We'll pay you $3000/mo to build your startup on Dark • Hacker News Board

Re: We'll pay you $3000/mo to build your startup on Dark

#81

Post by pbiggar » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

temuze wrote: post #62

> We’re creating a new programming language, tightly integrated with an editor, compiler and PaaS, to allow engineers to build distributed applications using high-level primitives. Not sure if this is ambitious enough. Maybe you should make a database, too :) But seriously, you'd have to convince me of a lot of things before I consider using a service like this, much less basing a business off of it: 1) The bar for y…

1,2) Yes, agreed.

3) You're totally right: we're concerned about this and have been thinking about it a lot. Obviously, vendor lock-in is a disadvantage for us because it will hurt adoption, so we'd definitely prefer this wasn't the case.

4) Bear in mind that the editor only targets Dark, including our infrastructure component, APIs, and language. So this is substantially less work than say, building vim or Atom.

5) We're targeting way way easier than that. Literally you should be able to call an API in one line (including all the retry logic, backoffs, rate limiting, auth, etc).

Re: We'll pay you $3000/mo to build your startup on Dark

#82

Post by ggggtez » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 6:35 PM UTC

twodave wrote: post #43

It’s a bold move. I like it, but I’m alarmed at how many people are acting like $3k isn’t worth taking. If I wasn’t solidly anchored on the east coast (Jacksonville, FL) I’d be taking a serious look at this, since it would give me about a 30% better chance at bootstrapping and avoiding taking on funding or other debt to build something cool.

But the whole point is it isn't in Jacksonville. It's in San Francisco, where $3k will pay your rent and that's about it. So you'd really want to reconsider not taking other funding or debt.

Re: We'll pay you $3000/mo to build your startup on Dark

#83

Post by projectramo » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 6:35 PM UTC

If I were to take advantage of this opportunity, my main question would be about darklang.

While it is interesting to be paid to give some feedback to a system and maybe learn something, it would be interesting to know just what it was.

Consider: if you told me darklang was a python based language that was built on top of django/AWS and automated a lot of the work around it.

Consider: you told me darklang was a JSON storage model, with a react-like front end.

Consider: you told me that darklang was based on RUST in the browser.

All these things would appeal to very different startups. It would tell me that the work I did would not be wasted and I could take the basic models (ORMs, etc) if the project failed.

That's why I think it would be useful to say a little more about the stack around darklang. Even if it is "totally new", what is it based on?

Re: We'll pay you $3000/mo to build your startup on Dark

#84

Post by pbiggar » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 6:36 PM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #21

pbiggar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP here. Exactly, we're helping out, not funding you :) We're hoping there are some folks already in SF where we can help stretch their runway a little bit.

Thank you for your generous offer to help founders out this way. Could you briefly explain what Dark is?

Sure, answered it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16803660

Re: We'll pay you $3000/mo to build your startup on Dark

#85

Post by throwawayjava » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

aylmao wrote: post #65

throwawayjava wrote: post #24

> Your product is not backend-heavy, such as: ...machine-learning models Maybe the meanings of these words have morphed over time, but in what sense is a "machine-learning model" not a back-end concern? It sure as heck isn't front-end... (E.g., the current wiki page for "front and back end" explicitly mentions "converting the symbolic phonetic representation into actual sounds" as an example of a back end concern, an…

Fair comment, thought something similar when I first read this, but ML falls into its own category IMO because it's not part of the "application" most of the time. It's back-end in that it's not front-end, but it's not what you'd normally consider the back-end of an app. A model is built offline, experimented upon, tested, and then once ready "connected" to the main app. Like, the TensorFlow code you write doesn't "n…

> It's the output model that eventually makes it into the back-end ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Yes, the model itself is part of the backend, not the code used to generate the model. But the website explicitly mentions "machine-learning __models__" as an example of something that's "not backend".

> Back-end has always meant the CRUD/API portions of a CRUD app.

