Aaron Swartz: Perfectionism (and his new startup, Jottit) • Hacker News Board

Re: Aaron Swartz: Perfectionism (and his new startup, Jottit)

#31

Post by oditogre » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 7:41 PM UTC

rms wrote: post #28

http://beta.jottit.com/

http://beta.jottit.com/8dw3p/

http://HowDoesJottitFormattingWork.jottit.com (same site in theory...doesn't seem to be working, though.)

Anybody know of where you can get more instructions on how to use it?

Handy for throwing together a random anonymous blog, I guess. Ad-supported, I assume?

Re: Aaron Swartz: Perfectionism (and his new startup, Jottit)

#32

Post by rms » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 7:48 PM UTC

oditogre wrote: post #31

rms wrote: post #28

http://beta.jottit.com/

http://beta.jottit.com/8dw3p/ http://HowDoesJottitFormattingWork.jottit.com (same site in theory...doesn't seem to be working, though.) Anybody know of where you can get more instructions on how to use it? Handy for throwing together a random anonymous blog, I guess. Ad-supported, I assume?

Right, I'm sorry, I deleted your site. Why the hell could I delete your site?

edit: It's still there in history to be reverted.

Re: Aaron Swartz: Perfectionism (and his new startup, Jottit)

#33

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 7:50 PM UTC

rms wrote: post #32

oditogre wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://beta.jottit.com/8dw3p/ http://HowDoesJottitFormattingWork.jottit.com (same site in theory...doesn't seem to be working, though.) Anybody know of where you can get more instructions on how to use it? Handy for throwing together a random anonymous blog, I guess. Ad-supported, I assume?

Right, I'm sorry, I deleted your site. Why the hell could I delete your site? edit: It's still there in history to be reverted.

[deleted]

Re: Aaron Swartz: Perfectionism (and his new startup, Jottit)

#34

Post by oditogre » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 7:53 PM UTC

rms wrote: post #32

oditogre wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://beta.jottit.com/8dw3p/ http://HowDoesJottitFormattingWork.jottit.com (same site in theory...doesn't seem to be working, though.) Anybody know of where you can get more instructions on how to use it? Handy for throwing together a random anonymous blog, I guess. Ad-supported, I assume?

Right, I'm sorry, I deleted your site. Why the hell could I delete your site? edit: It's still there in history to be reverted.

Mmm, I didn't know the history button was there, and it only looks like it saves so many revisions. No biggie tho, I rebuilt it. Not sure why you can edit anybody's site. Could be fun in some ways I guess. Mental note for future, tho: Keep a copy in a .txt file...

And I just noticed...it didn't give a username for your edit. Can it be edited by literally -anyone-, member or not?

--Nevermind. You can set that up in the setting. The defaults are somewhat curious.

Re: Aaron Swartz: Perfectionism (and his new startup, Jottit)

#35

Post by gscott » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 7:56 PM UTC

A previous company I worked for split in two, one half took on an online training site project and my half built an online website development system. The half that did the training site all hated me because I code by the seat of my pants, sometimes put out work that needed a tweak or two and I wasn't there because I was just up for 24 hours writing it. They took 6 months designing and mapping out there project, they took another 6 months to build it and by the time they were done they had 3 months of money left to make it successful and thus went out of business while my side is still going strong 6 years later. I don't exactly advocate treating users like beta testers, but if you can`t find any more errors put it out, fix anything you didn't find that gets reported by the users, then move on.

Re: Aaron Swartz: Perfectionism (and his new startup, Jottit)

#36

Post by ph0rque » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 8:01 PM UTC

hmm... how about a compromise: release early, release often, keep things as simple as possible, but get those details perfect.

Re: Aaron Swartz: Perfectionism (and his new startup, Jottit)

#37

Post by omouse » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 8:03 PM UTC

far33d wrote: post #20

palish wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a perfectionist doesn't mean you make perfect things. However, perfectionism requires perfect taste for success. It feels like there are two forms of design: "release early and release often" and "release it perfectly". Very few people have the taste necessary to find success in the latter.

Good point - "release early, release often" is also a quest to perfectionism, but is a public quest. You have your users determine what is perfect, what directions to go in. Holding something to yourself until it is "perfect" is a solo quest. You may spend too much time on the wrong things and no time on the right things. But you also won't release something that is completely broken.

"You may spend too much time on the wrong things and no time on the right things."

Aha, now we know what to call that solo quest for perfection: premature optimization.

Re: Aaron Swartz: Perfectionism (and his new startup, Jottit)

#38

Post by joshwa » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 8:04 PM UTC

nirs wrote: post #30

rms wrote: post #28

http://beta.jottit.com/

Looks a lot like infogami, just more broken :-)

or like backpack, but with the default permissions reversed (he even stole some copy from backpack)

Re: Aaron Swartz: Perfectionism (and his new startup, Jottit)

#39

Post by philh » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 8:05 PM UTC

What's the difference between "adding a feature" and "improving the site"?

I always took them to be the same thing. In that sense, you're either adding a feature or you're stagnating. (Or, I suppose, going backwards.)

Re: Aaron Swartz: Perfectionism (and his new startup, Jottit)

#40

Post by omouse » Fri, Aug 31, 2007, 8:06 PM UTC

nirs wrote: post #30

rms wrote: post #28

http://beta.jottit.com/

Looks a lot like infogami, just more broken :-)

Yeah, I don't get why he would want to try with this again. Why doesn't he focus on web.py and promoting it? That would be much more fulfilling than creating a wiki/note-jotting site.