Starting on Software

2012-01-11T05:39:00.000-08:00

I have added some stuff on WebApps and JavaScript recently (see the pages links to the right). I thought it maybe helpful to share some information about JavaScript and in particular Web Apps.
Web Apps ( Web Applications ) can be fully featured applications written in HTML 5 that run on any device. Usually they are targeted at smart phones, such as the IPhone, but are not restricted in the same way as dedicated Apps and are faster to develop.
I have also added a JavaScript Quick Start, which aims to show the basic constructs in JavaScript. It is not a tutorial as there are plenty of those, more a refresher. A simple 1 pager that can easily be referred to.

Keep it simple stupid

2011-11-19T04:23:00.001-08:00

In my experience it is very easy to add complexity. This usually arrives under the banner of "quick win" where shortcuts are taken and never resolved.
It is a lot harder to remove complexity but that is exactly what needs to be done. An example of this came my way a few months ago, the code I was reviewing was fairly good, well commented, well structured, however there as an awful lot of it.
It looked a lot like a code generator ( or copy and paste ) had been used a lot, but the sheer volume of the code was causing a problem.
When it came to wanting to enhance the code, there were some performance enhancements that needed to be made, the amount of code duplication made the task larger than it needed to be and more risk prone to 'fat fingers' syndrome when alterations were made, but there was a reluctance by management to spend the time refactoring, so this problem would occur again and again.

do less, think more

2011-11-07T13:28:00.001-08:00

it is always easy to do more, cut and paste some code, add some more features or add a flashy effect, but it is far harder to do less.

the benefit of do less is not immediately apparent, but over time the lack of bloat can seriously improve your ability to improve a product. I have worked on numerous products that have pushed the do more ethos and all have resulted in unwieldy code and products that are complex.

doing less coding involves writing concise methods and abstracting common functionality, which is harder but results in more maintainable code with less bugs

adding less features makes you concentrate on getting the core features of the product absolutely spot on.

adding less effects make you consider the user and their experience, not just your desire to out rounded corners and shadows on everything.

do less, think more, make a better product.

agile doesn't mean no design

2011-11-01T03:00:00.001-07:00

A common misconception with agile software development is the belief that there is no design. This is incorrect and fundamentally dangerous.

An agile project splits the entire scope down in to manageable, bite size chunks (sprints) and design should be done Just In Time, therefore every sprint should have some design time.

Using this approach it is possible to adjust the design to reflect changing circumstances and it is likely that you will spend lmore time overall designing, as opposed to the traditional upfront approach.

The aim of JIT design is to prevent the designing of features that are never needed. At times it is necessary to take some time to consider the future, but generally it is better to just solve today's problems and solve them well. keeping the documentation to date is therefore vital to allow refactoring in the future.

Agile design is one of the easiest concepts to understand in the agile process and one of the hardest to act upon, as years of waterfall developments have ingrained the need for a detailed design and you feel uncomfortable at first without them.

Tiny Baby Steps

2011-10-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

The hardest part of making good software is getting something out there and real. It is very easy to get bogged down in requirements, patterns, cool things etc. In these circumstances it is easy to become silo'd away from what you are trying to achieve and what the customer wants.

The best way to counter this is to take Baby Steps towards the final goal. Everything can be broken down in to simple process steps that can be easily implemented. For example there is no need to implement a great UI immediately, get a button and a textbox up and running and build from there.

The great thing about this approach is that you will encounter unexpected issues sooner and can therefore solve them sooner, whilst the customer gets to see continuous, real progress and has the chance to influence the direction of the product.

This is not to say that patterns, design etc are not important, it is just that they have a time and a place and things can always be re-factored.

BlackBerry PlayBook

2011-10-06T02:34:00.001-07:00

The BlackBerry PlayBook (PB) is RIM's entry into the Tablet market. It runs their own Operating System "BlackBerry Tablet OS", which is based on QNX. The physical device has a 7" screen running at a low resolution of just 1024*600, which looks poor compared to the new HD phone screens.

