skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
if you use datasets you can do all that boring sql stuff in 1 line of code. Also you can create a DAL and map those objects to the server controls without writing a line of code if you use VS2005 and above.

MVC for asp.net is on the way btw.
Also see Marc Andreessen's similar article from last week:
http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/11/rebuilding-holl.html (as Goldstein mentions)
You should either use NHibernate, SubSonic or wait for EDM/LinQ in the upcoming ASP.NET so you won't deal with 5-6 lines of ADO.NET code.

But I have to agree with you, it's not that straightforward to understand ASP.NET esp if you have previous knowledge of developing web-app because ASP.NET tries to abstract everything out for you (via their Controls, ViewState etc).

On the other side, ASP.NET might not be discipline in terms of MVC but then again it is ridiculously easy to re-create a GridView such that I don't care much about the VC part of the MVC. I write less code thanks to Visual Web Developer tool.
Projected length: 12 hours, with a 2 hour John Galt monologue.

I wonder if Ms Jolie understands the point of the book.
If you have any question then asking it here is usually good enough, I asked a question a few days ago and got some great ideas.

The only feature here that is sorely missing for this to be a kick-ass forum is that it doesn't accumulate knowledge.

If it only had a decent search feature, it would have an excellent forum.
- here

- http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/ (programming languages)

- http://joel.reddit.com/ (software in general)

I once asked a similar question, and someone recommended dreamincode.net ... don't bother... most of the questions are like "what is a boolean?"
Almost every one has a "games" button. Many had "friends" as a button. Ignoring these trends if you are designing for kids seems like a huge mistake.
Who is Trevor?
Wow, thanks, Guys. If I were still working on that project I'd probably pick your brains a bit more.

And, I think that you hit the nail on the head about abstracting everything out for me. In the short ammount of time, I just couldn't grokk it, but I knew I didn't like it.

It seemed like ASP.NET was a purposefull movement away from typical web development. And, I'm sure that Microsoft was trying to fix problems that they say with typical web dev.

I just think that there are better solutions out there than ASP.NET. But, if you're a windows guy and used to coding in Visual Studio, and you can already use the languages that you are used to, it might be a really good idea.
Indeed. Even the print version http://technology.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12912&... has ads on it.
I recommend asp.net to all my competitors!
Ask YC:  What revision control system are you using?
I'd like to hear what you're using and why you like it. I have a hunch that we're going to be using more distributed version control than your average group, just checking. So...

Git? Bazaar? Subversion? TortiseSVN? Mercurial? CVS? Perforce? or "Revision control is for weak need mortals. I etch code directly on silicons wafers like the hacker god that I am!"

Talk amongst yourselves.
Hi edw519,
Mainly that Hacker News isn't a forum. The format makes discussions here ephemeral. Hacker news is a niche site for posts of general-interest to that niche.

A forum is topical, so narrow interest posts are channeled into topic areas. In a forum you might have a topic "Co-Founders Wanted" but only people interested in being/finding co-founders at a given time would read and post in that topic. If Hacker news was mainly narrow-interest postings (ever seen this bug?, co-founder wanted) the signal to noise ratio would degrade.

A Hacker News Forum would be great because 1-this community is great and 2-I could browse topics I'm interested in at the point in time they're of interest to me.
There are plenty of companies using ASP.NET.
The startup where I work was started by business types but we're using Python. Although I have to admit that at times it is hard to find experienced Python developers (so we gave up on the Python part and started looking for experienced developers period. Turns out Python is pretty easy to learn).

My biggest problem with ASP.NET (and the reason I would pick Java over it if I had to use one of the two) is that it only runs on Windows (I keep hearing about this Mono thing but to me that still feels like a hack).
I like forums, but for some things they are a bit stale. It's like having a pen pal as opposed to going down the pub with some friends. Some great ideas are born from discussions at the pub over a drink.

