

Experimenting with creating web apps in the time it takes to write a blog post - chegra84
http://chestergrant.posterous.com/experimenting-with-creating-web-apps-in-the-t#

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martinshen
There are only a few web apps I think can be useful within this 3 hour
construct. I think it's much better to develop a web app that takes about a
weekend or maybe 2 to complete. You get something with a lot more value and
can truly extend your ideas outward. Furthermore, a weekend still provides the
construct of "fast."

Building a web app in 3 hours will leave you at best with something like
threewords.me or its clones. While those can go viral, they rely heavily on
luck. Why not spend 2 hours and build a beautiful and captivating launch page
for an idea that would take you a weekend or two to build. Then, spend 1 hour
reposting it everywhere and try to get feedback. This way, you can see if the
concept itself gets any traction.

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olegp
We would like to think it should be possible to create useful webapps in
Akshell within 3 hours and are working to create a set of libraries and
standard components to make this possible. See our (old) screencast for an
example: <http://vimeo.com/11831303>

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goblin89
While I agree that it's probably impossible to produce a whole web application
in 3 hours, I think the point here is more about incremental delivery_. Note
that in the post, OP is actually talking about 3-hour _features_ , not entire
apps (after step ‘show to people’ you can go back and develop another 3-hour
feature, if you like). And I doubt there exists a web application (or almost
any piece of software, really) that couldn't be developed this way.

.. _: <http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?IncrementalDelivery>

Problems, however, arise when your idea requires specific domain knowledge
which you haven't got yet; it's likely that you'll need some time to become
comfortable in this particular area. Though I doubt it should necessarily be
counted as time spent on app development.

And there's always some in-brain idea development. Say, you have an idea of
blogging via email. You cook this idea inside for a few days, working out some
details in background, then sit down, code for a three hours, and boom, you
have posterous. Then you see that people don't care about email blogging, but
they care about bells and whistles, so you sit another 3 hours and create
basic skinning support. It's better than when after two weekends on email-
blogging you discover that you were going in wrong direction. (Of course, I
know nothing about real Posterous development, I just tried to clarify.)

Also, I think it's generally useful to be able to produce something in 3
hours. You need to keep your tools hot & ready.

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jjm
This is a good exercise to help train yourself to strip out the less important
ideas/features. Do it enough and apply the new learnings toward a bigger
project.

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jp
I can make a sandwich in ten seconds. Am I a baker or someone who makes a
sandwich ?

