally useless ones in college (2000-2004).

However I had no idea what else I could be doing. I didn't realize that you could make a decent web application and attract users, for instance. The problem was that I didn't have any friends or mentors to guide me in the right direction.

To the people who are working on their startups full time now - how much money are you spending in living expenses per month?

Not at all. It's constantly improving, e.g. generics, enums, and much more with version 5, and there's talk of adding closures to the language.

The amount of open source software and libraries for Java is also staggering.

The JVM platform is great and improving all the time.

If you like dynamic languages, why not try something that runs on the JVM as bytecode, like Groovy, JRuby, or Jython? You'll get the best of both worlds and can call Java code from your dynamic language.

Interesting suggestion of trying to use Rails with JRuby. Has anyone here tried that?

Actually, Groovy isn't Java - it's a dynamic "scripting" language that runs on the Java virtual machine (just like JRuby or Jython) - precisely the reason why I want to try it :)

I am a Java+GWT programmer, interested in exploring Groovy/Grails. Seems like an easier transition & a solid platfrom (the JVM) compared to RoR. Anyone have any experience with it to share?

I really enjoyed meeting those of you who came. Saw a bunch of cool demos, heard a bunch of cool stories, shared experiences, etc.

We should do this again soon! As Paul Buchheit recent blog post suggests, I think it's great for potential/current/former startup founders to hang out with like-minded folks and produce a shared "mental frame".

I look forward to seeing the mailing list and setting up a Google group.

Tihs is olny ture if the wrods are sohrt!