We're building the next generation of native mobile app creation. We dabble in iOS (RubyMotion/Objective-C), Android (Java), JavaScript (Backbone), and Rails, and are solving Really Tough problems across the board.
We also do tons of open source work (https://github.com/usepropeller), and we're anxious to share even more of the tech we build with the community.
If what we're up to sounds interesting and you want to know more, shoot me a message at clay at usepropeller.com
Thanks! Probably need more specifics on your concerns, but tapping back/dismiss should work as expected; Routable does have a `pop`[1] method, which will either pop the navigation stack or dismiss the visible modal controller. There's a configuration object for handeling transition and presentation options[2].
If any of that should be changed, definitely open an issue on the repo and we'll fix it
Nothing's necessarily wrong with them; but if you want to dynamically change the action of say a button from your server, then URL routing gives you a single string-based mechanism vs. writing some serpentine Intent creation logic in that method.
Guys, this is an under-informed and reactionary post, which grossly simplifies the situation in a way that is insulting to Dropbox, TechCrunch/AOL, CrunchFund, and the Mailbox/Orchestra team. It's also kind of upsetting that this post is at the top of HN and getting a kind of froth-at-the-mouth reaction that it is.
It's well-known and indeed massively controversial[1] that there's a CrunchFund/TechCrunch conflict. Arrington left TechCrunch because of his desire to return to investing about a year ago[2], after the short stint at doing both journalism and investing in parallel. According to CrunchBase, this was coincidentally the same month that CrunchFund invested in Orchestra[3]. Both he and MG returned in October 2012[4], but both have hardly written any TC pieces since then. Why? Probably because they're quite busy with their day jobs running CrunchFund.
Additionally, on many posts with CrunchFund conflicts, they have been called out at the end of each article (see http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/30/andreessen-horowitz-adds-je...). They probably have been a bit lax about that as of late since the CrunchFund guys aren't really involved in TC (compared with the often torrential output of most other staff writers).
TechCrunch coverage did probably get Mailbox some users, and CrunchFund as a VC probably did add some value to their company, but the effects and importance of TechCrunch itself are wildly overstated. Probably more important is that the Mailbox/Orchestra team is top notch at making incredible mobile products (Orchestra won one of Apple's Top App award in 2011 http://blog.orchestra.com/orchestra-is-productivity-app-of-2...), had hundreds of thousands of active users within a very short amount of time (with only a tiny insignificant fraction of those coming from TC), and Dropbox can probably provide a better home for a lot of the Really Hard problems with email at that kind of scale.
Like I get why OP seems alarmed, but it's pretty naive to think that TechCrunch matters in any important way to the success or financial outcome of a company. Just read about the "TechCrunch pop"[5]; their users rarely not stay with or give lasting value to a product. If you want to belittle the astounding accomplishments of the Mailbox team, at least don't pick something like TechCrunch to do it over.
>" in a way that is insulting to Dropbox, TechCrunch/AOL, CrunchFund, and the Mailbox/Orchestra team"
Arrington is a jerk and MG is a talentless shill. They're both "right place, right time" guys who strut around with undeserved influence. I care little about insulting Techcrunch/AOL or Crunchfund.
When banks do things like this, we call for heads. When it's SV personalities, we're apologists.
>"Arrington left TechCrunch because of his desire to return to investing about a year ago"
You say left, I say forced out, because there was an obvious conflict of interest.
>" Probably more important is that the Mailbox/Orchestra team is top notch at making incredible mobile products"
That's nice. I suppose we'll agree to disagree that a company that built an app that sits on gmail is worth $100MM.
It embarrasses me to see comments like this getting upvoted on HN. There is no information in it, just inflammatory language. When this sort of comment prevails on HN, we'll have sunk to the ground state of forums.
No information? There are people around this world and on this site who haven personal experience dealing with Mr. Arrington and/or have followed his antics for years. He's stirred up a bunch of unecessary drama, some much like has been brought against him. Remember his backroom VC deals series? Or accusing Leo Laporte of giving the Pre a positive report as a favour? That's real karma. I assume that some of the people who have upvoted my comment have, like myself, determined him to be someone I refuse to be bothered with. Certainly not bothered enough to feel sorry for him when accused of impropriety. He was a pretty good tech blogger who used his influence and money to become a VC. I see no reason to respect his work in the latter, especially when it can be tied to a possible conflict of interest.
