Re: [WebDNA] a major shift in strategy?
This WebDNA talk-list message is from 2008
It keeps the original formatting.
numero = 101098
interpreted = N
texte = Hi, I think you're talking a lot of sense, for WebDNA to have a long term future, it needs to reach a much wider audience. One of the things that is obstacle to new users trying WebDNA as a scripting language is that it you have to install it on a webserver to try it, the previous suggestion of having a bootable CD is good but you'd be distributing the OS at the same time which might have legal problems and it's not instant, you'd have to wait to receive your CD. From the few small Mac apps that I've written I can tell you that just a web form will deter about 50% of users from downloading a trial version. Filling in a form to receive a cd in the post would deter them further, everything has to be instant now if you want to make money. Why not have a standalone version that can be downloaded? It could serve pages on a port like 8080 and could be used for writing your own applications that ran in a web browser. Webmasters who liked it might then go to the trouble of installing it on a server and the rest of us could use it to develop code locally before making it live. Regards, Colin Sidwell Worcester UK Olin Lagon wrote: > Aloha all, I love WebDNA. Why? Creating, managing, extending, modifying, > searching and editing databases is about as easy as it gets. It's so easy > that most projects can do just fine without any database administrator. It's > not the scripting language. The scripting language is decent but definitely > not as feature rich or community supported as other options. I don't think I > am alone. I think there are tons of developers that are interested in using > something even easier than mysql than there are developers that will switch > to a relatively obscure language. Plus competing with the open source > alternatives is near suicide. Every day you'll see cool stuff about the > other langs. For instance, host a 5 million hits per day site for free in > Google's cloud with the potential to scale your app to any size (python for > now with other langs to follow); handle 25,000 connections at any given time > with only 256 threads (resin running php/java); etc. > > So, anyone got thoughts on the following strategy: > > 1. The pitch could be to dump your database admin. Not needed. Save the > $100K+ per year for trips to Hawaii for the rest of the team. The system > empowers developers with virtually no database skills to get up to speed > pretty quickly. > > 2. Have a web based interface to completely manage databases that blows > phpmyadmin way out of the water. The interface should also have a query > builder so folks getting started and build queries visually. This tool > creates, manages, edits, deletes, merges, etc. databases. Have a sandbox > folks can play with online. > > 3. Create a version of the software that essentially runs the dbserver and > is callable via common languages (php, python, java, ruby, .net, etc.) in > ways that is much easier than traditional calls to a sql based server. Who > cares if they buy the system for the db and not use the rest of the > scripting language! > > This strategy essentially positions webdna as an alternative, a simple easy > to use alternative, to mysql. The market potential is then massive. > Marketing could have fun with the PC v Mac parodies (mysql v webdna). > > I am not confident continuing on the path of making webdna better could > result in marketplace success. Fixing bugs and adding features supports the > small group still using the product and in my opinion without marketing > genius and more lady luck than most of us have ever been graced with, the > masses will not come over. However, who wouldn't want to try out a scrappy > piece of software that promises to empower the developers to wrestle the db > themselves! > > Oh, one last thought. You should be able to get a team together using > odesk.com pretty quickly. I've used a few contractors found on the site that > had tons of experience with ANSI C code. > > I'm happy to write/help write a completely modern db admin. > > Laters, Olin > > --------------------------------------------------------- > This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to > the mailing list
. > To unsubscribe, E-mail to: > archives: http://mail.webdna.us/list/talk@webdna.us > old archives: http://dev.webdna.us/TalkListArchive/ >
Associated Messages, from the most recent to the oldest:
Hi, I think you're talking a lot of sense, for WebDNA to have a long term future, it needs to reach a much wider audience. One of the things that is obstacle to new users trying WebDNA as a scripting language is that it you have to install it on a webserver to try it, the previous suggestion of having a bootable CD is good but you'd be distributing the OS at the same time which might have legal problems and it's not instant, you'd have to wait to receive your CD. From the few small Mac apps that I've written I can tell you that just a web form will deter about 50% of users from downloading a trial version. Filling in a form to receive a cd in the post would deter them further, everything has to be instant now if you want to make money. Why not have a standalone version that can be downloaded? It could serve pages on a port like 8080 and could be used for writing your own applications that ran in a web browser. Webmasters who liked it might then go to the trouble of installing it on a server and the rest of us could use it to develop code locally before making it live. Regards, Colin Sidwell Worcester UK Olin Lagon wrote: > Aloha all, I love WebDNA. Why? Creating, managing, extending, modifying, > searching and editing databases is about as easy as it gets. It's so easy > that most projects can do just fine without any database administrator. It's > not the scripting language. The scripting language is decent but definitely > not as feature rich or community supported as other options. I don't think I > am alone. I think there are tons of developers that are interested in using > something even easier than mysql than there are developers that will switch > to a relatively obscure language. Plus competing with the open source > alternatives is near suicide. Every day you'll see cool stuff about the > other langs. For instance, host a 5 million hits per day site for free in > Google's cloud with the potential to scale your app to any size (python for > now with other langs to follow); handle 25,000 connections at any given time > with only 256 threads (resin running php/java); etc. > > So, anyone got thoughts on the following strategy: > > 1. The pitch could be to dump your database admin. Not needed. Save the > $100K+ per year for trips to Hawaii for the rest of the team. The system > empowers developers with virtually no database skills to get up to speed > pretty quickly. > > 2. Have a web based interface to completely manage databases that blows > phpmyadmin way out of the water. The interface should also have a query > builder so folks getting started and build queries visually. This tool > creates, manages, edits, deletes, merges, etc. databases. Have a sandbox > folks can play with online. > > 3. Create a version of the software that essentially runs the dbserver and > is callable via common languages (php, python, java, ruby, .net, etc.) in > ways that is much easier than traditional calls to a sql based server. Who > cares if they buy the system for the db and not use the rest of the > scripting language! > > This strategy essentially positions webdna as an alternative, a simple easy > to use alternative, to mysql. The market potential is then massive. > Marketing could have fun with the PC v Mac parodies (mysql v webdna). > > I am not confident continuing on the path of making webdna better could > result in marketplace success. Fixing bugs and adding features supports the > small group still using the product and in my opinion without marketing > genius and more lady luck than most of us have ever been graced with, the > masses will not come over. However, who wouldn't want to try out a scrappy > piece of software that promises to empower the developers to wrestle the db > themselves! > > Oh, one last thought. You should be able to get a team together using > odesk.com pretty quickly. I've used a few contractors found on the site that > had tons of experience with ANSI C code. > > I'm happy to write/help write a completely modern db admin. > > Laters, Olin > > --------------------------------------------------------- > This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to > the mailing list . > To unsubscribe, E-mail to: > archives: http://mail.webdna.us/list/talk@webdna.us > old archives: http://dev.webdna.us/TalkListArchive/ >
Colin Sidwell
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