4 ms·

I have no intention to copy any code - it's the "look and feel" that interests me. The bad form is what I'm trying to avoid - I want to do this, but I want eve

by nmusra 16y ago

I have no intention to copy any code - it's the "look and feel" that interests me. The bad form is what I'm trying to avoid - I want to do this, but I want everything to be on the up-and-up. I'm just not sure what that entails.

jacquesm 16y ago
Well, consider google. When they rolled out the competition was called 'altavista'. Google did exactly what altavista did, the layout was roughly the same (in fact, googles was considerably simpler, and there were no ads at the time), there were search boxes, results pages and so on. The only thing different iirc, is that the altavista logo was mostly 'blue' and showed some mountains, the search box was yellow and they had a bunch of useless buttons on their homepage. So conceptually, not a lot of differences. But in execution there was a world of a difference.
- nmusra 16y ago
  Sounds a little like "bad form". ;) In seriousness, how would you go about avoiding that? Doing what someone else is doing, better, still makes me uneasy if the two products seem too alike.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    It's difficult. I would ask someone not familiar with the competitor to come up with a user interface, then maybe tweak it until I'd be happy with it. There are usually more paths that lead to a valid solution, but you're so 'in' to that other one that it can be hard to see that without starting from scratch. But since you've already seen it there is no 'from scratch' for you.
    - nmusra 16y ago
      That's a good idea; thanks!
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        You're welcome, that's what those Ask HN posts are for right :)
  - dedward 16y ago
    Let the lawyers sort that one out - as long as you stay away from copyright violation, and as long as you are well informed as to the potential situations you might end up in, and have an idea how you might deal with them if something comes up, you're golden. Have a secondary look & feel ready to go..... If you're worried about hurting feelings and "doing the right thing" then you're going to get clobbered by people with more ambition and less scruples.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- JacobAldridge 16y ago
  Ah, Altavista, once my chosen gateway to the world wide web. Still live incidentally at www.altavista.com (and the shortcut for we in the know, www.av.com), but now, sadly, lacking those looming mountains that spoke of the journey your search would ignite.

by nmusra 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

Well, consider google. When they rolled out the competition was called 'altavista'. Google did exactly what altavista did, the layout was roughly the same (in fact, googles was considerably simpler, and there were no ads at the time), there were search boxes, results pages and so on. The only thing different iirc, is that the altavista logo was mostly 'blue' and showed some mountains, the search box was yellow and they had a bunch of useless buttons on their homepage. So conceptually, not a lot of differences. But in execution there was a world of a difference.

nmusra 16y ago
Sounds a little like "bad form". ;) In seriousness, how would you go about avoiding that? Doing what someone else is doing, better, still makes me uneasy if the two products seem too alike.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  It's difficult. I would ask someone not familiar with the competitor to come up with a user interface, then maybe tweak it until I'd be happy with it. There are usually more paths that lead to a valid solution, but you're so 'in' to that other one that it can be hard to see that without starting from scratch. But since you've already seen it there is no 'from scratch' for you.
  - nmusra 16y ago
    That's a good idea; thanks!
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      You're welcome, that's what those Ask HN posts are for right :)
- dedward 16y ago
  Let the lawyers sort that one out - as long as you stay away from copyright violation, and as long as you are well informed as to the potential situations you might end up in, and have an idea how you might deal with them if something comes up, you're golden. Have a secondary look & feel ready to go..... If you're worried about hurting feelings and "doing the right thing" then you're going to get clobbered by people with more ambition and less scruples.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
JacobAldridge 16y ago
Ah, Altavista, once my chosen gateway to the world wide web. Still live incidentally at www.altavista.com (and the shortcut for we in the know, www.av.com), but now, sadly, lacking those looming mountains that spoke of the journey your search would ignite.