You're not going to land dates at a hackathon

I, if you don't already know, am a huge fan of alternative ways of getting women into this amazingly exciting field. I had a great lunch the other day with a woman named Elena Silonok, she's pretty much what I want to be when I grow out of my eight colored hair and little kid hands. Not only is she beautiful, but she's brilliant and making the world a better place. Meeting women like her gets me all inspired again and reminds me why I do this in the first place (besides, you know, loving it).

I got this article sent to me in a DM from my friend Amrit Richmond (dropping names like it's my job). I appreciate the attempt by Fast Company to get ladies interested in hackathons, lord knows that we can use it. In the past, even I have expressed the overwhelming abundance of hot guys in software development. However, I need to clear up, that a hackathon is the last place you want to go if you are looking for developers that share your love of ST:TNG (don't judge me, I didn't grow up on the original).

This is a picture of me from the last hackathon I did. Breadpig had an awesome event where we all got to play with legos overnight, and our legos battled each other in the morning. Wait, what, you can't see me you say? Oh, well that's because at this point my eyes are pretty red, my hair looked like something the cat threw up, and to be honest I probably wasn't smelling all that great either. See, I had just been working on this dang little feisty robot for 12 hours in a row. From 7pm to pretty much 7 in the morning. I showed up dead serious, and ready to work.

If you try to show up at one of these things all "heeeeeey, I'm here for the drinks and the small talk" no one will want to work with you. No one else is there to meet people (especially the guys, if they are there to meet anyone it's other guys, or they are extremely illogical in nature). They will smell it on you if you are, and no one wants dead weight on their team.

Why go to a hackathon if you are just going to get smelly and gross and you aren't able to make guys take your Myers-Briggs to see if you're compatible? I can only tell my story. About 3am at the Breadpig Hackathon I took a look up from my laptop to see a bunch of girls that weren't competing talking and giggling with some guys in the corner (this is not a knock on giggling girls, I have been one a few times in my life). I then looked around to see my friend Alexis (and my new friend Danielle) working on their bots, and a whole bunch of guys around them cranking away at theirs. I was super proud and in my mind I said "We're fucking awesome."

That's why you go to a hackathon, for the pride that you can hang, and to be happy in what you built. Now, go forth! Build cool shit! Tell people about it!

Using JQuery AJAX Calls in a Chrome Plugin

Chrome really fights cross site scripting like the plague, whether you are building a plugin or not. Some of us love the simplicity of the JQuery AJAX functions and want to use them in our content scripts instead of the ugly XMLHttpRequests. If you throw one in, you will get a "Origin https://mail.google.com is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Origin" error.Use the code below to enable $.post, $.get, $.ajax, and $.post. 

In your background page, include the following JS. What this is doing is adding a listener for the partiular functions (you specify which in your request), and funneling the request through your jquery libarary (notice, we add it in the beginning). 

 






Then to the top of your content scripts, add these functions that work as proxies:


_getJSON = function(url, callback) {
console.log("calling JSON");
chrome.extension.sendRequest({action:'getJSON',url:url}, callback);
}
_ajax = function(url, callback, type, async) {
console.log("calling ajax");
chrome.extension.sendRequest({action:'ajax',url:url, type:type, async:async}, callback);
}

_get = function(url, callback) {
console.log("sending get");
chrome.extension.sendRequest({action:'get',url:url}, callback);
}

_post = function(url, data, callback) {
console.log("sending post");
chrome.extension.sendRequest({action:'post', data: data, url:url}, callback);
}

 

If you would like more of the functionality from the functions, you need to pass them from your content script. Add them as parameters in the proxy functions. 

That's it, enjoy plugin development!

Your Idea Isn't Good Enough

I've been hesitant to write this post for a while. I'm a true idealist, and I know that the littlest bit of discouragement can hurt a dream. However, this has been a long time coming, I'm going to try and do it with kid gloves. 

A good idea is not enough. I know no one has thought of a way to network single nurses to doctors who want to have affairs and large payrolls (if you know what I mean). Yes, you are the first one who came up with the concept of sharing only children's birthday parties on a network of school aged children that enjoy horseback riding. While all your friends wouldn't shut up about the new twitter API changes, you were home working on your business plan for the SMS driven app that links construction workers standing on corners with guys in pickup trucks and questionable ethics. None of these things have been done, you are a genius, bravo. 