On first inspection the PB looks good and is reasonable to hold (it has a rubberised back). The PB has two standout features, firstly the border area around the screen is active and accepts gestures, therefore the user can interact with the PB in a very intuitive way. This takes a little time to get used to, but is ultimately very powerful. Secondly Adobe Air is baked into the OS, so native applications can be developed either in C++ or Adobe Air, meaning that it is relatively easy to port Flash based developments directly to the PB. A good example is the native Doom game, which is ported from the Flash based version with added multi-touch features.

I found using the PB intuitive and easy, whilst I particularly liked some of the glossy effects that it has, such as loading screens, however the overall impression of the device is that it is quite sluggish. A side by side comparison between my iPhone 4 and the PB over wifi, confirmed that the browsing experience on the PB was a lot slower. The browser as a whole was a real let down, as personally I feel that the browser is the main part of a tablet, the lack of easily accessible tabs, being one of the biggest issues, whilst there was no easy way to background load a link?

The PB is cute and certainly seems to be aimed at a handbag market, given its size, however I am left wondering why I would use it. My wife takes her iPhone with her everywhere and the PB would only appear to do everything that this does already, just slightly slower. The only real benefit is the larger screen, but I cannot see her lugging and extra device around just for that purpose.

Liked

Adobe Air support for easy native app development
Active border and gesture
Nice design throughout

Loathed

Sluggish performance
Screen resolution

Buy?

2011-09-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

In January this year I joined a new startup, PumpCo. We started putting together a social healthcare solution and it has been pretty much all guns blazing since then, hence the blog silence. I will be back blogging from now on, but I am also starting up a few new initiatives: -

Starting On WebApps is a mini-site dedicated to developing Web Apps for Smartphones, using JQuery and JQueryMobile. The aim is to get people up to speed with the technologies fast, without over burdening the user with technicalities.
Starting On Architecture is a mini-site looking at architecture of web apps, the supporting infrastructure and patterns that can help the app evolve and grow
Starting On PumpCo is a mini-site looking at life at PumpCo and some of the technologies that we are developing.

The aim is to produce a richer blog with a little bit for everyone.

Cheers

Andy

JSON

2011-08-16T13:31:00.000-07:00

JSON is lovely. I just thought I'd say that. From a language point of view it allows rapid development, mocking and creation of code. However today I was talking about the misconceptions surrounding JSON. It is not an XML replacement for passing data, it is baked in to JavaScript.

For example
var a = new Object(); and
var a = {}
are equivilent;

Therefore it is possible to create objects really quickly
var obj = {
name: "test"
};

But it is also possible to deal with this in the more familiar object . (dot) mechanism
obj.age = 29;
obj.fields = [];
for( var i=0;i<10;i++){
obj.fields.push( i );
}

You can even mix and match these processes to build complex structures very easily and intuitively. Ace.

JavaScript as a first class language

2011-08-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

I have taken a break from blogging recently but am going to make a concerted effort to get back on with things. Lots has changed recently, the PumpCo team is up to nine now after we recruited three new graduates, James, Peter and Sean.
One thing that surprised me during this recent round of recruitment is the lack of knowledge about JavaScript. Nearly everyone we interviewed had training in classical languages, Java mainly (and nothing wrong with that), but had little / no formal training in JavaScript.
I am not sure if this is because it is seen as a second class language in Universities, but given the rising importance of JavaScript as a development platform for browser based apps, I find this a little strange. Also JavaScript is mighty powerful, providing many features that Java simply lacks.
JSON is hugely misunderstood, by many it is thought of as basic transmission mechanism similar to XML, but JSON provides JavaScript with massive power and flexibility especially in the way that objects are created and defined.
In my opinion training / education needs to refocus on dynamic languages and especially JavaScript along with HTML 5and CSS 3. These technologies will drive the next wave of awesome web based apps. If you don't believe me, just look at what adobe is doing with Edge.
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/edge/resources/

