theandym

Disclosure: I work at Heroku.

Yes, there are people who move from AWS to Heroku. The decision to choose Heroku over AWS can be multifaceted, but usually comes down to a couple things: development experience and operations experience. Heroku strives to make the process of developing and launching an app extremely simple yet incredibly powerful. Providing a toolchain that simplifies the configuration of production-ready app execution environments enables developers to focus on what they're awesome at - developing great apps. And not having to become an expert on provisioning, scaling, and maintaining individual pieces of infrastructure can eliminate or reduce the necessity for dedicated DevOps.

Is Heroku the right choice for every app? No. However, Heroku hosts everything from small exploratory apps to sites like Upworthy and Urban Dictionary, so is likely worth your consideration. If you're interested in talking a bit more offline you can reach me at theandym at heroku dot com.

I'll add my interest in adding a Spotify integration. I'd definitely pay $ for it.

Agreed. This type testing has been relegated to individual browser testing for too long. Hopefully tools like this will enable teams to address browser-side performance testing in the same way that tools like New Relic have enabled app-side performance evaluation.

I owned a pair as well until I left them in the seatback on a flight. I was given them as a gift and really enjoyed them - the quality and isolation provided by the noise cancelation was very good considering the price range.

I will say that it is somewhat inconvenient to have to enable the noise cancelation in order to use at all. There are some instances when I prefer to have some external awareness, and this didn't really accommodate that need.

Overall, I think these are a great option for someone looking for a pair without significant tradeoffs and with limited time to research. That said, there are definitely pairs with better quality out there. If you have the time I highly recommend reading reviews on Head-Fi prior to purchasing.

For Rails Rumble last year I created a Rails app for generating test data in various formats. It definitely isn't as polished as this (only had 48 hours), but allows for the user to specify their own format. After the competition I cleaned it up a bit more and converted the data generation functionality into a standalone Ruby gem. I'd appreciate any feedback...

App: http://proglipsum.com/

Gem: https://github.com/theandym/mannequin

Scrollbars are virtually non-existent on Macs these days. Plus this works well on touch-based devices too. Overall, I like the concept and find it useful as well.

Edit: I'm referring to the reading progress bar concept, not to the loading status referenced in the original post.

Thanks, I appreciate the link.

Thanks for the input, that makes sense. I can't remember the last time I intentionally visited their site, but ran across this article and it seemed as if it had enough merit to share.

Here are my results running it in production mode (RAILS_ENV=production rails server >/dev/null 2>/dev/null):

ERB: 9.619 seconds

Haml: 10.893 seconds

Slim: 10.195 seconds

Full details at https://gist.github.com/3906297

Very good points. Any specific variable types / sets that'd make it more useful for you (or devs in general)?

I've been in many situations where I needed test data to use while developing or validating code. progLipsum (name subject to change) is my answer to making it easy for developers to get the data they need to test with.

Is progLipsum something that you find useful? What changes or additions would you make? I appreciate any feedback, and aim to continue development if this proves to meet the needs of other developers.

Also, I developed this as a solo entry for Rails Rumble 2012 - if you like it I would appreciate a vote at http://railsrumble.com/entries/355-proglipsum ;) Feedback is far more important though...

As someone who's worked in independent film and has been involved in projects that have spent $10k's and $100k's in music, I dont see this as lavish or irresponsible at all. Musicians are hard workers, and deserve to be paid for their efforts. Just because the developers couldn't hack their way to a great soundtrack and paid for decent/professional work doesn't mean they misappropriated funds. I'd counter that they rightfully spent the money in places that weren't their core competencies.

Edit: I know that film isn't the same as game development, but I feel that the multidisciplinary aspect of game creation incurs costs in a far wider arena than traditional software development.

Clickable: https://www.siasto.com

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I like the single page intro, but feel it could contain a little more information on the feature set. I agree with blakeperdue that a screenshot would help as well. The signup process is super simple, which is a big plus and makes it trivial to get started / explore the product.

You can look at this a few ways:

1) It is a commentary on the frivolous use of polls.

2) It is a experiment to gauge the reaction of the HN community.

3) It provides value (if only satirical), otherwise people wouldn't have upvoted it.

I wouldn't say common, but a little occasional levity isn't such a bad thing, right?

Linkbait.

You can use my referral link if you'd like: http://getdatadriven.com/2eygp

Agreed. Or partner with one. Design is so critical to a successful application that it should be an initial consideration, not an afterthought. As with any other venture, if you have a great idea you should be able to attract either the talent or the money to procure the talent.

I agree entirely. What Facebook provides is certainly not the only way to accomplish (or access) messaging/photo sharing/whatever. However, despite the limitations of such Facebook services, a large percentage of the population still choose them over other available options with more functionality. Perhaps the extra functionality isn't really that important to the average internet user. Or perhaps the average internet user even prefers the lack of extraneous, seldom used functionality that confuses and distracts them from their core purpose in using such services.

Agreed. I think it is pretty good overall, and can see potentially using it in my own projects. However, I don't think that the design of the technology class icons are particularly well execute. I feel like they suffer from an attempt to match the angles and styling of the logo too closely and would have rather seen more easily recognizable elements used to represent those concepts.

Exactly. It allows people to easily reset their passwords if they've forgotten them while reducing their need to update their password if someone accidentally/maliciously attempts a reset.

I agree as well. While he has had a big impact on technology I don't see the domain expertise to justify his assertions. He is just another person trying to make a guess about something that no one can accurately predict.

Was eating at Huddle House tonight and noticed this. I'm not exactly sure if it was ineptitude or a very clever hiring tactic.

Not intended as linkbait. I think its an important trend to recognize, especially for developers targeting the education marketplace.

It's not the overall 'Top Mobile OS', it just happened to be the 'Top Selling Mobile OS Last Quarter'. Big difference.

I have an almost identical setup. Great stuff to work with. I just switched to iTerm for the exact same reasons too.

Exactly. The questions with the iPhone (and any mobile platform) is not "Can it run?" but rather "Will it perform and not destroy battery life?". I'm am glad to see that Adobe is working on a mobile version, but until they solve the battery life issue I am happy to not have it on my iPhone.

There are larger companies who have custom built IVR systems dedicated to polling their customers regarding business interactions. The idea behind InstantLoop is to make that same capability available to anyone, with no upfront cost.

I agree completely. How long will it be before there are many competing apps with the same branding? For instance, you may soon have 5 different Bank of America apps, and consumers who are less discerning have a 4 in 5 chance of selecting the wrong, malicious app. Perhaps the best way to combat this is taking the approach that Twitter has and "verifying" accounts. Otherwise certain industries chance at thriving in the Android app community could be compromised.

Great link. It is really important for startups to establish solid visual identities.