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Bullshit. Web "development" is a high school skill. Which is why web frameworks are trivial to implement, learn and use. Which is why building web sites takes m

by Ev 19y ago

Bullshit. Web "development" is a high school skill. Which is why web frameworks are trivial to implement, learn and use. Which is why building web sites takes months, not years. Tenths of thousands of dollars, not millions. Complex software takes good knowledge of complex algorithms and man-years of development. Well.. since everybody wants to get rich quickly these days, innovation scaled down to web "applications", where the only valuable thing is percisely the idea. And your only advantage is the time to market. It took years for other big firms to develop search engines as good as google's is. THAT is what I call "implementation is hard". Implementing something as trivial as myspace is less complex than compiler class project in college. (I've done both).

sbraford 19y ago
If web development is so easy, why is the poster posting here instead of simply "whipping up" a competing application? Why do hundreds of kids bother applying to YCombinator? Can't they just whip up a webapp in a few months? Yes - web dev is easier than desktop app or complex client/server applications, but Hitting the High Notes (as Joel says) will never be "easy". Simple, yes. Easy, no.
- Ev 19y ago
  Ok, let it be simple. My point is that Kawasaki is 100% right. If your idea can be so easily stolen, it probalby wasn't a great idea to begin with. Maybe it's that social networking aspect she is adding is actually what will make it successfull. Hate to sound negative though, having that happen to you surely hurts... And yes, kids apply to YCombinator exactly because they can whip up a web app in a few months. YCombinator puts them in front of VCs after that.
  - sbraford 19y ago
    Right, but how good is their app after 3 months? Not very. There are always exceptions to every rule though, re: the original point. i.e. MySpace. Talk about crappy technology (or so it would seem; they've managed to scale well), and a has-run idea.

by Ev 19y ago

sbraford 19y ago

If web development is so easy, why is the poster posting here instead of simply "whipping up" a competing application? Why do hundreds of kids bother applying to YCombinator? Can't they just whip up a webapp in a few months? Yes - web dev is easier than desktop app or complex client/server applications, but Hitting the High Notes (as Joel says) will never be "easy". Simple, yes. Easy, no.

Ev 19y ago
Ok, let it be simple. My point is that Kawasaki is 100% right. If your idea can be so easily stolen, it probalby wasn't a great idea to begin with. Maybe it's that social networking aspect she is adding is actually what will make it successfull. Hate to sound negative though, having that happen to you surely hurts... And yes, kids apply to YCombinator exactly because they can whip up a web app in a few months. YCombinator puts them in front of VCs after that.
- sbraford 19y ago
  Right, but how good is their app after 3 months? Not very. There are always exceptions to every rule though, re: the original point. i.e. MySpace. Talk about crappy technology (or so it would seem; they've managed to scale well), and a has-run idea.