Melting Pot

2011-03-01T12:44:00.000-08:00

Startup life is pretty difficult, lots of ideas, lots of directions to take and heated debates. In my opinion the worst thing that can be done is to hesitate and refuse to make a decision, this is no time for stalling.
When starting as an employee at a small new company, keeping quiet can be disastrous, as it is the mix of ideas that makes smaller companies so exciting and creative. Discussing ideas and adapting the solutions also helps enhance the solution and gain 'buy in' by the team.
One of the challenging issues that we have been dealing with is, how to develop the solution using an Agile process. The problem being that often we are aware of 'other things' that need to be done, such as create a database, design the UI etc. However the aim is to show meaningful progress to the customer, therefore it is important to fit these things in to sprints that deliver some functionality to the user.
It is important to discuss details like this with the customer and this will often result in a conflict of interest, but what will come out of the process is a better solution that delivers technically and functionally.

Reinventing Software Development

2011-02-15T08:24:00.000-08:00

I had always felt a little out of place at many of the organisations that I had worked at. Business appeared all about documents. Requirements documents, design documents, analysis documents, tender documents ...
Relatively little time was spent on software development and no time was devoted to creativity.

Software was considered to be the repetitive task of just typing in code. The design was done by Architect teams that had little knowledge of the software, had no responsibility for delivering the final solution and ultimately didn't care.

I had always considered this to be wrong. Software was analogised as ship building, road building or whatever, but it is nothing of the sort, it is software engineering and the processes are unique to it. Coding should be an incredibly creative task, where the design is revisited and enhanced. To achieve this time needs to be allocated to the process and the environment needs to allow.

I read the book (Getting Real) by 37Signals and much of what was said really hit a chord and made me want to change.Work does not have to be boring and overly process driven. Work can be fun, enjoyable and most importantly a creative place. With less staff and less process I am now far more productive releasing software that fits a need.

JavaScript Headless Unit Testing

2011-02-15T08:17:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a slightly technical post as it revolves around our CI (Continuous Integration) solution. For the record we use Mercurial - Hudson - JsTestDriver.

JsTestDriver is a project by Google which aims to allow Headless CI by abstracting the test away from the browser and in this respect it works quite well. The process revolves around a server which many browsers can connect to which poll for tests to run. JavaScript is then injected into the browser and the results collated.

This part of JSTD works very well, it is slightly less convenient than a regular JavsScript testing framework (such as QUnit, JSUnit et al) but has the two major advantages of being scriptable and outputting JUnit compliant results. This make it an excellent choice for integrating into central builds and Hudson supports JUnit natively.

Testing locally is usually done against Firefox but the exact same tests are run by Hudson against the major browsers, which are running an several virtual machines on the server. JsTestDriver takes care of the browsers behind the scenes, which is ideal.

JsTestDriver suffered from some major problems though, which have been resolved in the latets release 1.3.0 which was made live 14/02/2011. The major win for me was the abaility to load static test data directly through Jetty (the underlying server that JSTD is built upon). This allowed me to stub my AJAX calls with static JSON, in a regular file, and run tests against the data reliably, which until this release had not been possible. For those of you that are interested my project and config look like this.

Project-dir

jsTestDriver.conf
data

info.json

ajax.js

srctest

testajax.js

The JsTestDriver Conf file is as follows: -


server: http://localhost:9876
load:
  - src/*.js
test:
 - srctest/*.js
serve:
 - data/*.json

When JsTestDriver is starter the JSON static files are exposed under /test/*, so to access them you would use something like http://localhost:9876/test/data/info.json. This causes me a little pain in that I have to detect if the application is being run by JSTD or not and alter the path to the static test data, but I have a common and consistent approach to Unit Testing this functionality.

JsTestDriver can be obtained here http://code.google.com/p/js-test-driver/ and is well worth a look.

Regards

Andy

Office

2011-02-15T07:15:00.000-08:00

We have spent a few days rearranging the office and have finally settled on a pretty good layout, with an entire wall of http://www.magicwhiteboard.co.uk/ (which is great stuff btw) and a back to back desk arrangement. Check out the photo below.

