Orange Tree Code

I finished reading "Getting Real" . It’s written by people behind Basecamp web application; they also created Ruby on Rails programming language in the process. It gives advice on how to build a web application. The number one thing the book emphasize is the keeping it simple message. Saying no to more features is a big theme. I can’t be in more agreement with this point.

I could say that I have followed most of the book recommendations in building my first major web project without necessarily having any previous experience of building a large webapp. I built it quick and released it the first version in less than one week, following the lesson of building a half product . I continously resisted adding more features. I was replied personally to the user requests, at least initially. My application took off in way that I could have never expected.

The only criticism, I have about the book is that the authors tend to see the world through the window of their BaseCamp application which is a freaking simple application. There are people out there who launch spacecrafts and don’t have a priviledge of "test in the wild " option. There are also applications which are not targeting a big market with multiple niches (ex: MS World) which are also expect to have a ton of features. Lessons of "Getting Real" doesn’t necessarily apply there. No amount of "Getting Real" can save you if you are open-minded about the situation you are in.

I am at Blogher conference . One of the only few men at the conference hasn’t been weird at all. I have tried to go to some of the sessions when I am away from our Adoptic.com booth and had an easy time commenting.

Session moderaters are very good at getting audience’s input. Speakers don’t claim that they an authority on the subject and give enough room to audience to express themselves. This is in total contrast to the Ruby on Rails programming conference which I went to two months ago. This one has 99% female participants and the other one had 99% male participants. I don’t necessarily think this is due to gender balance difference. It could be more about the difference between expressive bloggers vs geeky engineers difference.

I went to the panel by Anne-Marie Nichols , Gwen Bell moderated by  Krista Neher on blog promotion (read the live blogging of the session here ) . Q/A was very educational. There are still a lot of people who have problems with basic tools. It’s so important to make the tool easy to use. Also, I found the session on Global Perspective session very interesting. As someone who has done his fair amount of blogging for international audience, I connected with many of the things they said. I also got to meet Nicole Simon  who is a German blogger and social media expert and  Adrianne George who is an African-American living in Europe.

I just attended BlogHim session at Blogher. It is kind of funny to be under-represented within another under-represented community!

The websites I like are the websites which do one specific task very well. Such websites have a very clear work flow that helps the user to get that specific task done.

If you want to create a website for community X and still don’t know the number one thing your website is going to do for community X, you have got a problem to solve. Before building the website, first think what is the introductory paragraph on the front page of your website.

I was just listening to Paul Graham’s talk where he argues that benevolence helps startups. Many of the successful startups start with the image of doing good and do not necessarily have a clear business plans at the beginning. Graham brings up three reason for success of these companies:

1. Moral is kept high at these companies even at bad times because team members believe they are doing something good and useful.
2. Other people help you more because they believe in what you do
3. Helps to stay on track by focusing on what is good for your customers