Is it the examiners who post some of the requests for prior art? If so, it would be nice if their accounts or requests could be badged so other users can be reasonably sure that the research they do will be seen by the USPTO.
Thanks for the feedback. You're correct, we're definitely trying to follow the popular advice on here.
Yeah, getting the benefits across is going to be the only way people will see the value of the app. We tried to do that on the front page. Is it the name "overlay" that is throwing you and masukomi off?
@using the name "overlay" -> Yes, it cheapens you, and it is the largest piece of text on the landing page.
I think your highlighted benefits don't really align with what someone who needs your product REALLY wants: a ridiculously easy, simple, zero engineering way to give (and update) product/feature tours.
Your benefits also miss the mark on why people want tour systems. It's not because they're professional or empowering. It boils down to time, money and ease. You do talk about saving money and time, but it's the second bullet, and i stopped reading before then.
I just realized that I need this. I'll be signing up.
Please feel free to contact me directly: case (at) protopattern (dot) com We really want to work with early customers to make sure that our app does what their apps need.
This is my first product, I'd be really interested to hear what the community thinks about it.
We built this because as web developers we're always asked to implement an in app context sensitive help system, but maintaining that help system and keeping it up to date really calls for a crm like functionality. FAQ pages and knowledge bases are rarely visited and users shouldn't need to context switch to find out if there's an answer posted on some subsite.
Thanks for the links. The most interesting thing in the previous HN thread was learning that this article is a) really old (probably outdated), and b) written by Guido!
It's rare that I've seen the Java VM described as horrible.
In fact, it seems to be quite highly respected and seems to be working out well for Scala and Clojure. Obviously, there's also Twitter who partially moved to the VM from Rails.
Would you care to elaborate? Has Linus talked about the VM before?
The Java VM is quite bad. There just isn't an alternative that meets these criteria:
1. cross platform (windows, mac, linux, mobile devices, embedded)
2. kinda fast
3. reasonably mature
4. bunch of libraries
If you want to create a new programming language today Java is the only viable platform. .NET and Mono isn't quite mature enough (and it's very similar to Java anyway). If you bootstrap from C it'll be fast and portable but you'll have no libraries for the first 5 years or so.
There just isn't a low level language layer, just above C that can be used for interopability between programming languages. What we need, what we really need, is some sort of Java--. A simple bytecode layer that other languages can target. So libraries written in one language can be used (and inspected) from another language. I know it's not going to happen anytime soon, but it'd be nice.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you confusing Java the language with the actual JVM? On your last paragraph, you pretty much described what the JVM is in my perspective.
There is no proper separation of concerns in the JVM. The JVM instruction set has instructions like `invokevirtual` and `invokestatic`, `invokeinterface`, which are Java specific features. The JVM also knows the concept of classes and methods and fields, even though those abstractions should be defined at the language level, not at the VM level (a Lisp or Forth-like stack machine needs different abstractions).
The datatypes in the JVM are pretty weird. You have chars, but not unsigned chars, some integer types (but not all). You have no support for unicode. There is a low-level struct for arrays and multidimensional arrays (of a specific type), but for nothing else. It supports exceptions, but only Java like exceptions. (You can't make an exception system where execution can be retried or resumed; it's just not supported). It also has a java-specific thread model (want to create lightweight threads with lockfree data structures? nope, not gonna work).
What you want is a low-level platform with different modules that can be picked by the people who implement the programming language. Pick a parser module, a garbage collection module, a JIT compilation module, and so forth. This is really difficult, because you have to have a good understanding what kind of primitives different programming languages need. When all these things are fixed and non-interchangeable you end up with a virtual machine that is suitable only for a specific kind of language. It's turing complete, so of course you can make any language on the JVM, but it's just not a good fit.
It sounds like you're saying The JVM is the worst possible VM, except for the alternatives
My understanding is that it is state-of-the-art, and includes many innovations (unlike Java itself). Of course, state of the art does not mean perfect. There's still room to improve, which the JVM, CLR or some other VM might manage. But it seems over-the-top to bash the best in the world. It's like saying that, as a sprinter, Usain Bolt is quite bad.