PumpCo

2011-01-24T01:14:00.000-08:00

On Monday 17th January I joined a new startup based near Chippenham, UK. This is pretty cool for me as I have right at the start of the project and have the opportunity to be involved in all aspects of developing the solution. Primarily I will be focused on delivering everything 'frontend' which will be heavily JavaScript based. I will try to document my life and times in the startup as regularly as possible along with anything else that I think maybe interesting...

Development Environments

2009-12-24T07:22:00.000-08:00

I seem to get involved in a large number of projects that have been developed and released but lack a proper, serious development environment. In many cases the project appears to resemble a well put together amateur project, the code is ok, there is a test environment, there may well be some documentation. However I always seem to come across the same old problems.

Confidence is usually a big problem. A single developer has owned the project, set up the environments and there are numerous bits of 'magic' around the solution, which nobody full understands. These people invarably leave the project and leave behind them a messy installation.

My number one complaint is the lack of a continuous integration process. Daily builds and deployments are very easy to setup, they don't have to be complicated, yet must be scripted, repeatable and in most cases automated.

The benefit of this approach is that confidence is gained as software is automatically built and deployed, therefore changes are integrated regularly and problems are identified early. As an example, I have spent the last few days implementing the following processes to enhance a project.

The Build is an automated process driven by ANT, the source code was already maintained in SVN, which is an excellent solution, but now ANT builds the whole thing automatically. The packages are automatically deployed to the Development environment where a scripted process, developed using simple WSH files, redeploys the application, including the entire database.

This has provided the project with the following benefits. The project database and code is reset everyday to a known good state. Unit Tests can now be easily developed to regression test the application automatically. It is now possible to set the application back to a know state and perform testing, such as performance, then make changes, reset the environment and run the tests again, knowing that the environment has not been pollutes with unvalid data. Confidence is much higher in the development team as the 'magic' elements of the installation have all been removed and scripted, and all of the team memebers understand exactly what is going on.

The frustration for me, is that I see these problems over and over again. Developments usually end up in this situation due to projects having unrealistic deliverables, tight deadlines and forcing developers to cut corners.

Part of the success criteria for a project in my mind is to enable the ongoing development and maintainence of the product, but in these cases no changes can be confidently made until all of the short cuts that have been made have been resolved.

JavaScript Libraries

2009-11-02T11:28:00.000-08:00

Here are my thoughts on YUI and JQuery after some research.

I started off looking at YUI (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/). Straight away I found YUI ( I was using the latest version 3 ) to be quite confusing, the download unpacks on to your machine 2000 files, including the core libraries and many additional extensions.

YUI appeared to be very good, the supporting website has a lot of information and the examples show off some very neat functionality. However I once again struggled to get to grips with YUI as the examples are very specific and never really show why or how YUI should be used, which makes solving generic problems rather difficult.

I spent the evening playing with YUI, but struggled to make much headway and couldn't see easily how I could achieve what I wanted with this.

I next had a look at JQuery (http://jquery.com/) and instantly the whole experience was different. The website offers two downloads, either a single development JS file or a minified production version. The examples on the website appear to be written by developers and in that respect provide introductions to JQuery as a general solution, with specific coded examples.

In contrast to YUI, I found JQuery to be far easier to understand and instantly felt at home. I worked through an example or two and then felt happy enough to go it alone with just the API reference. What a difference!

In summary, if I had to recommend a javascript library to use, I would suggest JQuery. I found it lightweight and powerful, while YUI was confusing and hard to understand.

If you are interested in JQuery there is some great examples online, but here is my demo code which maybe helpful. I have included all of the code in a single file and put all of the methods inline, for clarity really.

