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PenFM: Returning as an Engineer
- dpritchett 14y agoWhat I got out of this: 1) This guy is a product/marketing wizard and wins hackathons on the regular. Recruit him for that rather than just for his JS skills. 2) His dad is a programmer, this to me greatly shades his "taught myself to program respectably in six months" story. Still cool, but I am unsurprised to find a supportive programmer in his life. 3) There is no three.
- neoveller 14y ago#2 is very fair, but I'll also note that growing up as a kid with two parents who had masters degrees in mathematics (from Warsaw Polytechnic), it was actually near impossible to learn math from them. I think it's also very difficult for me at this point to really help people learn to code. I recall a time when I was in the middle of learning where I could really communicate with people on both sides and bridge that gap of understanding, but I'm afraid that I've now surpassed that point. My dad was a great resource in learning, but mostly in the confidence arena where I knew if I got stuck, I would have someone to turn to. That being said, I school him on JS now.
- vidarh 14y agoWhat I got out of it was a demo of parts of his pen.fm interface (while there are some rough edges, frankly most e-reader apps I've seen are substantially worse than this...), in the form of a cute little story that illustrates how different the reality of starting a company can be from how budding entrepeneurs often picture it. (I went at it from the opposite direction of this guy when I started my first company: I could program, but had no clue about sales, marketing, finance or any number of other things, but eventually found myself doing phone sales, sales meetings, ordering print ads and negotiating with suppliers) For the site in question it seems like re-introducing it by immersing us in what it is about - writing stories - is a much more interesting approach than throwing up some glossy brochure-ware site.
- trustfundbaby 14y agocouldn't figure out how to get past the first page ... went away. Hopefully people don't copy this horrible interface.
- cjstewart88 14y ago"You can navigate through this story using either your scroll wheel, or arrow keys. (For mobile devices, I cut out the interface for now and left you with text)" ... Didn't work for you?
- majormajor 14y agoThe scroll wheel thing is tricky: I could only use the wheel if the cursor was not just on the virtual "page" but inside the margins, where the text was. Took me a bit to figure out. (Chrome on Win7)
- neoveller 14y agoI thought I made it clear how to navigate (why you would want to go to page 2 if you hadn't finished page 1?), but I guess you're right. I'm pushing navigation arrow buttons live right now. Sorry about that--Internet connection at my place is currently dying every minute. Pushing now!
- AdamTReineke 14y agoVery broken in IE10, I think I'm seeing the mobile version.
- moe 14y agoWhy do you squeeze your content into a tiny fraction of my preferred reading size (the browser window)? Instant close-tab.
- neoveller 14y agoA wall of text is often more a reason to instant close-tab, especially with our short to long form target content lengths.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- holgersindbaek 14y agoWhere do all you dickheads come from? Try to give a little constructive feedback instead.
- moe 14y agoI believe that was constructive. I told him that his layout decision severely narrows his target audience.
- holgersindbaek 14y agoTHAT was constructive.
- PommeDeTerre 14y agoGiving constructive feedback like "give a little constructive feedback instead" usually goes better when you don't refer to the individual you're directing it to as a "dickhead".
- chrischen 14y agoI'm sure they're thanking you for that feedback. Do you mind reopening that tab and giving it another shot? I'm sure they didn't purposely try to piss you off. It's a new product.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- RobotCaleb 14y agoI've actually started implementing a similar idea several times since 2004. My working title has always been Idea Novella. I envisioned it as kind of a github for stories. People could work together to build up a story, and it could take different branches as it progressed.
- neoveller 14y agoWhat happened to it?
- RobotCaleb 14y agoNothing. That's the problem, really. :) I did get a little bit of interest among friends, even had one get a seed story started. I have other projects[0] keeping me busy these days. Maybe some day I'll revive that dream. [0] http://robotrising.org/2012/09/operation-stratosphere-overview-and-history/ http://robotrising.org/2012/09/operation-stratosphere-overvi...
- bergdaemon 14y agoI've always had a soft spot for side-scrolling text layouts. I think the way such layouts break "Skim-The-Page, Extract-the-Juice, Run-Away" behavior on the web is interesting. It focuses one on the text; getting people focused on a text is useful, if you want them to contribute to an ongoing story. That said, the UI needs a lot of work -- obviously, because this is new and different and rough. Finding ways to balance your UI's dualistic requirements (reading vs writing) with the accessibility requirements of diverse writers on diverse platforms is clearly going to be one of your major challenges going forward. Good luck!
- neoveller 14y agoThank you!
- Magenta 14y agoAwesome site. Just awesome. The page transitions and text reflow are brilliant. That big box on the right full of whatever that is (chat/twitter/whatever) is just a void that not only doesn't interest me, but means what I am reading (which is why I would be on the site if this wasn't a well-played usability test ;) is off to the side. I guess you'll iron out these kinks as time goes by, but yeah. That box on the right is just an ocean of who cares, to me. Also there is a bug: when you are editing text in the chat box, it flicks pages back and forth. Anyway I'm off to donate to your IndieGoGo campaign. Good luck with the rest of the project! edit: had another look - I guess that box makes sense when you're collaborating on a story, but pure reading mode might be good as a default?
- PommeDeTerre 14y agoLet's get serious, this is not "engineering" in any sense. It sounds like pretty basic web development, with a very mild amount of back-end development. The situation described here sounds more like assembling a prefabbed shed from Home Depot. Yeah, something was built, but it doesn't make the builder an "engineer".
- neoveller 14y agoYou're probably right. Better Home Depot (node w/ express) than IKEA (RoR). In my defense, my full time positions labeled me an engineer. On that note, I don't use any prebuilt front-end libraries.
- incacurse 14y agoThere appears to be a bug. http://imgur.com/LXYXx http://imgur.com/LXYXx
- neoveller 14y agoBrowser? Steps to repro?
- yannisp 14y agoIt says chapters at the top of the page but I can't find any table of contents. I want to skip between chapters without going through each page, am I missing something or just a missing feature?