Re: Finding WO people for startups
Re: Finding WO people for startups
- Subject: Re: Finding WO people for startups
- From: Marius Soutier <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:04:35 +0200
Thanks to both of you, Philippe and Pascal, for some challenging insight, got me thinking a lot.
Yes there's a lot of stuff for Java, that's really great. That's also why I like Scala and Clojure so much, but the frameworks aren't ready yet. Do you have any experience with Lift? Or Play?
One thing I really like about RoR is Ruby, it's so much better than Java. Is Java really a good language for a startup? I'm not sure. I also stumbled across Sinatra, what a revelation...
I've read your link, Philippe, but there are also some interesting comments...
Deployment on the other hand is one of the things with WebObjects which gives me a constant headache, WOMonitor has a lot of issues (e.g. doesn't restart scheduled apps, or a lot of time outs) and I never managed to deploy a WO app in a Servlet container.
Bye,
- Marius
On 25.09.2011, at 15:51, Philippe Rabier wrote:
> Agree with Pascal.
>
> And think about all interesting good quality framework available everywhere (apache projects, quartz scheduler, Jboss community projects … and of course wonder).
>
> If I dare, I would say that if your project entices enough, it should be not too difficult to hire java developers. The good point, if they don't know WO, they bring with them other skills you maybe don't have. That was the case for me.
>
> About RoR, we made a big development with this technology for a one of our client but we didn't go further. There are beautifull things (unit testing, deployment, migration…) but we saw also many crap projects developed quickly. And ruby is a very nice language but not so easy to understand quickly.
>
> And I read that rails 3.x is very different from rails 2.x. So would you start a new project with rails 2 because there are more developers? No easy answer.
>
> Note there are also big discussions in the rails community:
> http://blog.stevecoast.com/what-the-hell-is-happening-to-Rails
>
> Regarding your last question, I don't have good answers because for all the reasons I gave you, I start new projects with Wonder. But we start to look at node.js because it's a very promising technology IMHO.
>
> Philippe
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 25 sept. 2011, at 13:36, Pascal Robert <email@hidden> wrote:
>
>> One thing that I like a lot with Java (including WO) is that deployment on multiple platforms is much easier that other environments. This is especially true if you are selling products that customers will install it themselves. Try to install a tool like CalendarServer (Python-based) on CentOS and see how much pain it is. Windows support for node.js was added in... July 2011, and it's declared "beta" quality.
>>
>> And Java = less breaking APIs. It's incredible the number of times of moving from, say Python 2.4 to 2.5, will break APIs. Again, Java people try to avoid that. And Java also have a lot of quality libraries. Search for MySQL for node.js, at least 5 "drivers" exist. So that means you will probably have to try the 5 of them to see which one works best.
>>
>> Java and WO are not perfect, but I prefer something stable than API and deployment problems.
>>
>>> Hi Philippe,
>>>
>>> thanks for your answer, interesting points.
>>>
>>> It would be only one WO developer, joined by a Front-end developer and a third developer yet to be hired.
>>>
>>> It's easy to find Java developers, the question is how many of them actually want to learn WebObjects. I'm the CTO in a small company and this is actually a big difficulty when hiring people. Some are interested, most are not.
>>>
>>> My friend has basic knowledge in Rails and some other technologies. I think he won't start until december so he could manage to get up to speed until then. Of curse it's not the same level as his current knowledge of WO.
>>> The main argument in favor of Rails would be that it's quite easy to find competent people who already know the framework.
>>>
>>> I'll also let him know to look into Node.js. Do you have hands-on experience, is it mature enough? Maybe I should also suggest using Clojure and ClojureScript, but it would be even harder to find people for that :)
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> - Marius
>>>
>>>
>>> On 25.09.2011, at 12:06, Philippe Rabier wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Marius,
>>>>
>>>> I have several developers who were new at WO in 2 different companies. The main point is that they knew java.
>>>>
>>>> All the problem talked by Pascal and other regarding documentation for example are important for a new developer that can not be trained/coached by another one. But that's not your case. For example, we hired a 10 years java skilled developer who used jdbc at low level (writing SQL code by hand) in their previous companies. Believe me that he found WO "magical". He was able to write code in less than a month. And i saw several other developers like him.
>>>>
>>>> We have also a student for 6 month who comes from University where he learnt a lot of java and it was a matter of weeks.
>>>>
>>>> If you are 2 WO developers, I would recommend you start alone because you will go faster (hiring people, training… takes time). If you need 10 developers, it's not a lean startup ;-)
>>>>
>>>> When you have existing code (clean and with some pieces of java doc), it will help you to include new developers because it will be easy for you to explain, you will have include your own patterns, …
>>>>
>>>> About RoR or other stuffs like PHP, if you don't know them, don't use them. You can't be fast and learn something new at the same time. If you know only COBOL, use COBOL. But if you want to consider something new, look at node.js. For me, and I'm not alone to think that: using the sane language on the client and server side is a key factor in productivity and all the team speak the same language.
>>>>
>>>> Philippe
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>
>>>> On 24 sept. 2011, at 20:38, Marius Soutier <email@hidden> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi there,
>>>>>
>>>>> I know this a difficult and opinionated topic, but I have been asked by a friend what technology to choose for a Lean Startup (= 3 months until the first minimum viable product). While he and I know WebObjects quite well, I think it's safe to say there are only few people here in Germany who know it at all. I'm personally convinced (and have seen this affirmed by the two WOWODC talks about Lean Startup and Fluffy Bunny, excellent talks by the way) that WO itself is a great technology to get things up and running very fast. However, what if the business grows and he needs to hire more people?
>>>>>
>>>>> My first question is - do you easily find skilled people who are willing to learn WebObjects? What's your experience on this?
>>>>>
>>>>> And the second question would be - how long does it take them to be productive, i.e. write working code without much help. I'm assuming here the person knows Java quite well and is eager to learn new stuff.
>>>>>
>>>>> The alternative would be Ruby on Rails, which seems quite popular in startups nowadays.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for your insight!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> - Marius
>>>>>
>>>>>
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