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title></title>
<style>
.canvasElementOffline
{
border: 1px solid red;
}
.canvasElementOnline
{
border: 1px solid green;
}
</style>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../scripts/jquery.js"></script>
<script language="javascript">
$(document).ready(initialise);
var mouseDown = false;

function initialise()
{
// Add Page Handlers
$().mousemove(pageMouseMove);

// Initialise Canvas
initCanvasElement();
}

function initCanvasElement()
{
// Configure the UI
$("#canvasElement").removeClass("canvasElementOffline");
$("#canvasElement").addClass("canvasElementOnline");

// Add Canvas Handlers
$("#canvasElement").mouseup(canvasMouseUp);
$("#canvasElement").mousedown(canvasMouseDown);
}

function canvasMouseDown(eventObject) {
mouseDown = true;
}

function canvasMouseUp(eventObject) {
mouseDown = false;
}

function pageMouseMove(eventObject) {
$("#inputMouseX").val( eventObject.pageX );
$("#inputMouseY").val(eventObject.pageY);
$("#inputMouseState").val( mouseDown );
}

</script>
</head>
<body>
<canvas id="canvasElement" height="300" width="300"></canvas>
<input type="text" id="inputMouseX" />
<input type="text" id="inputMouseY" />
<input type="text" id="inputMouseState" />
</body>
</html>

Windows 7

2009-10-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

All the talk today is of Windows 7, Apple hijacking the launch and stuff. The thing that I find strange is why is anyone bothered?

Windows 7 is an operating system. It is the thing under the hood. It has some really nice features, I use it myself and prefer it to Vista, but at the end of the day it is still an operating system, not particularly exiting and certainly not worth queuing outside a shop for.

I mean come on, this really gives tech people a bad name as we are bundled in with the losers that are busy queuing desperate to get their hands on the latest taskbar design from Microsoft.

I hate Geeks. I am a software developer, I work with computers and enjoy what I do, but I for one will not be upgrading a PC, downloading drivers or drooling at the new areo tweaks. I will be out with my daughter on our bikes enjoying life.

Taking a bite out of Apple

2009-06-10T07:14:00.001-07:00

In the UK there has been a pretty big backlash against the iPhone 3GS. Mainly because of the expense of the contract (minimum £35pm plus nearly £200 for the handset on top).

But were people expecting anything different, welcome to the world of Apple. Apple has continually brought out new products, recently on a yearly basis. In many cases they make the previous product almost obsolete and with the launches usually taking place just after Christmas, upsets a lot of fans.

The there is OSX, the operating system to beat operating systems, but every upgrade is charged for, unlike Windows. Now there is nothing wrong with this and there are plenty of Apple fans around the world that will continue to buy new Apple hardware.

However, Google expect 20 new Android compatible phones on the market this year and at £35pm and the phone is free, they certainly look very tempting.

The iPhone 3GS just doesn't really do it for me. I have an iPhone and think it is great, but the minor upgrades to the hardware are not worth the expense. I for one will be keeping a close eye on HTC and their Android developments.

Top Search

2009-06-08T02:53:00.001-07:00

Found this today, really interesting. It is a website built by Michael Kordahi to sompare Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines. Give it a go and find out which one is best for you @ http://blindsearch.fejus.com/
Incidentally I was suprised to find the Bing would be better for me than Google.

Bing Bonged

2009-06-04T01:37:00.001-07:00

Personally I quite like Bing (Microsoft's newly launched search engine). For the first time they have managed to create a search that is the equal of Google and has some features that make it better.

However there has been much press regarding the auto-play feature for video searching, which transforms Bing into a perfect porn search which also neatly avoids most filtering systems. Kids love it.

Strangely the thing that I do not understand, in the UK if I click on the maps link, I am re-directed to the god awful Multimap.co.uk, yet Microsoft have the far superior local.live.com mapping site.

Unfortunately, in losing Bill, Microsoft have lost their dictator and committee lead design is taking over. This can only be good news for Google.

Money

2009-05-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

Good news for all the struggling software and hardware developers in the world. A new scheme launched by the UK Govt will help revive the industry in these dark times.

Mirroring the deal for the car manufacturers the Govt will pay £2000 to anyone with an old copy of Windows to upgrade to Windows Vista. Windows vista will only run on new more efficent computers thus providing a green benefit.

