4 ms·

Ask HN:Help please. Single person developing complex website

2 points by harip 14y ago

Hello HN, I am a mechanical engineer and a Masters in Business from Canada. I had a flourishing job but resigned from it, since i had a good idea on which i wanted to capitalise. The idea requires a very complex website and I looked in at freelancing websites. However, I was not interested in them since the quotes were not good nor the portfolios were impressing. I then contacted couple of webdesign companies and the quote ran to couple hundred thousands. Now I am planning to invest my own time in developing this as at this point I am not in position to invest that amount. I have now shortlisted on the grails framework and planning to roll up my sleeves and start. With a novice (just started) programming background is this a good approach. HN please guys help me out here. 1. Is grails a good framework or should i consider Ruby.? I am not interested in php. 2. What do you suggest me to do here? How to get help from community? Where should i look for help? Thanks in advance.

t0 14y ago
You may wish to find a student developer interested in investing their time into your idea. It may not be the best idea to try to build it yourself if you've never programmed before. It would certainly take longer. Can you tell us a little bit about the idea?
- harip 14y ago
  thanks t0, the idea is more similar to evisors website. A place where people can reach out to professionals for career development. But its complicated in the sense it involves integration to paypal and other bank transactions etc. I want a clear design too.
aaronbrethorst 14y ago
Read this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product And then this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful/dp/0976470705/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top http://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful/dp/... And then go validate your idea with prospective customers. then figure out whether you want to use Grails (Java-based) or Rails (which is written in Ruby. Ruby is a programming language). Or something else entirely. edit: And, for all that is good and holy, don't do a marketplace as your first startup. It'll fail. And I know you won't listen, but you heard it here first. Still, good luck!
- harip 14y ago
  Thanks Aaron, I would love to hear from you as to why you say a marketplace will fail. just mentioned u on twitter!
  - aaronbrethorst 14y ago
    Marketplaces are incredibly hard to get right, even for people who've been through this before.
vorg 14y ago
> I have now shortlisted on the grails framework How did you shortlist grails? There's a grails conference coming up next month in Denmark, perhaps you should go to that. (I'm assuming here you're not one of the groovy/grails consultants running that conference who're promoting their product via a newly-created handle on Hacker News.)
- harip 14y ago
  No Vorg, I am not groovy/grails consultant. But i just looked at few frameworks and looked at websites running them and decided on that basis
  - ra 14y ago
    Although your approach would seem valid, looking at websites built with x is not actually a good approach for choosing a framework to develop a website. For 99% of problems, any framework will do. As a new programmer, you probably want to choose something with the best support for new programmers. Having used pretty much everything over the years, I would recommend you pick a 'batteries included' language / framework with excellent documentation and a community with excellent support for beginners. On that basis alone, I'd recommend Django or Rails over Grails.

2 points by harip 14y ago

t0 14y ago

You may wish to find a student developer interested in investing their time into your idea. It may not be the best idea to try to build it yourself if you've never programmed before. It would certainly take longer. Can you tell us a little bit about the idea?

harip 14y ago
thanks t0, the idea is more similar to evisors website. A place where people can reach out to professionals for career development. But its complicated in the sense it involves integration to paypal and other bank transactions etc. I want a clear design too.

aaronbrethorst 14y ago

Read this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product And then this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful/dp/0976470705/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top http://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Steps-Epiphany-Successful/dp/... And then go validate your idea with prospective customers. then figure out whether you want to use Grails (Java-based) or Rails (which is written in Ruby. Ruby is a programming language). Or something else entirely. edit: And, for all that is good and holy, don't do a marketplace as your first startup. It'll fail. And I know you won't listen, but you heard it here first. Still, good luck!

harip 14y ago
Thanks Aaron, I would love to hear from you as to why you say a marketplace will fail. just mentioned u on twitter!
- aaronbrethorst 14y ago
  Marketplaces are incredibly hard to get right, even for people who've been through this before.

vorg 14y ago

> I have now shortlisted on the grails framework How did you shortlist grails? There's a grails conference coming up next month in Denmark, perhaps you should go to that. (I'm assuming here you're not one of the groovy/grails consultants running that conference who're promoting their product via a newly-created handle on Hacker News.)

harip 14y ago
No Vorg, I am not groovy/grails consultant. But i just looked at few frameworks and looked at websites running them and decided on that basis
- ra 14y ago
  Although your approach would seem valid, looking at websites built with x is not actually a good approach for choosing a framework to develop a website. For 99% of problems, any framework will do. As a new programmer, you probably want to choose something with the best support for new programmers. Having used pretty much everything over the years, I would recommend you pick a 'batteries included' language / framework with excellent documentation and a community with excellent support for beginners. On that basis alone, I'd recommend Django or Rails over Grails.