I created #startups on irc.freenode.net so feel free to come and chat/hang out there.
Subversion. Also, I'm using Trac as a bug tracker and wiki. It comes with a nice Subversion viewer.
svn

We're using it because it's free, suits our needs fine, and is pretty much the standard these days (especially for open source projects)

p.s. you know TortiseSVN is just a Windows client for Subversion, right?
The difference is, while Americans love cars, most of 'em don't read books.
we have been using darcs for quite some time now. very happy with it thus far.
and what makes you think that there are no biz dev, designers, and programmers here?
RCS because I'm working solo and setup is instant (emacs: C-x v v). When I need more I'll probably take the path of least resistance and use subversion, even though Mercurial is reputed to be superior.
Maybe web based email such as hotmail was there earlier?
The idea is so cute, a text book example of 'out of the box'
<cringe>We also use Code Generation software that builds all the CRUD methods automatically.</cringe>

I can understand what would bring you to using a code generator, but the examples I have seen in practice are not good. I think code generators show there is something fundamentally wrong with the language/framework.
PDFs on the Kindle, Conversion without a 10c charge, Free feeds and other Kindle hacks
Seconded. Mostly because I work with Tom, but I also use svn at work, because it really is the standard.

Distributed version control seems a bit like a fad to me. I admit it has some nice features, but I expect subversion to adapt the best that it doesn't already have (which isn't really all that much). They are already working on implementing local commits, which in my mind is the single biggest missing feature.
I'll jump into the flames -- what the heck.

The problem isn't ASP.NET: it's probably the way you were taught how to use it. The Microsoft tools do so much crap that it's like being put into a room full of levers and knobs with cryptic labels on them. Hard to know where to start or how to make things work.

Sit down with somebody who is using one of the automated DALs (like NetTiers, NHibernate, CSLA, etc) and knows what the heck they are doing. You'll find it very intuitive and the speed of development can keep pace (or surpass, depending on the domain) any other kind of web development.

Now for the BUT part. BUT you have to be doing straight-forward business development. Stuff in the middle of the road. Writing a check. Checking your email. Posting a message.Viewing your box scores. Etc. If you want something like an animated dancing baby that does different dances depending on your current stock portfolio and can sing out your RSS feeds in different languages, you're back to basics, and all that abstraction is going to get in your way big time. Also, if you want to scale up to 100K users quickly you're going to be learning a lot more about tweaking IIS and ASP.NET than you probably wanted. But for a lot of stuff, it's just fine. Not everybody is writing the next YouTube, and you can't beat the libraries available to you over on the "dark" side.(grin)
The problem I have with IRC is that there is no decent search/logging option (and please don't mention bots). And I hate having to nag everybody with a question that was asked a few days ago or answering a question that was already asked unless there is some new twist.

How about setting up a 37sigs campfile account? The only problem is that I'm not sure that we'll fit in there (the premium account only supports 60 users simultaneously chatting)
So the use of standard abstractions and conventions in something like a DAL show a lack of what, exactly?
"I wonder if Ms Jolie understands the point of the book."

What exactly makes you wonder that?
Product pages: so much suck, so easy to fix
Why not?

In a world with C++, Phyton, Ruby and Lisp both are very similar.
Thanks for taking tiem to reply. The humour cheered me up!
After trying a few different languages .NET was definitely the fastest outside of C/C++. I didn't feel like learning C++ and then having to build a homebrew everything on top of it.

My history is primarily ECMAScript, so it was very easy for me to pick up C#. Going between ActionScript 3 and C# constantly is a breeze. I couldn't imagine going between say.. Lisp and ActionScript 20 times a day. It would be such a detriment to my productivity.
I love my print books, but having all my books electronic would have saved me lots of money over the years, as I've hauled them back and forth over the Atlantic several times....sigh.
d. street cred
Right - version control doesn't strike me as a good place to play on the bleeding edge. I'll leave that to other people and spend time playing with something else experimental that won't lose a bunch of my critical data, or cause unexpected problems.
I enjoyed the article. I found it interesting, however, that this is based on work that came out in 2004. Here is the link to Tovey's 2004 article, "The Honeybee Algorithm":
http://ormstomorrow.informs.org/archive/fall04/Tovey%20artic...
It appears not. It was commercially launched on July 4, 1996.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotmail#Development_history

Founders at Work probably has more details, but my copy is at home.
I have used ASP.NET, CGI, CherrryPy, some of these in anger.