Understand the context of my comment: that we should be forbidden from "insulting" these people or companies. By suggesting there is some conflict of interest between their investment fund and companies that they cover? I whole-heartedly disagree with that. I think the way this is heading, with tech influencers, journalists and VC's intermingling, is bad. I guess that isn't as easy to agree with when you are a tech influencer, journalist or VC, or rely on one of these people. Luckily, I'm not and don't.
As far as MG, information on his talents needs be nothing more than a perusal of his Techcrunch work. Judge for yourself. If this is the baseline for "good" tech writing, then the business is in a world of hurt. Writing over and over about the same few companies with shoddy analysis doesn't cut it for me. And if you read the comments that follow nearly every one of his old Techcrunch articles, you'd see I'm not alone, by any means. I guess not being able to say he sucks goes hand-in-hand with giving everyone a trophy at sporting events.
The low of the state of the forums will be when we aren't allowed to speak our minds because we're edited out by the tech powers-that-be-- the Arringtons, the Sarah Lacey's-- and all the sites are not real journalism, but VC mouthpieces. That's where the "echo-chamber" meme comes from. Do you think that's a good end game? That's what we're talking about here.
I subscribe to broken windows theory and think we should discourage any instance of sarcasm, adhom, and other inappropriate methods of arguing, no matter how small, so that larger transgressions look awfully out of place. It would help if you updated the rules with explicit ban on those things. It might also help to have a sort of discourse police - mods should not only ban for bad behavior but make it publicly visible.
Well. while I absolutely find these comments to be unhelpful, it's definitely not a good idea to censor comments or explicitly ban them. I'd like to think that we can filter out these comments by the community downvoting them rather than PG doing it himself. It should be a democratic process.
HN is not a democracy, and it's not an open forum (whatever that means). It never was. If censoriousness drives users away... well, maybe that is itself a solution to a problem.
Features that make HN disproportionately less attractive to the kinds of users who vote up comments like the one upthread sound like a good idea.
While what you say is true, how many posts have you seen along the lines of "why was foo hellbanned" or "why was this post killed?" I think people would be upset if the response was because I think that they are detracting from the site.
I don't like the way hellbanning works here, but that doesn't mean I'm going to pretend that crap like the TC/Mailbox Conspiracy comes from a minority we should protect, nor do I think hellban administration is a problem that needs to be fixed first.
I'm never surprised to see these sorts of comments even in discussion forums that I hold in high esteem, such as HN. As an engineer, I've seen pretty heated arguments about very silly things such as whose editor is better. These are generally very intelligent people, but are susceptible to cognitive dissonance. Rational discourse goes out the window at that point, because they're convinced they're right and it's impossible that other view points may be correct. It's part of the reason most of the world is still religious.
I bet you if there were down votes allowed on HN, this post would be about dead even, because tons of people probably disagree with him. But it's just the right sort of inflammatory comments that garners attention and get up votes too.
The question is, what kind of HN participant upvotes a comment like that?
After upvoting your comment, I will answer your question. It occurs to me, because of, um, examples I have seen, that sometimes a person who has no personal knowledge of what the underlying facts are (that is, whether TechCrunch is a good citizen of the Valley or a bad citizen shot through with conflicts of interest) may upvote a comment that appears to differ from the HN consensus just to bring that dissenting view to prominence in the discussion, the better to encourage people who know facts about the matter (pro or con) to speak to those facts. In any one thread, I have at most one upvote (or downvote) for each comment, so I'm never completely sure if I'm part of the thread consensus or part of a mistaken group of outliers if I vote in a thread where I don't post. In many threads, I plainly don't know enough to vote either up or down on disputed factual matters (and thus don't vote), but I try to read in lurk mode and learn something. Maybe some people who upvoted the offensive comment in this thread, whoever they were, were "upvoting for disagreement," just as some people submit articles for disagreement, Even though the consensus here is that submitting a story endorses a story, and upvoting a comment implies agreement with the comment, there are definitely some participants here who submit or who upvote to provoke critical comment from other participants.
clearly, there is no fair, well-defined measurement for 'bad comment', except for the number of upvotes and downvotes. if now votes themselves were voted, and in turn those were recursively voted; we would end up in a ridiculous web site where diversity does not prevail and majority suppresses minority.
