October 2012
Oct. 1, 2012
What are the differences between node.js and websockets?
This is like asking “what’s the difference between PHP and HTTP”. Node.js is a technology framework you write code in. WebSockets is a protocol which can be implemented using a technology framework. You can use Node.js to implement the server-side aspect of WebSockets.
[... 57 words]Oct. 3, 2012
What is the scope, as a career, for a Python developer?
Don’t be an “X developer”. You’re selling yourself short if you define yourself by the technology you most frequently use.
[... 169 words]Oct. 4, 2012
What are some fun, interesting things to do or see in the Islington area?
There’s an awesome old post office building hidden behind the Almeida theatre. It’s an enormous, faded and broken multi-storey warehouse taking up a full city block. I’m fascinated by it—it’s such a huge, grand looking building and it’s clearly now deserted. I think there might be a project to turn it in to flats, but it’s absolutely worth taking a peek to catch it in its run-down glory: https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=51...—best place to see it from is Almeida Street (here’s a glimpse of it on streetview, doesn’t really capture how grand it is though: https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=51... )
[... 120 words]NoSQL: Whats the simplest on disk key-value storage?
Surprisingly there doesn’t seem to be an obvious answer to this. Here are a few options:
[... 164 words]Oct. 5, 2012
What recommendations are there for conference venues in London for between 50-100 people?
The Magic Circle offer a small, intimate venue with some great history. They are just behind Euston Station. They can seat 150 people. http://themagiccirclevenue.co.uk/
[... 44 words]Oct. 8, 2012
Is it even possible to think of a new idea? Anything that I think of has either been done, or someone is doing it. How do you keep yourself motivated enough to pursue it?
A lot of the time it’s not just about the idea, it’s also about timing. There are plenty of ideas which have failed in the past but could succeed if tried again today. A few things to consider:
[... 180 words]Oct. 13, 2012
Why are web applications more popular than desktop applications with investors?
How often do you install a new desktop application? How often do you try out a new web application?
[... 36 words]Oct. 14, 2012
What are some major tech conferences that offer student fellowships/discounts?
Many conferences will give you a %100 discount if you offer to help out on the day of the event—it’s always worth asking, especially if you have built up a reputation as a reliable event volunteer.
[... 54 words]How can I learn more about server-side technologies?
Get yourself a VPS, set it up from scratch and run some non-critical websites on it (nothing with private user data since you can’t be sure you’ll set it up securely). Both Slicehost and Linode offer a good set of guides to a whole host of common tasks:
[... 109 words]Oct. 15, 2012
Any source available to download sample data (in 10+ GB) for testing?
Wikipedia has some pretty interesting dumps, in both XML and SQL format: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/I...
[... 100 words]How do I get out of being on panel at SXSW?
People drop out of panels all the time—it’s not a big problem, provided you give the organizers a good amount of notice so they can find a suitable replacement. Let the panel organiser know ASAP. Even better: offer to help them find a replacement panelist.
[... 64 words]Oct. 16, 2012
How can I keep my website content exclusive?
No, there isn’t—people can always copy things if they really want to, it’s part of the cost of doing business. If you were to publish a book people could always photocopy it.
[... 108 words]Oct. 20, 2012
How should one go about designing a simple web based collaborative text editor?
Take a look at the open source ShareJS library, which implements a bunch of the fundamental (and extremely tricky) algorithms you need to get collaborative editing in the browser to work well: https://github.com/josephg/ShareJS/
[... 53 words]Can you mark items on a website as ’unread’ without cookies?
It’s not very exciting, but CSS will let you set different styles for visited vs unvisited links and the technique has worked reliably since the mid 1990s.
[... 44 words]How does a front end developer avoid getting blamed?
It is your fault. Part of being a good front-end engineer is knowing the ways in which a page might break and working with your team to mitigate them.
[... 138 words]Oct. 26, 2012
Django (web framework): What is the recommended way to cache objects that are very large (>1.5MB)?
Take a look at redis—it can handle binary strings up to 512 MB and has performance that is similar to memcache. It’s very easy to use from within Django (there’s even a pluggable cache backend for it).
[... 61 words]