I am currently looking at Common Lisp. I have been burned by MS too many times and I don't need their blessing to program. I posted these links yesterday as well, but if you are interested, I am updating my blog with my adventures into a web app in Common Lisp:

http://uint32t.blogspot.com/2007/11/web-programming-framewor...

http://uint32t.blogspot.com/2007/11/update-web-programming-f...

http://uint32t.blogspot.com/2007/11/lisp-web-framework-desig...

All in all, I find that Common Lisp + Slime is a great environment to develop in. All the tools you need are there, there is just the matter of a small investment of time.
Seriously, I agree 100%. I code in AS3/ JS/ and C# without a problem. Anytime I have to write SQL or VB (for my newly acquired day job), I cringe because of the syntax. Gotta love those curly brackets :}
"Sit down with somebody who is using one of the automated DALs (like NetTiers, NHibernate, CSLA, etc) and knows what the heck they are doing. You'll find it very intuitive and the speed of development can keep pace (or surpass, depending on the domain) any other kind of web development."

Oh come on, this applies for ANY tool in ANY domain. This is non-information.
How does this differ from existing load balancing techniques? For example, MediaTemple's GridService serves a collection of websites from one or more clusters of servers. They claim to be Slashdot/Digg proof.
"If you want something like an animated dancing baby that does different dances depending on your current stock portfolio and can sing out your RSS feeds in different languages..."

Hey! How did you find out about my startup idea?
Most ASP.NET training sucks. Does that say it any better? It's not a matter of the lanugage or the platform, it's that the instruction and tools are lame. Certainly that isn't true for any platform, is it?
I agree completely - SVN is very standard, seems to be stable, and basically does everything most people will need. TortoiseSVN is a great client if you're using Windows.
My lawyer says I'm forced to notify you that I own the rights to the dancing-baby-stock-singing-RSS-multilingual device.

Of course, you're free to use a chicken.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say!
It shows a lack of nothing. What DAL is a code generator that writes large quantities of code based on your 'models'? It simply provides a better or easier interface.

Here is what I meant:
When a commercial application becomes popular to generate large amounts of code to do a small amount of work, like some CRUD, I personally feel that shows a flaw in the fundamental way the language works. The language should either be able to offer you a better way of doing it yourself, or writing a small framework for yourself. If neither of these are viable options, I would consider that a serious knock against the language.
Me neither. I must have booted up Big Endian again. I hate it when I do that.

Take two programmers who are novices. Throw them into any two languages. If we use an automated DAL and a mentor-apprentice training paradigm in both languages, I can have the ASP.NET guy up and running and more productive faster than the other guy. <disclaim>for writing average run-of-the-mill web apps</disclaim>
You mean that subset of straightforward business development that Microsoft thinks ASP.NET is for. If you want to put subtotals in a grid of financial numbers, for example, you either have to jump through hoops or move it off to Microsoft Reporting Services or Crystal Reports.

There's a wide gap between where ASP.NET's usefulness ends and where the really fancy stuff begins.

And yes, you totally can beat the libraries available on the "Dark Side." You'd have to try hard not to.
An Interview with Matt Brezina of Xobni
Splashup has about 100K users and didn't require much tweaking. Then again, I didn't use all the fancy frameworks and abstractions for abstractions.
Can you point me to someone that has beaten the libraries of the "Dark Side"? I'd like to check them out.
Although I'm sure the answer is no, I'd be interested in knowing if anyone here had ever even considered using WebObjects for development.
You've completely missed the point. I'm saying that the people who post and read here ARE these people, but that its not always the best mechanism for all meeting up or getting advice from one another.
Lol. I agree 100% with this one, you'll get instant visitors from the RoR world + Web designers.
> You can search it, annotate it (as a group!), and cross reference it.