I am done pretending that the diversity you're alluding to is valuable. It's not; it's toxic and stupid. Let this "minority" go crud up some other forum.
While I think there are objectively bad comments, the attitude you're taking towards them may be a little unfair. People may have some opinions that are objectively wrong that can be repaired through allowing their comments to be seen and having us tell them why they're wrong.
I don't care what you think is fair. People who write or promote indefensibly stupid comments could be penalized, and doing so would probably make the site better. Paul Graham should try that (or try doing it more).
"yes, your last few comments and aggressive attitude do not seem to be bright from any angle. you are unfortunately unable to discuss reasonably. Your karma makes me afraid of HN in general; you must be penalized really, maybe get a karma cut by a factor of 100.", how does that make you feel? My point is that, attacks on comments and commentors are ad hominem, and wont work.
PS: i didnt upvote this article and didnt find it any good. As regular HNer, I am just alarmed by opinions to walk into "fascism".
> Rational discourse goes out the window at that point, because they're convinced they're right and it's impossible that other view points may be correct. It's part of the reason most of the world is still religious.
So you think that if people were only more open to rational discussion then fewer of them will stay religious? I think you are discounting the vital role irrationality plays in our lives and playing up the importance of rationality. I think religion offers people something that is beyond or external to rationality -- not something that opposes it. Same goes for "religious arguments" about editors. Instead of belittling such sentiments, you might want to find out why they're so prevalent and whether they are indeed harmful. I suggest you read Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. These books have awarded me a lot of insight on the subject.
Actually have read Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground. I'll look into the other book that you recommended too. And personally, I have nothing against people being religious and wasn't belittling that sentiment. I merely think that many people are indoctrinated into a religion at an early age, and "know" that they are right, and use various ways to rationalize the belief their parents instilled in them, instead of exploring their beliefs on their and coming to their own conclusions.
Unfortunately, this comment (not the content of it and the entire situation) represents the state of entrepreneurship in SV :( As some older people said: if you live in a sea full of shit you are going to covered by shit.
Maybe generalize some of these posts to the point where you can't google ypur way back to the original author, then add them to a " wall of shame"? (I sometimes find this tempting personally.)
If you were born into a middle class American family in the late 20th century and have no major disabilities you are a "right place right time" person. The just world hypothesis is false - most people with any kind of power had immense luck and opportunity going for them irrespective of their talent or ability.
Arrington and MG may be many things, but they've fought and scrambled in the face of a lot of obstacles and naysayers to get where they are today. Arrington in particular, grew Techcrunch from a blog in his bedroom to the major presence that is today. Siegler is a talented writer, and has a lot of interesting technology insights. He also has a good eye for up and coming companies - which is obviously why Arrington recruited him as a General Partner for Crunch Fund.
I don't know Arrington personally, so I can't comment on the jerk comment.
Feel free to critique them for what they are, but let's be reasonable and respect them for what they've done. Saying that they've accomplished is a result of "undeserved influence" belittles that.
MG is a reasonably good writer. He's an even better hustler and has terrific sources, two invaluable assets for what he does. Gruber has all three assets as well but is even more exclusive in what he writes about.
From the standpoint of the little guy trying to get his product / service heard, this kind of thing can be pretty irksome. Someone else linked to this orgasmic description of the mailbox service going down: http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/14/with-20-of-reservations-fil... -- meanwhile in the comments, someone mentions that there's an app called TaskBoxApp that solves the same problem and is 100% client side so doesn't suffer the privacy concerns. Has TC ever mentioned that one? http://techcrunch.com/search/taskboxapp I don't read TC, I don't have any affiliation with any of these apps, but I find this kind of behavior really ridiculous. There can be no doubt that the front-page coverage of Mailbox contributed to an increase in signups. The Dropbox acquisition is what it is -- I'm sure they can value an investment despite its hype or overhype.
