There seems to be this recurring theme in tech media that "gee, wiz! anybody can be 'coder'!". I call bullshit - this article smells like a PR gimmick. While I have no doubt that she picked up the rudiments of programming within this time, I think it's fairly clear that she had "spilled the beans" in order to take this project to the extent that it is available today.
Good for those guys for living the dream. Too bad that dream didn't also result in job creation in Vancouver, Canada.
There is quite a bit of noise in media about the economic benefits of investing in foreign entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, it strikes me that these guys chose the quick win and we will now see those economics benefits move south of the Canadian border.
This is starting to happen all over. Tech startup accelerators in places like Vancouver are in danger of becoming a farm system, a "minor league" of tech entrepreneurialism.
A team that attracts attention will impress the scouts (either acquirers or investors) who will sign them up to play for the "big leagues" in the Bay Area.
This isn't malicious, but so many accelerators are trying to build a community, which is really hard to do when so many potential leaders of that community decide to 301.
I don't think this goes against the efforts to build a community in satellite locations. The reality is that there aren't many potential acquirers in Vancouver (virtually nil for consumer internet), so one takes an exit where one can get it. The community is helped by the fact now that when startups are raising in the Bay Area we can point to a company that was in the same geography that made a return for their investors.
Actually, it did result in economic benefit for Canada, and also in job creation in Vancouver, though not for a long time.
As for the more general discussion about the economic benefits of investing in foreign entrepreneurs, I'm not sure you're looking at it quite the right way. I would expand on this idea some more but I'm not sure what you mean by "noise in the media," who exactly is investing, (private entities or the Government?) your definition "quick win," and what's your opinion on this matter.
This isn't new. Canada -> US brain drain has been happening for a long time.
The economic situation for entrepreneurs in Canada is abysmal. The smart people leave because they know what they're up against. Every corner of the Canadian economy is controlled by either a monopoly, or a cartel supported by the government. The entire Canadian economy is essentially a syndicate consisting of banks and big businesses, and it's all wrapped up in rah-rah Go Canada! Go! patriotism.
I checked into Canada's immigration laws, specifically regarding the question of what kind of residency they'd give us if we located there and did our startup. (some of us are US citizens, but one of us is from a commonwealth country, so canada seemed like a reasonable choice.)
Canada does not make it easy, to say the least, to come there and build a company and, eventually, hire canadians. (Not that the USA is much better either).
If you want more immigrants to come and create jobs, allow people to immigrate.
I've looked at flask briefly, but it strikes me that a bare-bones django project is every bit as lightweight as a bare-bones flask project(i.e. use what you need). That said, if a flask project grows beyond a trivial app, don't you necessarily need to rebuild(or seek out) much of the great functionality that django already provides?
I find the same thing with Django, btw. Once a project grows beyond a (slightly less) trivial app, that is, at some point your project is going to want to do something difficult and/or unique, you wander outside of the wonderful things that Django provides, and you find yourself needing to build or seek out complex functionality by hand again, and sometimes having Django work against you.
At least, that's my experience.
So next time, for a not-too-large scale project, I will indeed try a more barebones framework such as Flask, to see if it matters much.
Django does get you off to a running start, but as soon as you want something it can't do, you find yourself clawing through its entrails again.
Yes, that's the idea. Flask itself provides core functionality and if you need database access, authentication, authorization, OAuth, OpenID or whatever else you might need you use an extension which provides that.
The great thing about extensions is that Flask has the concept of approved extensions, these have been reviewed by Flask developers and have to follow certain guide lines[1].
Django gives you more features, Flask is more flexible. Both have their up- and downsides so it comes down to personal preference which you choose.
In principle, I can appreciate the need to be 'lean' and nimble when starting out, however, these concepts are not new, and Eric Reis certainly did not spearhead this method.
Eric Reis has done a great job at making noise and he has demonstrated that he is a consummate salesman. While the concepts that he espouses aren't exactly innovative, there is no doubt, a deep appeal, particularly to those who are seduced by the 'gold rush fever' that is driving this current tech boom(bubble?).
Ultimately, it strikes me that this guy is a huckster who is fast becoming the spokesperson for a growing league of entrepreneur-wannabes in search for a piece of 'social' pie.
Exactly! "Ideas are overrated" is neither radical nor is it new. Somewhere we all read these points before, probably many times before, and in some instances we read and posted them on HN. Why this is suddenly celebrated like mana from heaven is beyond me.
Glad that was cleared up. All this time, I thought a 'hacker' was a navel gazing, media junky who happens to know a bit of ruby on rails and javascript!
Glad that was cleared up. All this time, I thought a 'hacker'
was a navel gazing, media junky who happens to know a bit of ruby on rails and javascript!