See, this sounds a lot like the Interweb I keep hearing about.

Funny thing is, writers can write for the interwebs and get paid by the word, by ads, or per-download (I find that latter proposition less often, but it's there). Alls you need to read those things is a laptop or an iPhone.

What does the Kindle bring to the table? It's a neutered computer, a broadcast (output-only) device with a shitty little keyboard that allows people to purchase stuff and mindlessly consume it. Commenting is more difficult than with a computer, as far as I can tell, and the device costs as much as an iPhone, but seems to offer far less.

Really, what's the point? It doesn't seem to offer benefits the way that radio, TV, cell phones, or the Web did (versus preceding technologies). It's an expensive black-and-white device that enables Amazon to more efficiently take your money... what are the upsides?

> you'll soon see advantages to having electronic and sharable books.

I've been seeing those advantages since I first started browsing the physics papers at CERN using Mosaic, thanks.
Much more eloquently said than me, but thats what I was getting at. If some kind of forum mechanism was added to Hacker News I'd use it straight away
Well, I didn't read the entire article, so maybe there was an answer to this but I'm a bit weary of claims like "can be modified to scale linearly with the number of machines with 1 week of coding".
I'm hoping I'm not getting into a flame war -- not my intent.

Here's the problem with what you said -- the word "code". It's not defined. In any kind of large environment, my application uses all kinds of compiled code. So what if I push a button or flick a switch to use another hunk of code that I don't have to write or test? Is using System.Io somehow "better" than say, having an automated macro that generates IO based on some user preference?

Yes -- I would agree that if I have to write and maintain a large amount of code to do easy stuff we've got a problem somewhere. But if my platform is powerful enough to allow me to use multiple Data Access paradigms without any work on my part? Who cares if when I flip the switch the code is generated and compiled or if it was generated and compiled last week or last year?

Take a look at something like CodeSmith. Here's a tool that uses .NET to write programs for .NET. Now yes, you can generate a lot of code that way -- if you want to look at it like that. You can also go and get open source libraries and templates that will generate tested, proven, full-featured libraries based on your particular situation. Isn't that a much better thing than simply having one paradigm that everybody has to shoe-horn their work into?
Better solution depends largely on how your brain works. Some people brain map better with LISP, some work better with OOP/Java.
I'm not sure that getting ASP.NET guy up and running and more productive faster is a laudable goal. Say productivity of ASP.NET guy is f(t) where t is time and productivity of <something-else> guy is g(t). I would submit that there exists some T where g(t) > f(t) for all t > T (t starts at 0, for simplicity.)

That is my stupid way of saying, who gives a crap how long stupid ASP.NET guy takes to get productive? In the long run, inevitably, someone else will be better.
No, I think you've completely missed the point. Anytime I've had a question, I've posted here. Sure, there are other forums, boards, groups, etc that you can go to, but if you tried to bring them all together, it would get muddled and all the good hackers would leave. Kind of like digg, reddit.
Thank you sir for justifying me staying away from all these frameworks.
I will add, then all that is remaining for g(t) > f(t) for t > 0 is for someone to box up <something-else> in an easily digestible form. Then what?
"That is my stupid way of saying, who gives a crap how long stupid ASP.NET guy takes to get productive? In the long run, inevitably, someone else will be better."

I liked it better with the forumlas. (grin) Seriously -- that's a good point. But I don't think it is language-dependent. Might be. I don't know. From what I've seen languages and platforms are just new and interesting ways for programmers to shoot themselves in the foot. Good programming remains the same now as it was decades ago. That is, unless somebody has started using the force and I don't know about it.
Java libraries, CPAN, and the Unix/C universe of libraries are three examples. But you should only check them out if there's a library that does the specific thing you want.
http://forums.techcrunch.com/forums/category.jspa?categoryID...