The real tiger is never a match for a paper one, unless actual use is wanted. - Brooks
Parrot is basically just a VM for Perl. The opcodes are tied heavily to Perl 6 semantics (type coercion for everyone, the string "0" is false, etc etc).
Intellij, Eclipse and Netbeans, great software written in Java. Haddop, as well. Not to mention Minecraft, but this point I'll leave to Techcrunch[1]
Java is not a great language by all means, the VM does have it issues (it is very old, and has to deal with its legacy), but it is not on a really important piece of software, its quality is quite good.
At the very least, it is, ironically, responsible for LISP's renewed interest through Clojure.
It's highly respected by people who are willing to use JVM based software. Frankly, typical JVM startup times alone is enough of a pain that I avoid anything-JVM if I can.
> " Frankly, typical JVM startup times alone is enough of a pain"
The default JVM options are biased toward long running processes. That's kinda what most software running on a JVM is going to be though - start it running, leave it for weeks.
If you want a JVM that is tailored for short lived processes, then quick startup time is just a few options away after you RTFM. Or use a language/runtime more tailored to short lived scripting.
FWIW I've never seen a JVM take more than a second to startup though, which is more than adequate for server software.
Sure it's a stupid app, but you learned so much and had fun. When you have an idea for your next stupid app the whole process will seem so much easier.
Thanks! Yes, I’ve already found that to be the case while working on the successor project. Plus, though I didn't mention it in the piece, there are many things peripheral to actual development that were a big time sink but that now are just done and I don’t need to think about (incorporation, associating my individual-type Apple dev program account with the company, contracts etc).
Working against Rails, or any framework, is definitely going to cause pain. On the other hand, Rails is not perfect and I, like the OP, have been noticing a number of voices lately worrying about building large Rails apps. Which is awesome, because either Rails will adapt or something new will come along to fill the need.
Sinatra + cherry picking rails lib might work great if you've built a few apps like that, but it would nice to package this approach in a framework which guides people down this road.
Personally, I feel that Rails could evolve to the point where the approved path involves using some adapter (like a service layer) to talk to ActiveRecord. I've written about how Java accomplishes this in comparison to ActiveRecord: http://casestatement.tumblr.com/post/11514731433/javas-jpa-f...
> Working against Rails, or any framework, is definitely
> going to cause pain.
There is a huge difference between working "against" a framework and working outside, or better yet alongside of it.
You want a Service layer that abstracts logic from database commands? You can absolutely do that while still taking advantage of the entirety of Rails. Your controllers and views are instantiating your objects and not ActiveRecord objects, but that's not a crime.
This is also a problem for some school boards. My sister is using Khan Academy with her ELL students (they don't speak any English but Khan's working great for them).
Signing a student up to a standalone service is no problem, but as soon as that service includes email or other student communication, the teachers need to get parents' consent.
This is really limiting the adoption across the rest of her school, they don't really want to get everyone a new GMail or Facebook account.
We're aware of this, and as @genieyclo said, Google Apps for Education is currently the easiest way for a whole bunch of students to get going. We've been successful using Apps for Education with all of our pilot Khan Academy schools so far.
That being said, we're thinking about becoming our own identity provider as well, primarily for this reason.
Just one of those things that's on the list and has to be weighed against everything else -- the majority of our users are doing just fine w/ Google/Facebook.
This is a problem for schools using usually custom-built tools to manage the district's resources and administration. For the more flexible charter schools that are more open to the idea of adopting something like Khan Academy into the curriculum, they are small enough (usually one school) to switch over, and are often already using Google Apps as their default method of email and collaboration.
I know that at my sisters' charter school (2 schools, K-8 and 9-12), the entire school is on the Google Apps Education platform and getting started with Khan Academy was really simple for them, as they already had name@school.com email accounts they were used to using.
I know the school board where I live has banned teachers from using Facebook, and to further your point students under a certain age are not allowed to use either Facebook, or Google.
