How to launch in a month, scale to a million users

http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/how-to-launch-in-a-month-scale-to-a-million-users

by ljlolel • 15 years ago

72 11 15 years ago

jperla.com

guimarin• 15 years ago

Nice post Joe. Good to see you sharing some of that knowledge.

pandeiro• 15 years ago

I found it helpful as well.

revorad• 15 years ago

We implemented a library that could create complicated AJAX interactions by writing 0 javascript, instead just adding a few extra HTML tags to code.

I don't understand what this means. Can you please explain how this works?

rjd• 15 years ago

Yeah the whole paragraph is worded poorly. IMO it reads either one of these scenarios:

1) A library that dynamically generated JS for him instead of writing it himself. So probably some scaffolding tool.

2) Server side was returning HTML and not JS

But TBH I didn't really get the paragraphs meaning

gregdetre3• 15 years ago

It's a clever idea:

- In your html, you annotate objects (e.g. a button) with the '.actionable' class

- Then provide a set of arguments in the html alongside, e.g.

        <div class="kwargs">
            <!-- replace #money with the output from /user/3/money/create -->
            <input name="type" value="replace" />
            <input name="target" value="#money" />
            <input name="url" value="/user/3/money/create" />
        </div>

- The library then parses the html of .actionable objects, and automatically creates the relevant jQuery bindings for you. In other words, you define the behavior in html, without having to write any custom javascript.

We're experimenting with a few ways of extending this on Memrise (Spencer Davis gets most of the credit here). It's early days, but we're an ajax-heavy site, and devolving certain kinds of basic, repetitive functionality to html feels natural and simple. And, by adding new handler types to the library, it becomes much, much easier to create reusable widgets that we can sprinkle throughout the site.

P.S. Currently, most of this work is still on a development branch that will be live within a couple of days.

imwilsonxu• 15 years ago

Pls correct my if I'm wrong.

I see the idea: 1) Write htmls (with some rules, e.g. add '.actionable' class) 2) Library turn them to js codes.

Benefits: 1) Write zero js codes. 2) Make basic and repetitive functionalities eaiser.

But, just wondering, why don't you wrap codes which deal with basic and repetitive functionalities into js functions then reuse them, but write a library to turn htmls codes to js codes?

My question is, html has its job and js has its, too. Is it a good idea to mix them?

gregdetre3• 15 years ago

See:

https://github.com/jperla/pebbles

https://github.com/memrise/pebbles

ljlolel• 15 years ago

Okay, I just released the docs:

http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/write-bug-free-javascript-wi...

endlessvoid94• 15 years ago

The influx of posts about "how to scale" is noticeable. Are more startups having this need? Or are more of them prematurely optimizing?

iamelgringo• 15 years ago

The much more important question is, how does one get a million users. Most startups never figure that out. Focus on that, scale later.

How to launch in a month, scale to a million users

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