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OP here - FYI - I was a software engineer at Novell over 20 years ago, then went to the business side. Last January for some crazy reason I decided to build a w

OP here - FYI - I was a software engineer at Novell over 20 years ago, then went to the business side. Last January for some crazy reason I decided to build a website. I couldn't write HTML last January, and though this is a pretty tame site by HN standards, I'm pretty proud of it. I've had to learn HTML, CSS, Javascript, Jquery, Angular, D3, Require, Node, Apache, Bootstrap, noSQL DB (Cloudant/Couch), linux system management - the works. It's been fun.

blktiger 13y ago
Nice work. :)
jared314 13y ago
Out of curiosity, are the tools, languages, and techniques any better now, versus what you worked with previously?
- rrosen326 13y ago
  Interestingly the python experience has been incredibly different from 20 years ago. Back then I was hunting memory leaks in C. In python I program at a much higher and more efficient level. The Web side, however,is much more like the old days. Instead of memory leaks I hunt obtuse bugs in angular that make me want to pull my hair out. The biggest positive change is stack overflow, which is really so amazing. And the whole open source community - creating all these great frameworks, and even responding to the occasional plea for help.
  - rrosen326 13y ago
    Make that "obscure" angular bugs :)
    - glimmung 13y ago
      I liked the first version better! :-)
    - hkmurakami 13y ago
      Obtuse works too :):)
  - SkyMarshal 13y ago
    Nice post-mortem on your failed mapping experiment, that was at least as instructive as the successes.
auctiontheory 13y ago
Cool site! I wonder how it will look after another decade of climate change. (And ... I don't know Seattle except by reputation, but SF has at least a couple of very distinct microclimates; the charts for the Mission and the Marina are surely very different.) I'm in the same programming boat as you. (In my case, 18 years.) From your experience, what are the top three programming/learning tips you'd give the year-ago you?
- rrosen326 13y ago
  1. Start small - I was way too ambitious on the first part of the project. 2. Start with python- my back end data work is all python and it is SO much easier and more learning-efficient than the Web stack. 3. I'm torn on this one. I PROBABLY should have learned more rigorously before jumping in- with angular especially- but I personally find it much more motivating to learn with a specific problem in mind. Though my goal this year is to go back and learn comprehensively what I spot learned in process.
  - brianpgordon 13y ago
    Well for your case you might as well have done your backend in Node since you didn't know Python and you had to learn JavaScript for the frontend anyway.
msoad 13y ago
Are you planning to take a programmer job again?
rubiquity 13y ago
Pretty cool to see you using CouchDB for this. I've always wondered how building analytics with CouchDB would be. Do you have any thoughts on that experience?

blktiger 13y ago

Nice work. :)

jared314 13y ago

Out of curiosity, are the tools, languages, and techniques any better now, versus what you worked with previously?

rrosen326 13y ago
Interestingly the python experience has been incredibly different from 20 years ago. Back then I was hunting memory leaks in C. In python I program at a much higher and more efficient level. The Web side, however,is much more like the old days. Instead of memory leaks I hunt obtuse bugs in angular that make me want to pull my hair out. The biggest positive change is stack overflow, which is really so amazing. And the whole open source community - creating all these great frameworks, and even responding to the occasional plea for help.
- rrosen326 13y ago
  Make that "obscure" angular bugs :)
  - glimmung 13y ago
    I liked the first version better! :-)
  - hkmurakami 13y ago
    Obtuse works too :):)
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  Nice post-mortem on your failed mapping experiment, that was at least as instructive as the successes.

auctiontheory 13y ago

Cool site! I wonder how it will look after another decade of climate change. (And ... I don't know Seattle except by reputation, but SF has at least a couple of very distinct microclimates; the charts for the Mission and the Marina are surely very different.) I'm in the same programming boat as you. (In my case, 18 years.) From your experience, what are the top three programming/learning tips you'd give the year-ago you?

rrosen326 13y ago
1. Start small - I was way too ambitious on the first part of the project. 2. Start with python- my back end data work is all python and it is SO much easier and more learning-efficient than the Web stack. 3. I'm torn on this one. I PROBABLY should have learned more rigorously before jumping in- with angular especially- but I personally find it much more motivating to learn with a specific problem in mind. Though my goal this year is to go back and learn comprehensively what I spot learned in process.
- brianpgordon 13y ago
  Well for your case you might as well have done your backend in Node since you didn't know Python and you had to learn JavaScript for the frontend anyway.

msoad 13y ago

Are you planning to take a programmer job again?

rubiquity 13y ago

Pretty cool to see you using CouchDB for this. I've always wondered how building analytics with CouchDB would be. Do you have any thoughts on that experience?