Design and Development

IE6 (also affectionately called Internet Exploder by some) has been a huge burden on the web as a whole for several years now. While the average web consumer might not notice it, the ubiquity of IE6 has forced web developers and designers to jump through many arbitrary hoops in the past to support the non-compliant browser.

This has meant that precious development and design resources over the last several years have been slaving away at making IE6 look good, instead of focusing on making web sites/apps/designs work better. This also has meant that one major strength of the web (portability) was hampered by the need to address a specific platform.

The good news is, several companies are beginning to drop support for IE6, in favor of more recent browsers, most recently Google. This is not surprising for Google as they have been pushing alternative browsers like Firefox and, more recently Chrome for a while now.

For web developers, this comes as great news - there is now a major web player moving the masses away from IE6, which hopefully accelerates the adoption of newer generation browsers.

For Ronin, we’ve never really supported IE6 to begin with and we’ve seen no reason to really bother with bending over backwards to begin supporting IE6 now that it’s hopefully on its way to the grave. Analysis of our traffic shows that only 16% of our traffic comes from Internet Explorer, and of that 16%, roughly 20% use IE6.

The chart on the left shows that the majority of our users prefer Firefox and the rest use Safari. Surprisingly, this doesn’t mean most of our users are on Macs - instead, Firefox/Windows is still the most popular combination.

This certainly has to do with our audience. We primarily attract high-tech professionals (whether its freelancers, design firms, small businesses) and with that tech-savvy crowd comes the preference for newer, more standards-compliant browsers. In fact, it would be a lie if I told you we didn’t have this fact in mind when we first started Ronin.

Here’s to a new year and leaving behind old worries!

I feel like today is the day after the lottery for all of web 2.0. You know, the day where you look down on your ticket comparing your numbers to last night’s numbers. Then you sigh. Game over. You just lost your dollar.

Oh wait, but I forgot, the lottery is for under-educated poor folk who are desperate to get rich. What’s the difference between that and the game the Silicon Valley has been playing for the last 2 years? What’s the difference the lottery and the game played in the early 2000’s? From all of this web 2.0 stuff, we’ve basically learned that the exceptions (Google, Youtube, Facebook) got rich, while the rest got/are getting shafted.

However, when one door closes, another one opens.

First, this is a great opportunity for businesses with legitimate, sustainable models to separate themselves from the rest of the pack. More signal, less noise for all of us. Similarly, this is an opportunity for those with unique talents to find themselves in smaller, leaner, more efficient teams. At the end of the day this will reward responsible companies that curb spending and reduce burn-rates.

Second, the opportunities for areas outside of consumer web space finally have a chance to shine. No more showing up for VC pitches only to be asked, “does it come with a Facebook app?”. Companies that focus on selling actual products with actual price tags will be rewarded.

Third, for developers, a whole new world of viable alternatives opens up. The Rails community seems to be happy about the opportunities present in the downturn. However, there is no better time to start your own indie developer shop. For example, maybe it’s time to start desktop development again - the market for Mac software products grows with each day, and incumbent developers will tell you there is a lot of money to be made.

At the end of the day, jobs will be lost, families with be affected, and people will have to search for their own answers. But, we just have to keep our heads up and look for that next open door.

I’ve been a part of quite a few startups with varying degrees of involvement. I’ve been a part of them, studied them, worked for them, observed my friends involved in them, heck, even started them. I’ve watched them grow, watched them plateau, watched them die. If I had to distill my entire experience with start-ups into one rule of thumb, it is that start-up life is a roller coaster. A manic-depressive roller coaster.

No seriously. You are not ready.

Paul Graham writes:

One minute you’re going to take over the world, and the next you’re doomed. The problem with feeling you’re doomed is not just that it makes you unhappy, but that it makes you stop working

This cliche metaphor about roller-coasters is not news for anyone who’s read anything about the scene - it pretty much goes in one ear and out the other for the entrepreneur. However, I find it only really hits people hard when they get a taste of the roller-coaster of emotions first-hand.

I’ll be the first to admit that I had very little understanding of just what this roller-coaster feels like. When I was 17, I had my first experience at “entrepreneurship” building a small Windows application that was simple music production tool. In retrospect, it didn’t stand a chance, but I was young.

At the time, it was project of love. I didn’t necessarily want it to become a business - I just wanted people to like it. But, I think somewhere along the way, ambition snuck-in and turned it into more than just fun. I would devote time every day to working on my code. I would scour the internet seeking best-practice advice from peers twice my age. I would dream about features to be added in between classes. I would gather feedback from close friends - all in a very self-assuring feedback loop. Being young, every line of code, every keystroke, was fueled with “what ifs” - tell-tale signs of foolhardy ambition.

What-ifs are always escalating. What if my friends really love my app? What if it gets the attention of a small group of people? What if garners the adoration of hundreds of users? Thousands? Tens of thousands? What if people like it so much, I’d be able to pay for college just on software sales? Maybe even make a living off of it? Maybe it’ll make it big and I’ll strike it rich? Ah, the possibilities. The upwards roller-coaster was in full effect.

The way down is a lot less fun. It sucks. You begin doubting things. You begin to doubt your creativity, your reasoning, your abilities. You start to wonder if all that hard work you put in was worthless. The proverbial cloud is draped all over you for a long time and you begin to do more second-guessing than hacking. 

… And then something good happens. Either some new development arises or you’ve got a great new idea. Either way, you’re back on the roller-coaster.

Looking back on that experience (and the many between then and now), the greatest thing that came out of it was my growth as a person. I learned to appreciate the art of programming - setting me up for a future in computer science and software engineering. I learned to appreciate balancing personal life, with project life, with school life, and what eventually became career life. I learned that the rewards for writing software can be at a personal level - almost spiritual. I learned that the roller-coaster ride is tough. These learnings are constant; they’re everlasting. Good lessons are roller-coaster free.

The reality is, your wildest imaginations about the possibilities for your projects never come true. This is especially true in the current Silicon-Valley start-up climate. Everyone thinks that with a few lines of code, they’re going to be the next Big Thing. Dream on. If you’re thinking you’ve got some secret sauce that will take you to the top in one shot, you are just waiting for that roller-coast drop to bite you in the ass.

Instead, get real. Get realistic. The best way to avoid the fall is to never let your head get in the clouds. Start projects on small ideas with the realization that the most you can ask of it is that you’ll enjoy working on it, that you’ll learn a lot about your craft and your own abilities, and that you have a very good shot creating something great for like-minded individuals. The greatest success will eventually come from a series of small steps. But that takes the realization that sometimes, the greatest success is not financial, but personal as well.

In an oft-quoted blog entry, Chris Wanstrath of GitHub writes:

I didn’t just walk out of high school, pick up a Ruby book, meet Tom and PJ, then launch the site GitHub.  Before GitHub came, in chronological order, Spyc, Ozimodo, my ozmm.org tumblelog, ftpd.rb, Choice, Err the Blog, acts_as_textiled, Cheat!, acts_as_cached, Mofo, Subtlety, cache_fu, Sexy Migrations, Gibberish, nginx_config_generator, fixture scenarios builder, Sake, Ambition, and Facebox.  And that’s just the stuff I released.

In About Us, I described that “we want to do something small, something important, and something really well”. That describes Ronin as a culmination of the ideas I’ve described. Ronin is not a roller-coaster ride. Ronin is a labor of love - not a shot at a billion dollar business. I only ask that it provide me with more learnings, more experiences, and good people to work with. I hope that idea resonates with both the people who enjoy Ronin as a product and the people who read this blog entry with ideas for projects of their own.