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IMHO you don't need to actually do coding to build a great web-app anymore. These days with the kind of tools and frameworks (springsource.com, jquery.com) and

IMHO you don't need to actually do coding to build a great web-app anymore. These days with the kind of tools and frameworks (springsource.com, jquery.com) and CMSs (refinerycms.com, drupal.org, firerift.com) can allow you to build a fairly powerful web app in next to no time. Couple this with the advent of Google App Engine and other cloud based app servers, the whole pain of setting up a linux server and configuring an app server on it is gone. Already, you don't need any operational skills any more to host a production grade web-app (think load balancing, failover, etc). The key I have realized is to depend less and less on outside technical help and more and more on yourself and your own technical tinkering abilities. Once you've deployed your first app and have managed to get at least a few repeat users you will be surprised how many developers will be ready to help you further. Just dive in with the implementation.. you will be surprised how much can be executed in a day by just doing it.

DrJokepu 16y ago
I disagree with that. We got really good tools today but writing software is still quite hard, not because of the imperfections of our tools but because the essence of software development is hard. If you're not good (yet) at coding, chances are that you will run into an insurmountable problem before you can release an initial version, unless your web app is doing something really trivial, in the technical sense.
- ronzensci 16y ago
  great software is not (merely) built by writing code but by having a rock-solid ten-group co-founding team. But unless you'll were together in university, chances are a team would come together by looking at what each one has already done and not what each one has talked about. Not all insurmountable problems need to be solved by the founders - they can get a specialist on contract for that. Since the OP can read and understand code, I still feel that is sufficient to get the first app out of the door.

DrJokepu 16y ago

I disagree with that. We got really good tools today but writing software is still quite hard, not because of the imperfections of our tools but because the essence of software development is hard. If you're not good (yet) at coding, chances are that you will run into an insurmountable problem before you can release an initial version, unless your web app is doing something really trivial, in the technical sense.

ronzensci 16y ago
great software is not (merely) built by writing code but by having a rock-solid ten-group co-founding team. But unless you'll were together in university, chances are a team would come together by looking at what each one has already done and not what each one has talked about. Not all insurmountable problems need to be solved by the founders - they can get a specialist on contract for that. Since the OP can read and understand code, I still feel that is sufficient to get the first app out of the door.