Simon Willison’s Weblog

How does a web page interact with a server to parse a dynamic JSON file?

If you’re only dealing with 60 records there’s no need to add a full database. I’ve actually hand coded a 50 record JSON file before and it was fine- use an editor with good JSON support (I like Sublime Text 2) and it’s pretty easy to hand write.

What are some good analytics software for SAAS products? wrt to customer churn, segmentation of customers and product metrics

The two big ones at the moment are www.kissmetrics.com and www.mixpanel.com. They are both excellent, and both offer free trials... do I suggest giving both of them a go and seeing which one you find most useful.

In which programming language do programmers get paid the most?

The best (and best paid) software engineers work in multiple languages, and pick new ones up as and when they need to. If you pigeon-hole yourself as an “X programmer” you’ll limit yourself to relatively uninteresting, interchangeable roles.

What are the design mistakes in the Meteor framework?

Treating the non-JavaScript case as unimportant.

How is Web engineering related to Software engineering?

I’d describe it as a subset of software engineering that deals with issues relating to the web—web application development, web protocols, browsers and so on.

What is the inital costs for a tech startup? Do you have any checklist or spreadsheet?

Initial costs can be incredibly low—a few bucks for a domain name, $40/month or so for VPS hosting. Things only start to get expensive when either you need to scale up to multiple servers (which means you’re doing well) or when you start to pay salaries.

What are some recommended efficient apps for personal productivity (e.g., setting & receiving reminders for completing tasks)?

Things is excellent (at least if you are a Mac/iPhone person)—intuitive, powerful and with flawless syncing. Only catch is it’s a tad expensive considering you have to buy the iPhone and Mac apps separately.

What advice would Simon Willison give to a beginner Python/Django developer?

Build something and put it on the internet. Make sure you have an easy way to deploy new versions (Heroku is a good bet if you don’t want to figure out Fabric). Pick a project that’s useful to you—a simple blogging engine is often a good bet, or maybe something that aggregates together your posts from Twitter and Instagram and so on. Or come up with something a bit more creative!

Y Combinator Demo Day and Class of Summer 2013: Is it true that YC alumni are participating in the primary selection process during S13?

Yes—this has been happening for a few years now. Here’s Paul Graham’s announcement about it back in October 2009: Announcement: YC alumni will help us read applications

How do you become a good programmer?

In my experience new programmers progress a LOT faster if they’re learning with a higher level dynamic language such as Python or Ruby than if they only use C++ or Java. That’s not to say it isn’t a good idea to learn Java/C++ (though I’d encourage you to learn C as a lower-level language) but you may find you pick up programming concepts a whole bunch faster with a language that has a good interactive prompt.

Is it probable that one of the major forum software packages will support Ajax soon?

Those codebases are all terrifyingly ancient. I suggest taking a look at http://www.discourse.org/ instead which is a much more modern take on forum software.

What do business people look for in a good business card?

I like to encourage writing on business cards—which means that the card shouldn’t be glossy (to ensure pens work on it). Our business cards, designed by my partner Natalie Downe, actually have a labelled “notes” area on one side of them.

Is there an alternative to media queries for responsive design?

Yes: use percentage measurements for your layout components. That way you can build a website that works on a much larger range of screen sizes. You can combine this approach with media queries—for example, you could specify that your site has a 25% wide navigation menu and a 75% wide content area on devices that are wider than 400px, but any smaller than that and it collapses to a single column layout with the menu hidden and accessible only through a menu bar icon.

I am 17 years old and I plan to travel solo for 3—4 months around Europe. Do you have any advice? I want to taste a bit of everything that Western Europe has to offer, to walk on small roads and use as little money as possible.

Don’t stick to just Western Europe. Eastern European countries are much cheaper and often much more interesting.

Is there software that can help me keep track of contacts and referrals while I am building my seed round?

We used Highrise from 37signals for this when we raised our seed round and it worked perfectly. You can forward or BCC it emails, use it for tasks and reminders, tag contacts in it and use the mobile app for when you are at fundraising networking events (we used that to great effect at Y Combinator demo day).

What is the best web app for organize/group yours others web apps?

Have you tried using your browser’s bookmarks?

Events (leisure): What platforms based on sharing/creating users’ future plans with friends have been successful?

The founder of Plancast wrote an extensive post mortem discussing the challenges involved here:

How do you impress a venture capitalist so much that he invites you from another country for a meetup?

Don’t make a big deal about the fact that you are travelling from another country. Try to get a few of them interested enough to want a meeting, then make a bigger trip out of it.

What technologies were used in developing web applications in the ’90s?

Perl. Lots of Perl. There was a site called Matt’s Script Archive which was full of terribly written Perl scripts for things like hit counters and form emailers and guest books. It was very popular.

Should you apply to Y Combinator if your initial users are not in the US?

Yes, for a few of reasons:

1. Getting traction anywhere is a great sign that you can Build Something People Want, which is YC’s slogan. Having users who don’t fit in to the tech-heavy early adopter niche is an even more positive sign.
2. YC are always experimenting with different combinations of startup concepts, markets and founders. If you are significantly different from other groups they have funded before that might actually help you in the application process.
3. EVERY startup should fill out the YC application form, even if they have no intention if applying (you don’t have to submit it, you could even just print it out and answer the questions privately). It’s a very well designed application form, and answering the questions on it will teach you a lot of useful things about your startup and your team.

My boss wants me to choose drupal over django for website develpment.How can I convince him to choose django?

You could point him to Django (web framework): Why did theonion.com stop using Drupal?

What things can you find in London but not in New York City?

A train that will take you directly to Paris.

For developers and Startup Founders, what software licenses would you prefer to use instead of open source options, if you had unlimited funding?

With unlimited funding... I’d still prefer to build my company on open source licensed components. It’s not about the price (heck, I’d use my unlimited funding to support the projects my company benefited from)—it’s about the freedom to understand exactly how everything works, fix stuff that doesn’t, and benefit from the community of others solving the same kinds of problems.

Are there any sites/services that you can subscribe to where you can watch a developer code “Live”?

The Ludum Dare game development contest sometimes has contestants that livestream—Notch (the creator of Minecraft) has done so in the past.

At seed funding stage, how can a Startup protect itself from losing the majority?

Firstly, don’t sell a majority stake in your company. Secondly, hire competent legal advice to make sure you fully understand the terms of your investment and don’t get caught out through misunderstanding board voting rights, preferred vs common stock, liquidation preferences etc.

What are the good practices to design responsive emails compatible with all email clients?

The biggest challenge for any kind of email design is definitely testing. We’ve had great experiences using Litmus for testing—it shows you what your email looks like in dozens of different webmail providers and mobile devices.

4:18 pm / quora, web-development

Hackers: Who is a good speaker or author on hacktivism and/or the recent events of leaking confidential information?

Danny O’Brien comes to mind. He’s worked for the EFF and the Committee to Protect Journalists, is fully immersed in hacker culture and is a fantastic speaker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan...

How much do personal chefs make?

There was a great AMA by a private chef on reddit last year which touches on this, plus a bunch of other interesting points: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/com...

How would you know if your start up is just ’reinventing the wheel"? Should you just stop or just keep going?

If you have enthusiastic users (or paying customers) then it doesn’t matter if you are “reinventing the wheel” or not.

Are there any Twitter apps funded by Y Combinator?

http://lanyrd.com/ was originally a Twitter app (required Twitter for signin and social graph) back when we were funded by YC. We didn’t really think of ourselves as a “Twitter app” though, and I don’t think that aspect if the service was influential in getting accepted in to YC.