What is Digg?45 Comments
- geoff8, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Have you not read the description? Here you go, read it again:
'Getting real, the book by 37signals is now available online for free. 97 Essays on building a Web 2.0 startup from the creators of Ruby on Rails.'
So, there is a book called Getting real, that is available online for free, it has essays on there about building a web 2.0 startup and its from the creators of Ruby on Rails. Oh, and its published by 37 signals? So I'm sorry, but how in any way possible is this inaccurate and/or spam? - ianapplegate, on 01/24/2009, -2/+14Fantastic! What did you expect - a 50mb PDF? It's fantastic that they have put the ENTIRE book in HTML for free; respect to 37 Signals; stop complaining the rest of you.
- StarCrusher, on 10/12/2007, -10/+19Did you read the article at all? The top of the very first page wants $19 for the download of the pdf or $29 for the hard print book. There are links for those options featured PROMINENTLY on the top of the first page of the article. There is no mention of a way to get the whole thing as a single file. You have to wade through the "free" book by reading the many sectioned html chapters. Next time, you might want to actually RTFA instead of commenting on the description.
- MalDON, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Hey, it's free online. Free works for me.
- Troopy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Link direct to free book read - http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php
- samuelcotterall, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Getting Real is the most important thing I have read in the last three years of my degree.
- ookami7m, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It does have some salt that should be attached but (and I'm digging you for thinking it out)
-Its not about "don't document" but more about "Don't spend a year writing a spec - just start working"
-Its not about "don't have a well formed scope document" its about "have constant communication because your scope will change as you work"
-It is about worrying about whether it was right later - the customers will tell you as they work
-If you keep your presentation simple - the functions to support it will be possible.
1)We use it here on projects small and large (6 month, 4 developer projects). It actually speeds the process up (less meetings, less time spec writing - more time coding and testing).
2)We don't have alot of repitition because as you go, you'll find things that are useful and reuse them - and refactor the code as you work to make it work in multiple places.
3)Nowhere does it talk about no testing - testing is a vital part of the process of development.
Getting Real is intended to be about building web apps (which are all graphical) but it is applicable in other places.
We use it to cut the fat out of the process because we don't see them as necessary evils. Our delivery time is spot on and we don't have any more maintenance than any other process. - eizooo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6at the first sight you seem to be right. currently it's impossible to live 37signals's 'get real' in a corporate environment. but maybe that's the reason why software products from bigger organizations suck. think of customized ERP solutions. is there anywhere innovation or great usability? no, just a pure mapping of business processes into software. or just look at websites and web apps of established bigger corps, is there any highlight? i think for accomplishing outstanding, innovative and quick results in web development 'get real's' approach is the only way to go
- grubesteak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I purchased the PDF to support 37 Signals since I use their free apps all the time (Basecamp and Ta-Da List). The material is down-to-earth and inspiring. It changed the way I looked at development and got me over a few humps I had.
Highly recommended (and Dugg!). - jebudas, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Oh My God! This isnt free! I have to click links to read it! And why doesnt it come with a free coca-cola and a bagel with cream cheese?!?
JK, I'm gonna read this thang! Thanks to the publishers... - Tyfud, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6These concepts should be taken with a grain of salt. Maybe more than one grain, but as a web developer in a corporate environment, the real challenges sometimes need to be put on hold and reformed into a better practice. To me, it seems like this is a lazy way to do things:
- Don't document heavily
- Don't rebuild all of your specs into a well formed scope document for other members of the team to refer to
- Do things rather than discuss doing things and worry about whether or not it was the right move to make later
- Build the final presentation layer before knowing if you can build the proper functions and architecture to support it
- etc
Seems like this might work for solo projects, or small team projects, but for any large project with 4+ people, this approach will most likely:
1.) Increase the time it takes to roll the product out
2.) Incite redevelopment of many functions that you'll be building as you go. Not knowing ahead of time what functions you'll need on which page, and what they return, you're unable to build your main shell of routines. So when you remember, halfway through coding, that you needed the another routine for handling this kind of data, you've got to go back and see how this impacts all of your other funcitons which were relying on that.
3.) Would probably make for a fairly buggy product with little to no unit testing
Unless you've got an application that's entirely driven by the UI, such as some graphical web applications, this overall seems like a poor method of development.
There's a reason why so many of us are not using these techniques in web development, it's not because we haven't thought about cutting some of the fat out of the process, it's becaues they're necessary evils to guarentee on time delivery and client satisfaction with the minimal amount of maintenence cycles. - csimpkins, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It took me a couple minutes to find the download on that page. The links look so much like Google AdSense that my brain kept completely ignoring that part of the page.
- wakaseoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3probably not spam, but definitely duplicate.
http://digg.com/programming/Getting_Real_by_37signals_now_free_online - neuralcooker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This shall make an interesting read. Great Digg. These guys actually make me enthusiastic about web design/programming again.
- Skuba, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Wow, I actually have the book in front of me right now. It's required reading for my User Interface Design course this term and we're discussing it today. It's an easy read and while it seems like it's mostly common sense, I feel like a lot of people still need it pointed out to them.
- geoncoder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3 Should be renamed to 'Get R Dun' , otherwise a good read with some interesting points. I would have to agree with some of the other posts that this may work for small projects but not necessarily for larger development with strict requirements.
- meshman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Look no further than the screen in front of your face."
You mean all these images and HTML code? That's been around for quite some time now. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This is a great site about design methodology and communicating design to engineers:
http://disambiguo.us
(also, a kinda cool url) - danz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3That's what I thought until I started to go though it... its kind of obvious stuff. They put it in 16 pt font to make it look like more data. Glad the online versionw as free I would be upset to spend $10 on this.
- neuralcooker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is a great read. Some good things to ponder for any type of developer. I like the format of quick little essays for each topic. It allowed me to have the book open in a browser and read an essay or two when I had some spare time. I read it over the course of a couple of days.
The quotes at the bottom of most of them link to other very interesting stuff, all very much in-line with the topics in the book. For this reason I'd say that the on-line version might actually be the best way to read this -- that is if you're into footnotes and that sort of thing like I am. Although pdf is probably great too. The whole format mirrors the ideas presented in the book very well. - eizooo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3great book great guy. a must read
- frink, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1wget -Emk http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php
- sembetu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Site Sucker FTW!
- htminh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1is this a must-read?
- mrwangkai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1did anyone went through the 'book'? is it helpful in terms of educating people how to build web-based applications?
- electronaught, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1samus: i'll bury you as inaccurate, i'm being serious tho. it is free to read online, if you want to jack the pdf why don't you just go find it on a torrent site.
- d03boy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2How to spel.
- rockrapdude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1if you are starting up then yes.otherwise no
- snappy316, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Really good book. Good points anyone doing anything to contribute to the internet should read this. That's why I dugg it.
However, this is old news...the PDF and Hard Copy's have been out for a long time, and the free HTML version has been out for several months. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I read the book a while back. It has been "free" for months.
- Vorsuc, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1I agree with this wholeheartedly.
When I first read this a while back, I had to take breaks from laughing so hard. This thing is so steeped in the 2.0 buzzword ***** that it is hard to take it seriously.
Sure, this approach may work for some and I don't doubt it helps smaller projects, but a decade of developing large scale applications can't make me shudder and have a seizure at the idea of developing from the UI up. While your average user might know what they need on their screen, they've no idea how the data relates or what needs to be stored. Re-developing your backend will impact those precious UI screens you've spent time developing, so where's the benefit beyond being able to get a 'show and tell' prototype out of the door faster?
'Getting Real', to me is a horribly flawed approach and I can't think of a single instance where it could have helped or make a project run smoother. I know however, advocates of it are only too happy to ram home how awesome it is, so clearly someone's getting something out of it. - niqhil, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Fund Yourself :(
- moveforward, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Developing for yourself is about like medicating stress with alcohol. It appears to be effective and efficient, but is hardly either. Short term solutions are problematic. User and market research pays for itself in the long run. 37 signals gets many things wrong in this book.
- randyzaia, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Don't I feel like a sucker for having bought the book.
- hablo4u, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2. . .he says while using digg. Look no further than the screen in front of your face.
- thewump, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2this book is awesome. It changed my business a while back.
- picto, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3What the hell is web 2.0?
- picto, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0@hablo4u
It was total sarcasm...I figured that would've been obvious. - classify12, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0These are good tutorials explaining the process of web applications in detail.
http://www.desiclassifieds.com - knowologist, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3Old, duplicate and innacurate...
The only fact that diserves to be mentioned is that it is being translated by community in other languages:
(number of chapters translated in parentheses):
Croatian (1)
Deutsch (1)
Español (6)
Francais (1)
Italiano (7)
Japanese (1)
Nederlands (7)
Norwegian (1)
Polish (1)
Portuguese-BR (16)
Romanian (1)
Russian (6)
Slovenský (1)
Anyway, the book rocks! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -16/+4since its 'free' someone post the PDF here, kthx.
to be serious tho, buried as inaccurate. - Stuntaneous, on 10/12/2007, -24/+1 s
- StarCrusher, on 10/12/2007, -35/+12Inaccurate and spam. Neither the book nor the PDF are free. You can read the book online in separated chapters in html form only.
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