I can't tell you the horrors I've seen of people getting ripped off playing the start up game. I am not going to bore you with stories about developers who were in the midst of deploying apps they worked months on only to go unpaid and never rewarded. I don't know if it is the Facebook movie, or the amount of capital getting thrown around the market, but every developer I know is getting bombarded with opportunity. I can't tell you the golden ratio of making a Gmail Killer. I can tell you what I've seen, and how best to avoid becoming a roadkill on the superhighway. Buckle up.

The person that will be your CTO for mostly sweat equity is not someone you want building your application. I now live in a world where "CTO" or "Technical Cofounder" is a fancy way of saying "someone in this relationship is being had." On one end you have a person that is investing all the money that they got from selling their grandmother's minivan in a single person that is telling them they are a developing machine that is going to bring them from zero to Mashable with $10,000. On the other hand you have a founder who has happened upon a recent grad who wants to prove themselves, and will work 90 hour weeks until it's obvious to everyone involved that they are in over their heads. 

Founders, the odds are against you that you've found the perfect person to create your app. The developer that is qualified to build an app from the ground up is not running around tech events handing out business cards. They are working for funded companies that respect their knowledge and education enough to give them a full team of people support them.

Developers, someone with a marketing and PR background doesn't know anything about managing a software project. They have no concept of what goes into it, and what is neccessary to make it successful. They don't care that you're architecting, or iterating, or writing unit tests. They want to click the button and see the magic, anything else is overhead and costly. 

 

The developer that tells you "no" is the one you should believe. There is no incentive for us to say "no" or "not possible" or "this will take a very long time" besides saving both of us a lot of headache. The easiest way for me to get you to part with your hard earned cash is to say "This is a fabulous idea! It should take me 6-8 weeks. I will need half up front." If a developer telling you it's a bad idea, or it will take longer than you think,  it's because they are being honest. In all likelyhood they've done this a few times, and they don't want you to get burned. If you are hearing this, instead of moving on to the next developer ask for some feedback on how to make it more feasible. We'd love to tell you. 

No individual is going to have your best interest in mind. Except your mom, and I don't think that's who we're talking about here. The odds of you finding the perfect person to build your empire in this market are akin to your odds of being hit by lighting, at a Tumblr party, while checking into Foursquare. Sometimes there is magic, sometimes there are sparks, but remember what you are asking this person to do. We don't come to your job and say things like "I think it would be great if you could create this ad campaign for 10% of your usual price. If it makes me money I will share it with you! If not, eeeh, at least we tried." or "Can you give me these implants for free? If I make it as a huge Hollywood celebrity I will give you 40% of my royalties and 9% of my groupies." No, we respect what you do and ask you to do the same. 

 

There are teams of people that build applications from the ground up and that's all they do. You need to find them, vet them, talk to the people they've made happy, and pay them to do what they have done many times. Maybe you will hire a firm, maybe you will find a proven, experienced developer and give them the resources to do so. They are used to talking to people with no tech background, holding their hands through the process, and giving them quality products. Check their previous projects, talk to former clients. If you don't have the money to pay a team to build your application, you don't have an application. Maybe you need to cut some features and be realistic about your budget. Maybe you need to start hitting the streets and talking to VCs. Maybe the nest egg you have would be better invested elsewhere. 

 I hope I haven't burst any bubbles, I am not here to tell you not to follow your dreams (both founder and developer). I just think there is a real void in communication here, and a lot of people getting burned. If you want to make your vision a reality don't let anything stop you, just educate yourself on what is out there, and make sure your feet are firmly planted in soil. 

 

Oh yeah, and try to get one of those domains that are a real word but have the dot in a funny place. Like port.ly or stalk.me. I hear those are cool now. 

About Sara

Sara is a developer living in NYC specializing in web applications with a focus on JavaScript and Startups. In her spare time she Wrangles Nerds. 

She likes speaking to and meeting with diverse groups from the Girl Scouts to straight up code junkies. Her goal is to inspire more females to see that being a developer is fun and glamorous.

