What is the nature of their relationship with Pivotal? Anyone know?
It is most likely a client relationship. Pivotal is big on getting their clients into their office so they can participate in the XP process.
Diaspora: One Month In
41–50 of 89 posts
Re: Diaspora: One Month In
#42So, if I'm reading this right, the servers will be totally distributed?
I don't care about a Facebook replacement so much as a totally distributed file-sharing system where trust and recommendations are based on my real-life friends. It seems like that could happen with this. Also, I think file-sharing is a great hook for the everyday Joe. And it's somewhere Facebook can't easily go.
Re: Diaspora: One Month In
#43What language are they using?
From the FAQ:
What language are you programming Diaspora in?
Ruby, with a bit of Rails and other Ruby frameworks thrown in.
Re: Diaspora: One Month In
#44Im excited to try it out.
Re: Diaspora: One Month In
#45One more thing I don't really understand -- what will Diaspora offer that other similar projects, already implemented don't already have? I'm talking the likes of Appleseed, PeerBook, PeerSoN, OneSocialWeb and Peerouette...
Re: Diaspora: One Month In
#46If you step back from the "hype", not to directly oppose the many views present on this board, and analyze their statements, it appears they have more reasons to fail than succeed. The most worrying thing I see is their reliance on pivotal labs. They mention it in passing, but it would appear that the 4 founders of diaspora have very little technical knowledge and have outsourced the majority of their code. They are…
I'm not quite sure what makes you say "the 4 founders...have very little technical knowledge and have outsourced the majority of their code."
Here's what I read,
After getting settled in ole San Fran, our first day at Pivotal Labs was June 7th. Not only has Pivotal lent us desks and monitors for the summer, they push us daily to drive development from the interface and focus on the experience, rather than providing just a tool for developers to hack on. Getting periodic help from Pivots has already been transformative on the outcome of Diaspora.
So Pivotal Labs, thanks for letting us use your stuff, eat your food, and for teaching us your agile ninja ways. We owe you one!
That doesn't sound like Pivotal is writing code for them. It sounds like Pivotal is (1) giving them (free?) space to work and (2) mentoring them regularly. The bits below what I quoted - where they talk about specific technology and features, say "we did this..." and "we are adding that..." Again, no implication of outsourcing.
My recollection was that they were NYU undergrads in CS. Why do you think they lack technical knowledge?
Re: Diaspora: One Month In
#47One more thing I don't really understand -- what will Diaspora offer that other similar projects, already implemented don't already have? I'm talking the likes of Appleseed, PeerBook, PeerSoN, OneSocialWeb and Peerouette...
honestly? I think it's hype and polish (then again, i've seen the other sites, and they aren't far away from good polish, so mostly hype).
edit: i'm not trying to make a comment about hype cycles -_- or how they are going to fail. i'm just Diaspora is pretty much those projects, but with the attention and money they all deserved at a time when they were (are?) most active.
Re: Diaspora: One Month In
#48... so when you post a message, it's like sending 300-400 messages to up to 300-400 servers?
Uh, yeah, that'll scale.
Re: Diaspora: One Month In
#49If you step back from the "hype", not to directly oppose the many views present on this board, and analyze their statements, it appears they have more reasons to fail than succeed. The most worrying thing I see is their reliance on pivotal labs. They mention it in passing, but it would appear that the 4 founders of diaspora have very little technical knowledge and have outsourced the majority of their code. They are…
The mention of Pivotal's support actually improved my outlook on this whole thing. It doesn't sound like they are outsourcing the code, it sounds like they are being mentored, and that Pivotal thinks this crazy thing could work.
Re: Diaspora: One Month In
#50I don't think this will catch on. Diaspora is too hard for people to say... ;)
I was surprised by the way the bloke in the video pronounced it actually, was thinking more dey-ah-spore-ah.
I think there is an argument for a simpler name, but at this stage it's hardly the most important factor.