The Weekend Web App
I have this idea for a web application and I think with the right group (*cough* Mike and Colin who are extrememly busy) it could be done in a single weekend. Then I started to think about a lot of the web 2.0 apps out there now and I am starting to think that most of them could be done in a weekend and now I’m curious as to how long it took for these applications to be developed.
Also, why don’t you see more efforts from small groups to just have marathon sessions where they scratch an itch so to speak and pump something out? Hosting is basically free along with domain names so the only investment is time. I know time is a big thing for a lot of people, but if you can’t sacrifice enough hours to build something quickly then you have bigger fish to fry.
What happens if the application is a flop? Just move on and create another one. I’m sure this type of stuff happens all the time, but I never hear about it. Does anyone have any stories about these kinds of things? I think that would be totally awesome and a cool kind of geek rush.
Of course I don’t code or design anymore so I would just be along for the ride on IM continually pressing refresh to see the progress of the project. But I can live with that.
It may take a weekend to create a proof-of-concept, technical demo for a web-app, but actually making a finished product out of it is quite another story.
You’ve got to work through the interface, test it with testing scripts, test it with people, make changes, repeat as necessary. Repeat a lot. And that only gets the app itself to a finished state… what about marketing it, etc?
You won’t know if the application is a flop or not until it flops (or doesn’t)… you could potentially waste a lot of work.
Prototypes however allow you to see that far-off shore more clearly.
So, definitely try rapidly prototype something, but don’t confuse a prototype with a viable product.
Note: I’m just at the end of an all-nighter here, this may make as much sense as hiring Slayer to play at a traditional church wedding.
By David Barrett on February 23, 2006 4:34 am
I’ve been working on a new app in PHP, (unfashionable I know) and the logic behind the app itself was completed in about three days.
Whats taken longer is the challenge laid down by the peeps at the Carson web apps summit to use good programming techniques - I’ve spent more time constructing a nice MVC framework in PHP than on the app itself, but with this framework, you could conceivably knock out an app in an afternoon.
By Ben on February 23, 2006 4:50 am
Hey Paul,
sure, a lot of those smaller Web 2.0 Applications can be done in three days, but just if you have a very good and bulletproof concept, so that a programmer can rush through it without questions. He always has to know what to do. But to build a concept like this you need very experienced people who are aware of every tiny detail of this Application.
So, I think there is more need for a good concept than programmers to build a cool Application on a weekend. Sure, effective programming techniques can help a lot, but I think the concept is more important than that.
Excuse my English, I’m not a native speaker.
By Marcel Fahle on February 23, 2006 5:25 am
I think it’d be interesting to hear what applications you reckon could be done in a weekend. Personally I’d be hard pressed to find just one.
Sure getting a “real” closed-for-friends-only-alpha could probably be done in a weekend for many applications, however taking it from there to a polished, usable, publically facing application is going to take a lot longer in my experience.
By Jakob S on February 23, 2006 5:47 am
Jakob, I think Paul means a no sleep, caffeine filled weekend…
By Jamsi on February 23, 2006 6:24 am
Yeah, I realize that, and I imagine doing just that would result in an app that needs longer crunchtime afterwards. Quality is bound to detoriate. At least, that’s my guess.
By Jakob S on February 23, 2006 6:26 am
Did you somehow manage to miss the 300+ projects that were launched with RailsDay last year? (A full app in 24 hours). There were some amazing projects created in that timeframe, so there’s no shortage of the how.
I think the issue becomes more than when developers are in control of their own app, a weekend is never enough because they’re never satisfied. They want it to be perfect.
By Kyle on February 23, 2006 9:43 am
First does an app have to have all the features you want before you can show some people? I don’t think it does and no I don’t mean a whole, online secure banking service in one weekend. However, I do think you can catch on to something by just showing a little bit of it.
Kyle: Thanks for the headsup on RailsDay. That’s the kind of stuff I am talking about.
By Scrivs on February 23, 2006 9:53 am
I believe that most organizations, and individuals are too busy sawing to stop and sharpen their saw. It’s amazing what results you get when you stop, take a step back, and look at what you’re doing from a distance. I was facinated by a video I saw about a company called Ideo.
http://www.ideo.com/media/nightline.asp
That’s not the whole thing, but it’s the first couple minutes. In this video they completely redesigned a shopping cart, a design that hasn’t changed since… well I don’t know, I’m 35 and can’t remember it ever being any different! It’s interesting to think about all the stuff out there that nobody even thinks about anymore, we just accept it as normal. I think that if more companies behaved like Ideo, the world would be a much different place.
Jim
http://www.humanbeingcurious.com
By Jim Caruthers on February 23, 2006 11:12 am
Sadly, many people don’t see the long-term benefits of doing work like this. They see the immediate returns of doing “the same thing” and don’t want to risk leaving the nest.
If folks would be willing to turn down some money in the short term to work on innovation, the internet as well as the entire world would be completely different.
By P.J. Onori on February 23, 2006 11:54 am
Scrivs,
So what is this idea you want to do in a weekend?
If its a good idea, I’ll volunteer a weekend of my design services in exchange for partial ownership of the project.
By Brian Breslin on February 23, 2006 12:10 pm
Funny you ask that Brian because I was going to make a proposal in the 9r forums about a shared ownership type of thing. Maybe I will just do a general one here on WS once I get the details ironed out.
By Scrivs on February 23, 2006 12:27 pm
Scratching that itch is one of the reasons I created artypapers.com and its underlying framework. For example, in a little over one weekend I wrote the Mix/ (http://www.artypapers.com/mix/) app to experiment with Amazon web services and have some design fun. But it was just me so I didn’t have to coordinate with a team or anything like that, I just sort of went nuts. It never really caught on and some of those who have used it have posted a lot of crap data, but I don’t regret the time I spent on it.