She is best reached via email, twitter, or on her cell at (862) 201-3065. 

Current Projects:

Girl Develop It

Add Blocker

Elizabeth & Clarke

New Work City

This Developers Life

The Girls are Back In Town

There is something I’ve gotten really excited about lately and it is only just beginning. I’m talking about the new wave of awesome girl tools to hit the web. I’m in the middle of the the biggest petrie dish for startups in the world, New York City (oh yeah, I moved, I love it!). I’ve been watching new ones pop up monthly, companies like Fashism,  Birchbox  and ToVieFor. Conceived by girls, run by girls, built for a mostly female demographic .

My life's dream knocked me full in the face when I saw this (omg, that google search made me find this  I <3  you, Microsoft). I was 17 years old and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life: be a part of the community that creates applications like that. However, I learned quickly that apps like that didn’t actually exist. I dreamed of the days when women figured out how to leverage software for their needs and wants. For a long time we’ve had fantasy football apps, miniature train forums, and ways to randomly put your friends into intermural sports teams online. Guys have been doing this for a decade, but now FINALLY, we are tinkering too!

Proud of you, ladies, can’t wait to see what else is in store.    

 

Making the Internet a Better Place

"What's your business model?" The words sprung from my mouth like rhetoric. Like "How are you?" and "Are you ok?" the phrase is a staple I use when discussing some startup or another, which is a semi-recent hobby of mine. While I was getting the elevator pitch during a meeting last week I asked this question, immediately noticing the douchiness behind it when the developer replied, "We don't have one." He went on to explain that they were very proud of their product and wanted to expand their user base before figuring out how to make money off of them. It's funny because I was often hit with the same question when working on Bundl.it, and I would answer "I don't have one, I'm just building a tool to make the internet a better place."

Like it or not we are the curators of the largest compilation of stories, ideas, pictures, and video that has ever existed (I like it a lot, and I bet if you're reading this you do too). Sometimes it's not about squeezing every last cent out of people that enjoy your work. Sometimes it's making life easier for users, or even developers, and not being concerned about what's in it for you until it becomes necessary.

I don't have ads on this blog. I've been approached by maybe a half a dozen companies in the past few months, and my answer has always been the same. I wont put advertisements on my site that are pictures, or images, I will only have ads when this blog gets big enough to attract the advertisers with the least offensive ads, the ones that are small lines of text that don't interrupt your reading experience and are an after thought. Why? I like you guys, and I don't want to pimp you for a penny. I feel like you are a guest here, and I don't want to make a quick buck by making your stay here less pleasing.  I'm trying to add to the value of the web by adding my opinion and thoughts, I hope it helps.

I love money just as much as the next girl (you should see my shoe tower). However, the place in my heart that the interwebs holds compares to no other. I consider it a career goal to make my footprint beneficial.

Join me? This is our internet, let's help each other enjoy it.

et tu, Iron Ruby?

The news of Iron Ruby possibly being euthanaized by Microsoft sincerely surprised me. I have long felt that the Iron projects are a nod to the real developer from a corporation that often panders to the drag and drop community. Pointing resources at an initiative that will never make them money (in a measurable way) caused many of us to believe that there was a part of MS that was inspired to give back to the people that have been building applications and bringing them Windows and SQL Server hosting fees for years. 

This comes on the heels of Microsoft.Data.dll and Visual Studio Light Switch being announced. It's very difficult to get a reputation in the development world as a skilled and knowledgeable contributer when your primary focus is .NET. Many look at us like bubblegum coders, not really able to tread water without our WYSIWYG IDE This type of progression does not help. 

I really hope it is not the intention of MS to phase out Iron Ruby and it is all just rumor and happenstance. I know that either way I will be continuing my pursuit to learn Ruby better and keep filling up my toolbox. I will be keeping a close watch as the rest of this story unfolds. 

In other news Rob Conery is working to rally the troops for a triage mission. If it comes down to it, it will be hard for me to say "If MS doesn't care about keeping this project alive why should I?" However, I do see IR as a valuable resource for diversifying the .NET community. I would love to be a part of this should the gauntlet be thrown.