

PenFM: Returning as an Engineer - neoveller
http://www.pen.fm/read/Returning-as-an-Engineer-PN1368383b7cd66bfc

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moe
Why do you squeeze your content into a tiny fraction of my preferred reading
size (the browser window)?

Instant close-tab.

~~~
holgersindbaek
Where do all you dickheads come from?

Try to give a little constructive feedback instead.

~~~
moe
I believe that was constructive. I told him that his layout decision severely
narrows his target audience.

~~~
holgersindbaek
THAT was constructive.

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dpritchett
What I got out of this:

1) This guy is a product/marketing _wizard_ and wins hackathons on the
regular. Recruit him for that rather than just for his JS skills.

2) His dad is a programmer, this to me greatly shades his "taught myself to
program respectably in six months" story. Still cool, but I am unsurprised to
find a supportive programmer in his life.

3) There is no three.

~~~
vidarh
What I got out of it was a demo of parts of his pen.fm interface (while there
are some rough edges, frankly most e-reader apps I've seen are substantially
worse than this...), in the form of a cute little story that illustrates how
different the reality of starting a company can be from how budding
entrepeneurs often picture it.

(I went at it from the opposite direction of this guy when I started my first
company: I could program, but had no clue about sales, marketing, finance or
any number of other things, but eventually found myself doing phone sales,
sales meetings, ordering print ads and negotiating with suppliers)

For the site in question it seems like re-introducing it by immersing us in
what it is about - writing stories - is a much more interesting approach than
throwing up some glossy brochure-ware site.

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bergdaemon
I've always had a soft spot for side-scrolling text layouts. I think the way
such layouts break "Skim-The-Page, Extract-the-Juice, Run-Away" behavior on
the web is interesting. It focuses one on the text; getting people focused on
a text is useful, if you want them to contribute to an ongoing story.

That said, the UI needs a lot of work -- obviously, because this is new and
different and rough. Finding ways to balance your UI's dualistic requirements
(reading vs writing) with the accessibility requirements of diverse writers on
diverse platforms is clearly going to be one of your major challenges going
forward. Good luck!

~~~
neoveller
Thank you!

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trustfundbaby
couldn't figure out how to get past the first page ... went away. Hopefully
people don't copy this horrible interface.

~~~
neoveller
I thought I made it clear how to navigate (why you would want to go to page 2
if you hadn't finished page 1?), but I guess you're right. I'm pushing
navigation arrow buttons live right now. Sorry about that--Internet connection
at my place is currently dying every minute. Pushing now!

~~~
jpatokal
Sorry, but if you need a paragraph of text to explain to your users how to
navigate, you're doing it wrong. The "individual tiny pages, turned one by one
so each has no context" metaphor, while a necessary evil for printed books, is
pointless and broken on the web.

Most Web users, especially those drinking from firehoses like HN, don't
actually _read_ pages end to end, they skim them looking for interesting bits
worth reading. This is why they're skipping page 1 without reading it, and
since your navigation system doesn't allow "skimming", you're seeing people
giving up in frustration.

Another way of looking at it: I still have no idea what pen.fm is trying to
do, and the only thing I'll remember about it is the broken navigation system.
This is probably not the first impression you want to give people.

~~~
neoveller
Good catch. Beta release will accomodate all the things then, including a
clean view that may or may not still include social feedback components.

Even more fun, the bigger scheme includes the ability to export these stories
directly on-demand to different e-reading formats (epub, mobi, pdf). So, if
you want PDF, you'll get it. With enough content in the network, we'll take on
content discovery in a big way so we make sure you don't waste your time
having to skim so much.

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Magenta
Awesome site. Just awesome. The page transitions and text reflow are
brilliant.

That big box on the right full of whatever that is (chat/twitter/whatever) is
just a void that not only doesn't interest me, but means what I am reading
(which is why I would be on the site if this wasn't a well-played usability
test ;) is off to the side. I guess you'll iron out these kinks as time goes
by, but yeah. That box on the right is just an ocean of who cares, to me.

Also there is a bug: when you are editing text in the chat box, it flicks
pages back and forth.

Anyway I'm off to donate to your IndieGoGo campaign. Good luck with the rest
of the project!

edit: had another look - I guess that box makes sense when you're
collaborating on a story, but pure reading mode might be good as a default?

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RobotCaleb
I've actually started implementing a similar idea several times since 2004. My
working title has always been Idea Novella. I envisioned it as kind of a
github for stories. People could work together to build up a story, and it
could take different branches as it progressed.

~~~
neoveller
What happened to it?

~~~
RobotCaleb
Nothing. That's the problem, really. :) I did get a little bit of interest
among friends, even had one get a seed story started.

I have other projects[0] keeping me busy these days. Maybe some day I'll
revive that dream.

[0] [http://robotrising.org/2012/09/operation-stratosphere-
overvi...](http://robotrising.org/2012/09/operation-stratosphere-overview-and-
history/)

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yannisp
It says chapters at the top of the page but I can't find any table of
contents. I want to skip between chapters without going through each page, am
I missing something or just a missing feature?

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incacurse
There appears to be a bug.

<http://imgur.com/LXYXx>

~~~
neoveller
Browser? Steps to repro?

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PommeDeTerre
Let's get serious, this is not "engineering" in any sense. It sounds like
pretty basic web development, with a very mild amount of back-end development.

The situation described here sounds more like assembling a prefabbed shed from
Home Depot. Yeah, something was built, but it doesn't make the builder an
"engineer".

~~~
neoveller
You're probably right. Better Home Depot (node w/ express) than IKEA (RoR). In
my defense, my full time positions labeled me an engineer. On that note, I
don't use any prebuilt front-end libraries.