Microsoft

2009-04-26T12:37:00.000-07:00

After 23 years Microsoft finally posted a bad quarter. For the first time since 1986 they actually made less profit than in the previous quarter. Don't start writing Microsoft off just yet though, they still made a healthy $3 billion profit.

It is a staggering achievement, especially given the vast changes in the industry in the period that Microsoft has continued to adapt and keep turning in record profits.

It will be interesting to follow Microsoft over the next few years to see how they respond without Bill at the helm. They are being attacked on all sides but have Windows 7 in the pipeline.

Copy right?

2009-04-17T04:40:00.001-07:00

Technically the Piratebay does not provide hold or store any copyrighted material. All the information on their servers is perfectly legal. However they do provide links to help people find illegal material, such as unreleased movies. So is this illegal?

An analogy was provided on the radio, discussing that if illegal material, a DVD for example, was sent through the postal system, would they be held accountable. The Internet is often held to blame because it is an easy target and new. The Piratebay may not have been acting very responsibly but the bigger issue is the amount of illegal content being hosted on the Internet that is not being resolved. Hollywood are simply going after the easy targets and the end users.

To me, Hollywood need to sort things out. The movies are being leaked internally. At the moment they are putting a sticky plaster over a very big wound and not resolving the fundemental issue.

Cloudy Day

2009-04-09T02:46:00.000-07:00

The Cloud is an expression that is mentioned a lot these day, This is in the Cloud, that is in the Cloud etc. Personally I place quite a lot of my every day life in the Cloud, but I am still left feeling that much is being missed.

I found a new service (www.sumopaint.com) recently that has managed to put a functionally rich paint package in the Cloud. Utilising Flash it embeds the functionality in to the browser and can even open local files.

Some how this misses the point for me. I don't want an application in a browser, I don't want to install an application via an App Store, I just want to click on a link and have an application open on my machine as if it was native. It must behave like a native application and work with my files either remotely or locally.

This would bring about the possibility of having true device indepence of applications and purchasing software on a pay per use basis. This model is clearly the way forward (what home user can justify $800 for Photoshop to use once a month) yet will only be achieved when Web Applications can match their desktop cunterpart.

Loop Version2 Launched

2009-04-09T02:33:00.000-07:00

Following a couple of hectic weeks of development, the latest version of The Loop has launched. The following new features have been added: -

Enhanced browser compatibility, including wider mobile support.
Direct access to information driven by the URL (e.g. loop.hahana.co.uk/andy)
Improved platform stability and performance
Profile Homepage to enable better management of account and links.

More enhancements are planned for the next few months, with the aim to continually improve the platform. Leeping checking back regularly for more updates.

To BlackBerry or not?

2009-04-01T03:15:00.001-07:00

Why would you bother with BlackBerry?

They are really investing heavily, I have seen several sponsored adds about how to develop for it, and now they have an app store, but is it too little too late. Yes.

They loved their closed environment, but now the iPhone / gPhone can do everything (and more) that the Blackberry does and they are much better to develop for. They have mass market appeal (not just directors) and they are improving constantly.

BlackBerry did too little to engage with the development community early on and now have an expensive and closed platform that business should move away from, to an open solution.

Beware the bloat

2009-03-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

For the last few weeks I have been busy working on the next release for loop.hahana.co.uk. One of the trickiest aspect of software development is avoiding the bloat. Microsoft is particularly prone to bloat, sometimes it works in your favour, but mostly it irrates customers.
Adding new features is generally a good thing, but you need to balance this with over complicating software that may already do what people want. A good example of this is Office software. For the majority of users, Word 6 delivered everything they desired and nearly every subsequent release has just added bloat (new interfaces, paper clips etc).
The real skill is adding value to a product with new features without over complicating and reducing its ability to complete it's core function.
Find out for yourself if we have been successful over at the loop.hahana.co.uk this April when the enhancements go on-line.

2009-03-09T05:09:00.001-07:00

You can be sure that as new technology hits the street, new pessemistic individuals will start to moan.