I am sure there were good reasons for the the purchase that we cannot know due to not being part of dropbox management. The article is insulting towards dropbox, but I think the summation of the article is in the headline, "pump n dump", and no matter what people say the media has an unquantifiable effect on creating hype, and inflating value of anything, person,brand,etc in general. And do the mentioned relations matter in such deals happening as the article mentions - without a doubt. So perhaps, the article is a bit hostile and the top response on this thread points out many sources and is a good defensive response, the main point of the article is something that happens often, this deal or another deal - its reality.
"From the standpoint of the little guy trying to get his product / service heard, this kind of thing can be pretty irksome."
Specifically "little guy". I fail to understand why people seem to think that life is fair (hasn't changed and never will) and why people also seem to think that the existing filters and people that determine success don't still exist. They do and they always will.
Who said life is fair or has to be fair -- I said the behavior was irksome. I actually think it points to a market need for a tech journal covering startups that has integrity. I'd love to read that.
Irksome it may be. If you were Michael Arrington though, would you do anything to further your competitors' position at the cost of your own? I dislike his arrogance, but have to wonder what I'd do in his shoes...
It also wasn't just TechCrunch who had articles about Mailbox. The Verge had 4 articles in less than a month.
Pretty much every tech news website had quite a few articles about Mailbox, as well as major blogs like Daring Fireball which have a huge readership of iPhone users.
It seems weird to me that this blog post attributes the entire success of Mailbox to TechCrunch, when really, Mailbox's success is because they created a simple and enjoyable email app.
It's also a little insulting that OP thinks Dropbox is stupid. They paid $100m (or whatever the number was) for a lot of reasons and I'd suspect that TechCrunch really likes Mailbox isn't one of them. I'd suspect the number of people on a wait list isn't near the top of the list either.
Yup. It's not like they paid cash. I would be shocked if that price tag was not mostly stock, and tied to future performance. Details matter here, and everyone getting in a huff over something they really don't know about is just wasted emotion.
I don't think the parent is saying there's not value in that wait list. I think he's saying that Dropbox probably valued the team, Mailbox's standalone potential, and potential synergies more than just the "marketing list".
Both really. Whatever monetary value you would put on that marketing list is tiny compared to the reported sum. Give me a few hundred grand and I'll get you that good of a mailing list. Dropbox doesn't need to spend 10s of millions on that.
> It's also kind of upsetting that this post is at the top of HN and getting a kind of froth-at-the-mouth reaction that it is.
It should be upsetting, because after enough posts like this, hopefully something will be done. When it comes to ethics -- be it in politics, corporations or journalism -- behavior must not only be clean and honest, it must also be seen as clean and honest. Sometimes the people involved know that they have acted completely ethically, but they don't see how the public may perceive the situation to be different. And since public perception can hardly be changed (and it hardly should as long as unethical behavior is not uncommon), it's the people that are in the public eye who must watch their behavior rather than assume (incorrectly) that the public grant them the benefit of the doubt. They should not only make sure to behave ethically, but must make sure their behavior appears ethical (in fact, if they don't want this kind of reaction, they could act unethically as long as they appear clean :))
Now, in this case, the problem is TC. As long as TC's ethics seem "controversial" as you've put it, everything they do will be tainted. They could practice the apotheosis of ethical journalism, but as long as the conflicts of interests are not visibly resolved to the public's satisfaction, they're going to elicit such reactions. It might not be fair, but that's the way it is.
Because this is the "TechCrunch situation", any company that receives an investment from funds directly or indirectly associated with TC should -- if they want to avoid this possibly unfair though perfectly to be expected response -- distance itself from TC by requesting not to be covered by them. Or, it might not care about the reaction, in which case it may choose to do nothing about it. Hopefully, companies in this position will care, and if enough of them do maybe this will have an effect on TC or other tech publications. It's unhealthy for an industry that so much of its media coverage has a cloud of suspect ethics over it.