The problem isn’t building an app that you can easily discard, the problem is building an app that gets popular. That initial weekend time investment could become miniscule compared to what you’ve committed yourself to in terms of dealing with feature requests, criticism and support — which will suck time away and make those free-wheeling weekends of power coding a thing of the past.
By R. Marie Cox on February 23, 2006 12:31 pm
Sure, you could build an app in a weekend, but if you don’t put in the months of business work to make it popular, you might as well not even bother.
By Christian Montoya on February 23, 2006 1:33 pm
For our app we had the initial “proof of concept” in a few hours but all the little things really take alot of time like forgot password or signup emails or cross browser support. there are always a ton of little things which seem to take 80% of the time. The bulk of the project or the core seems to take the least time and is the most fun.
By Derek on February 23, 2006 1:41 pm
Christian (and the others with similar comments)
I think it depends on the app… if you’re looking to create something that people will flock to, love and start using the Monday after eh… probably not.
But if you have a itch (itches tend to be personal) and you want a simple solution there is no reason (given reasonable knowledge and ability) that you couldn’t spend a focused weekend and hammer something out that would work for you. and if it works for you, why wouldn’t it work for someone else? Perfectly? probably not. but then you have something concrete to play with.
By sunshine on February 23, 2006 3:20 pm
I’d also offer my services for that :) Sounds like it would be fun. I’ve been wanting to do this recently but I’ve been lacking an idea (though I’ve also been lacking time unfortunately). I’ve got a few things down: PHP, XHTML,CSS, and some Javascript (and AJAX techniques). And I’m in Tampa. That’s worth something, right? :)
By Joe Clay on February 23, 2006 4:20 pm
Paul,
Creating an app and going all out for a weekend (I think it takes a week though) isn’t a bad idea. The hard part is keeping programmers programming after there is some public interest shown. A weekend demo is one thing, but staying on for the details, boring stuff, bugs, and support is another thing. With some quality leadership and seriously dedicated workers, it’s a sound idea.
By Chris Campbell on February 23, 2006 6:52 pm
A weekend? No way. I agree with most comments that the concept is key, and it takes a lot of time to figure it out to the point where it looks easy. Simplicity is hard to achieve.
By Oliver Reichenstein on February 23, 2006 10:32 pm
I wrote the backend code for blog network list in about 30 hours total - including the admin backend. It’s all in PHP/MySQL. If I had a whole free weeekend, no wife, and lots of caffeine, I suppose I could have conceivably completed the whole thing in a weekend.
– Matt
By Matt on February 23, 2006 11:14 pm
Scrivs, I am willing to throw some interface design, CSS/XHMTL and Javascript at whatever you are cooking up.
In design school, we would have these weekend blitzes called charrettes where we had to tackle seemingly huge projects in 48 hours. The one that I last participated in we had to redesign local whole foods co-op from the ground up… architecture, signage, packaging, interior, register layout, the works. It is very fun and engaging. Not everything is polished, but the raw stuff that will emerge is more than enough to work with.
Keep us posted!
By John Peele on February 23, 2006 11:38 pm
Scrivs,
I too might be willing to donate a weekend of time for a partial cut.
portfolio here (all PHP sites ATM but we have 5 ongoing RoR projects right now…)
http://www.masterwebdesign.net
By Dallas Pool on February 24, 2006 8:30 pm
For the record, I dont think Scrivs is suggesting that you endure the entire development process in 48 hours from concept-code-launch…
I think instead he is suggesting that after the initial planning is completed, and a good engineering background has been compiled, that most projects could be *coded* in that amount of time with the tools available.
I’m about to test this theory myself on several projects were working on.
By Dallas Pool on February 24, 2006 8:33 pm
I am working on a program with JAVA. I know, it has nothing to do with web programming, but I guess the process is always the same. We first start with a deapth outline of how and what our program will be like. Afterwards, prototyping and then programming. I might be a slow worker, but all this in 1 single weekend is hardcore! :)
By Guk on February 25, 2006 12:52 pm
BTW, I’d like to mention that a friend an I coded a shopping cart application in a week, and we only spent two real days on it. It worked well enough for us to display it. We could’ve finished it in a weekend. Of course polishing it would take longer.
By Joe Clay on February 25, 2006 9:03 pm
I think too many of you are thinking of building an ERP system in a weekend. You don’t think you could build Tada list type of thing in a weekend? Maybe not all the functionality or the beauty would be in there, but that would just take a couple more iterations.
By Scrivs on February 27, 2006 12:10 pm
Scrivs, what’s up with your comments? I had a second comment on this thread, it disappeared, and now the number of comments here are fluctuating up and down.
Anyway, I still am up for being involved in a weekend web project.
By Brian Breslin on March 9, 2006 11:31 am
I might have accidently deleted your comment during the great spam cleanup of March 2006. Sorry Brian.
By Scrivs on March 9, 2006 11:34 am
I make web applications for a living. I can testify that some I can pump out in less than a work day while others are very complex and deserve and demand much more effort.
I build database backends to websites and in many ways this is much easier than the stand alone web application after a few 100 sites.
Now, the other end of this is what does the USER need .. not want. And, is the developer minimalizing the choices and functions to achieve the desired results? Can it be made more idiot proof? Better GUI? Better size/color/intuition… there is still lots to polish.. eternally ..
Keep codin’
May your box never crash!
Thanks for the blog!
Mark
By mark rabin on March 21, 2006 5:06 pm