Check that out if you are really interested. Thats what I assume you're thinking of.
Benefits of multivariate testing
"There's a wide gap between where ASP.NET's usefulness ends and where the really fancy stuff begins." -- yes. This is the frustration of ASP.NET programming _without_ the underlying HTML/JS/CSS/XML knowledge. It's like you can almost do everything you want, but not quite. The grid control, as you mention, does some totally sweet stuff right out of the box. But want subtotals? Time to learn about the IIS HTTP Pipeline.

It all boils down to what you are doing. Lots of shops can have 3 or 4 coders doing the mainline stuff and 1 guy who can do the tricky stuff. It's an effective use of lower-skilled programming resources.

I'd have to disagree with you on the libraries. While I'm sure there are some good libraries out there, when I'm plugged into VS I've got some kazillion or so things I can do without having to Google, link, recompile, or do squat. And I can easily make libraries to share with others. It depends on your needs. Since MS does a little bit of everything for everybody, the libraries are probably the broadest that are easily available.
What did I say that would justify you staying away? Java? I would take JSF over ASP.net any day. I consider ASP.Net to be on a similar level to old fashioned JSP (mixing and mashing of model and presentation all over the place). JSF on the other hand is a true MVC framework

So my point is: JSF is very powerful if you can master it.
No cause for concern - I understand that a lot of what we are disagreeing on here are small points. This is the proper venue for discussion, and I appreciate your points.
I do agree that having some sort of code generation does have a place, and can be useful. But it is also has it's problems, especially related to maintainability. Lastly, the last time I looked at some code generation, there was so much custom junk built on top of the generated code, it was like they were using a round peg for a square hole.

Obviously, I am biased by what I have seen in practice. I also dislike a lot of 'magic', or things I don't understand and have control over being tightly integrated with my code.
I've had a lot of bad experiece with Code Generation as well.

What I think I see happening over the past few years is a lot of authors and researchers developing code generation templates as part of their work. So instead of the guy who's got the book telling you to make 7-tier, multi-phasic, distributed apps, you got the guy, a website, a following, and a set of templates and wizards that make this thing for you.

I'm not crazy about that at all, but I think it is having the effect of evolving the code generation community. I'm seeing a lot more people who want to "program the programming" Most, of course, create monsters. But it only takes one good set of easily-used and rock-solid templates to create real value for everybody. So in the old days, there was 5-10 CASE tools and they all sucked, now there's more like 500 template authors, and 10-15 are pretty good. In my opinion, that's a good trend, but the genre of "code generation" still has a well-deserved negative connotation.
Depends on how you look at it. Windows Server 2003 is not a bad server OS and properly written and deployed ASP.NET application will be able to handle TONS of requests. Two reasons: native code execution (.NET caches compiled code in memory) and very efficient threading. This thought may be unpopular but it does not make it less true.

However, as a struggling one-two person startup, you probably will not want to pay crazy prices for dedicated windows hosting (Win2003 server+MSSQL). And shared Windows hosting is always crap: overloaded servers, terrible performance, etc.

Basically, Windows platform is not very startup-friendly: you develop slower (thus will take you longer, i.e. you'll bleed more money) and later it will cost you more to host your app. Besides, a proper set of Visual Studio + MSDN subscription is not exactly cheap.

For well-funded startups .NET makes more economic sense: easier to hire for and performs/scales well (myspace).
Speakers that cost under $1
http://www.householdhacker.com/

(Its a troll, in case you don't know.)
The question was "What interests me is what forums / sites people on here use to discuss startups?" as I'm curious at what other mechanisms (other than this site) people use in their daily routine. It would be interesting to see if there are certain sites which stand out. For me posting too much on this site - if everyone did it - would seriously increase the noise ratio when this is primarily a.... news site
Live blog report of the Essential Mediatech conference in London
"I'm feeling lucky" button costs Google $110 million per year
Actually the upcoming Windows Server 2008 Web Edition cost around $500 bucks. I know it still can't beat free but heh, it's better than spending thousands of dollars.

SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition cost $50 bucks (SQL Dev Ed is basically Enterprise Ed with license restriction).

I hope in the future MS will lower the prices for most of their stuffs.
Who's Setting the Expectations at your Startup Company?