The conspiracy theories sprouting around Mailbox are an embarrassment. Not to SFBA startup culture, but to people who are skeptical of startup culture. The problems with Arrington and Techcrunch have nothing to do with how Dropbox valued Mailbox.
Look, conspiracy theories always pop up and there is nothing you can do about them. The question is, why do they pop up here on HN? I don't think there are too many conspiracy theorists among the HN crowd. Since they do pop up, is it not reasonable to ask if anyone is doing anything that might somehow encourage said theories to arise in a crowd not usually inclined to make them?
Obviously, TC coverage did not affect the valuation, and, as shown again and again, had little to do with the success of the company. I haven't seen any other theories, but this particular one has actually instigated a discussion here. It is possible that the fault lies with the HN crowd. But it is also possible that some things, and in particular tech media coverage, do not appear to be quite clean. This kind of thing opens the door to various sorts of theories even among the most reasonable of people, especially if they're not intimately familiar with the parties involved.
Lots of people on HN seem to buy into the logic you're using: that it doesn't matter if arguments are correct so long as they point in the general direction of rightness. Who cares if Techcrunch had anything to do with Mailbox? If a facially nonsensical conspiracy theory about Techcrunch's involvement with Mailbox helps shine a light on how bad Techcrunch is, it's all for the better.
That is not true. Incorrect arguments are bad. Nonsensical incorrect arguments are harmful. They make it that much easier for partisans on the other side to refute valid arguments against Techcrunch. They turn real issues into tribal conflicts so we can't discuss them for real anymore. They shine klieg lights onto one publication while others manage to profit from bad behavior without any scrutiny.
> Incorrect arguments are bad. Nonsensical incorrect arguments are harmful. They make it that much easier for partisans on the other side to refute valid arguments against Techcrunch. They turn real issues into tribal conflicts so we can't discuss them for real anymore.
I agree, but I'm not so sure the discussion about those arguments is so harmful, and their presence on HN shows that there is a real problem, namely the appearance of shadiness, one strong enough even to affect HNers.
We may disagree on tactics, but I think we might agree on one thing: TC (and tech journalism) must be fixed. Moreover, I advise that Carthage must be destroyed. :)
Their presence on HN does not show that there's a real problem, only that there's a quorum of users who will act to promote whatever stories fit their pet tribal conflicts.
Fast forward into couple years from now, what they doing today will be investigated by FTC by default and consider a crime punishable by law, regardless of how many pretty words you use to describe this scheme.
Just because its not illegal per se, does not mean its moral, but we human will go to any extent to make a buck (as you know as little as 150 years ago it was legal to own people and abuse them and force to work).
EDIT: had they been publicly traded (thanks ghshephard)
You are aware that Neither Mailbox (and Dropbox for that matter) are publicly traded? What interest do you think the FTC would have here? Do you believe there are Monopolistic, False Advertising, or other consumer protection issues at stake?
I'm still a bit disappointed that Apple has yet to add a Wacom layer to their devices. It's so unquestionably better at doing writing, sketching, and note-taking than crudely smudging your fingers. iPads still fail pretty hard at being useful during math class.
I had an old-style swivel tablet (Windows Vista?), and it was a fantastic device to take notes on, invaluable for classwork. OneNote + pen-input really seemed like the future of school computing...but the prices on those machines never came down and the iPad et al took them by storm shortly thereafter.
Apple's been incredibly anti-stylus in the past, if I recall correctly. Didn't Jobs say something along the lines of "if your tablet uses a stylus, you're doing it wrong" at the genesis of the iPad? Although we've seen that isn't necessarily the case, I can't see Apple eating their words in this case. Especially not with the success and visibility of Samsung's Note line.
Apple hasn't been anti-stylus, Jobs was. And the stylus he was referring to was the resistive Palm-type stylus, not a pressure-sensitive, digitized pen with side button(s).
Jobs has also stated a belief in one thing, and then contradicted it later. Take the original iPhone screen size, for example.
Upvote for you sir! Exactly, you don't need a stylus to run the Win8 UI. A touch interface should be designed with a finger as the primary interface in ind, which was what Jobs was talking about.