This is not true. Compilers have backends. Speech processing pipelines have backends. The dragon book, which pre-dates the advent of the WWW, distinguished frontend from backend (and in those words).

Web-based CRUD apps inherited the terminology.

Re: We'll pay you $3000/mo to build your startup on Dark

#86

Post by pritambarhate » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

pbiggar wrote: post #60

Lots of folks asking exactly what Dark is so answering separately. tl;dr Dark is a programming language and service. Our goal is to allow you to build backends without having to deal with the endless accidental complexity in software today. (Accidental complexity meaning everything from infrastructure and storage, to syntax errors, etc). What does that mean exactly? Dark is a language, and editor and a PaaS, combined…

Will it be possible to deploy Dark apps outside your platform? I don't mind paying for the language and SDK. We already do that for Visual Studio and C#. But being locked in your PaaS forever is a nonstarter.

Re: We'll pay you $3000/mo to build your startup on Dark

#87

Post by boksiora » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

pbiggar wrote: post #60

Lots of folks asking exactly what Dark is so answering separately. tl;dr Dark is a programming language and service. Our goal is to allow you to build backends without having to deal with the endless accidental complexity in software today. (Accidental complexity meaning everything from infrastructure and storage, to syntax errors, etc). What does that mean exactly? Dark is a language, and editor and a PaaS, combined…

you can get a lot more people to try the language if you make closed beta

Re: We'll pay you $3000/mo to build your startup on Dark

#88

Post by chrisseaton » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #75

chrisseaton wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe the meanings of these words have morphed over time, but in what sense is a "machine-learning model" not a back-end concern? It sure as heck isn't front-end... Huh? They're giving it as an example of something that is backend-heavy that they don't want your product to be like. You've got it backwards. > (Your product is (not (backend-heavy, such as: ...machine-learning models)))

> They're giving it as an example of something that is backend-heavy that they don't want your product to be like. You've got it backwards Yes, it's clear enough that they don't want you to be a member of that list. But what characterizes the elements of that list?! In any grammatical or intuitive reading of "This probably isn't a good fit if your product is not backend-heavy, such as: ..." the "..." is a list of thi…

> And the first element is "iPhone game", which is certainly an example of something that is "not backend-heavy"!

I thought they were referring to a multiplayer game with a server that has to be very low latency, handle a lot of connections, and not easily distributable, so that did seem backend-heavy.

But whatever they mean then, it's obviously not clear enough.

Re: We'll pay you $3000/mo to build your startup on Dark

#89

Post by pbiggar » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

projectramo wrote: post #83

If I were to take advantage of this opportunity, my main question would be about darklang. While it is interesting to be paid to give some feedback to a system and maybe learn something, it would be interesting to know just what it was. Consider: if you told me darklang was a python based language that was built on top of django/AWS and automated a lot of the work around it. Consider: you told me darklang was a JSON…

Good question. Conceptually, Dark is most similar to your django/aws example.

There's a lot more types, though in a really good way. We're aiming for all the advantages of static typing, coupled with all the advantages of dynamic typing. For example, you use the same types all the way from DB schemas to API validation.

Re: We'll pay you $3000/mo to build your startup on Dark

#90

Post by CamTin » Tue, Apr 10, 2018, 6:45 PM UTC

rapsey wrote: post #80

sjm-lbm wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, even if what they are promising is only economically viable as a proof of concept, it's probabally still better than the "overengineer a system that nobody ever actually uses" situation that's pretty much the norm now.

No I think locking yourself into financial servitude to some entity is just about the dumbest thing you can do. If you fail you wasted time getting experience not applicable elsewhere, if you succeed they will bleed you dry.

If you succeed, you have some blood in you, and can work on V2 architecture on some other cloud or in your own cage at a DC. This seems like a good bargain for a business that is validating whether they can make money at all, especially a VC-backed startup that is fine with burning cash to prove a concept. Seems like something in-between totally-infinitely-scalable-and-portable-bulletproof-infra and "fake it with spreadsheets and manual work".