In an article on NeoWin (http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/03/07/editorial-how-connected-are-you-unfinished-almost-done) the author makes gross generalisations such as "Children are being raised by technology and not by their parents, and this will cause huge problems for the next generation of adults."

I have a 3 year old and because I work in software development, she has shown a great deal of interest in computers. My daughter can already type her name on the keyboard, navigate using a mouse and navigate the CBeebies website to find activities / games to play on-line. Far from thinking that she is going to grow up a social reject, I feel she has learnt essential skills that will server her well in the future.

Children these days have access to information that was not available barely 10 years ago. It is a fantastic opportunity for them to learn about people from different cultures and keep into touch with each other no matter what the differences.

New communication technologies should be embraced as they are here to stay.

Broadband

2009-03-04T13:49:00.000-08:00

At present it is pretty tough to move things along. The development is all my own effort in my own time, but thanks to the BBC, my bandwidth is being reduced even more as my daughter ( 3 years old ) has figured out how to get to Cbeebies and watch Mr Tumble on the iPlayer.

It is amazing how quickly children pick up new things. I haven't increased the size of icons, got a simpler keyboard or special mouse, but yet my daughter has managed to grasp how to use it all. Which begs the question, do you need new interfaces to mimic old metaphors or is it simple better to create new ones and letpeople adapt?

Money

2009-02-15T07:08:00.000-08:00

Given the financial downturn, money is on everyones mind. Having previously worked for a startup that failed, I have some experience of funding, but it is still a black art.

One of the problems with funding is yhat once funding has been provided it puts an end date by when the company needs to prove itself. This is not always easy to predict, especially in the Social world.

Therefore the aim with Hahana was to launch a company and self fund it initially. The refine the idea by gathering user feedback and build a small user base. Then when / if things appear to be going well, approach investors with a much clearer vision of where I am going.

The downside of this plan is that it is very hard to develop in your own time and progress can be slow. However the potential upside is a stronger bargaining position later on.

At present I can happily ride out any recession without having to worry about investors at all.

Grinding to a halt

2009-02-02T01:49:00.000-08:00

The snow has arrived and as usual panic spreads across the UK. I have no doubt that the super market shelves will have been stripped of essentials by the time I finish writing this.

This got me thinking, however, about testing. On several projects that I have worked upon, the entire project has ground to a halt at the testing stage, which leads to the question how much is enough testing?

To little testing and you often end up with a product that is full of bugs and a lot of angry customers. To much testing and your customers may rapidly depart for a better product that is developing faster.

There is no definitive answer to this and it very much depends on what you are developing. In the world of Web Apps though, development is king, stagnation is death.

Perfect software doesn't exist. Don' t be afraid to innovate, but be honest with your customes at all times...and Don't Panic.

The rise of the Beta?

2009-01-24T11:57:00.000-08:00

What is it with Beta's these days? GoogleMail is still in beta, yet is in use by over 50 million people.

Personally I feel the single key advantage of a web app is that it is delivered dynamically to the client, therefore new features, bug fixes and the like, can be rolled out continuously. This power and flexibility does come with the major drawback of cross platform support, however great strides have been made in this area, thanks mainly to XHTML and CSS adoption by Safari, Chrome and Opera.

I do not believe in launching public beta's, but I do believe in constantly innovating. That is why you will never see a beta tag at the loop.hahana.co.uk, but you may see some new features.

Synopsis

2009-01-20T12:20:00.000-08:00

So what is this all about...

I am a software developer and have launched a web application. Unfortunately, for me, I don't live in Mountain View, California, I live in the UK and therefore I have not raised $5m in seed money, don't have a vast army of developers and it's not that sunny.

In this blog I will talk about my experiences in software development, funding and anything else that crops up. For the time being here are the links to my application: -

loop.hahana.co.uk

The Loop is a micro blogging / social application that links the users and their location together. It works on all Internet browsers, specifically mobile browsers, so that access is available anywhere and anywhen.

Use it to discover what is happening around you, add updates about yourself, events that are happening. Access is open, although registration is required to post new updates.