A Pen is just an additional tool to make the tablet experience better in various use cases, just like a bluetooh keyboard.
Of course we had to see this quote into context. Before the iPad was released most tablets pretty much required a styles to be useful. Reason was the used pretty much the same Windows UI as on the desktop (with the small close-boxes on windows for example). Those tablets could pretty much only be used with a stylus. Before Apple released the iPad there pretty much weren't any tablets that could be used completely without a stylus.
While I agree with your comment in general, did you really need to make the launch of the iPad an event of religious proportions, as in "the genesis of the iPad"?
Sorry about the nitpick, but stuff like this gets on my nerve.
I'm not actually a fanboy or anything- I used a first-gen iPad for about a week once and hated it, but I won't deny that it redefined the word tablet. Perhaps my language was a bit clunky; I was reaching for a word to convey the importance of the original iPad in shaping tablets and genesis was the best I could do after midnight.
Yeah, I had a tablet computer back before Apple redefined what tablet meant. It was a Fujitsu machine and OneNote with a wacom pen was definitely a really nice way to take notes in class.
However, while I am excited by the machines that are coming out nowadays (surface pro, thinkpad helix to name a few) that will give me both the tablet and laptop experience, I'm dismayed that they're going the way of apple in terms of not giving us access to replace the battery/switch out drives/upgrade RAM on our own. If someone put a door on the backside of a thinkpad helix, I'd buy it for sure.
Yeah, the issue is space and weight, apple showed that by removing customizability they can significantly reduce the size and weight as well as provide better battery life and nicer looking designs, and when it comes to tablets most people opt for lighter and smaller over replaceable parts.
X230t is a nice and powerful device - and it would be a great tablet if it was twice thinner and lighter; currently its weight makes me think thrice before taking it off the desk and using as an actual tablet.
> I had an old-style swivel tablet (Windows Vista?), and it was a fantastic device to take notes on, invaluable for classwork. OneNote + pen-input really seemed like the future of school computing...but the prices on those machines never came down and the iPad et al took them by storm shortly thereafter.
I had one of these too, an older IBM Thinkpad. The note-taking ability was definitely invaluable. If I were taking college over again right now I would seriously consider a Surface over a Macbook for this reason alone.
"iPads still fail pretty hard at being useful during math class."
I know a couple of people who take notes on their iPads during math talks, they use what Gabe called an ?eraser tip? capacitive touch stylus and an app that shows you your actual size notes above and has a zoned in box at the bottom where you wrote big. I've tried a similar setup on my Nexus 7 and found it pretty comfortable, I imagine on the larger iPad it's even better.
Bigger problem is that I can't rest my hand on the screen while writing like I would on an actual notebook. There are some apps that try to filter it out but (in my anecdotal experience) they still miss enough to make it not worth the effort.
Writing towards the bottom might alleviate that but it's still like a hack around the fact that natural handwriting on capacitive screens is difficult.
I imagine the issue is brush lag. because it's not a built-in digitizer it down't work as quickly as the surface, there have been a number of tests corroborating this, Gabe actually alludes to this in his review when he says "There was no brush lag at all and the pressure sensitivity worked perfectly." there is essentially no brush sensitivity with an ipad (though I doubt you really need it in math notes) and from my limited use (of friends ipad+pen setups) you kinda have to force the pen against the screen to ensure it always writes...
in a head to head competition the surface would win in note-taking though the ipad might win for the price....
I mildly disagree about the brush sensitivity for mathematics. I write a lot of math notes in the margins of academic papers, and single line thickness on a display is annoying and makes the math less readable.
Isn't it obvious? When you have your stuff stored digitally it
(a) takes care of the organizational aspects of note taking and
(b) makes notes reusable.
The payoff as a student is exam prep: Now you sit at a powerful desktop computer with, say, 2x 21 inch screen estate at your disposal. You have a file explorer, a layout document editor (I use Pages and/or Keynote for this) and a good pdf viewer open (with your exported notes). Now it's a matter of copy & pasting all the information from your notes, the official class notes, literature, etc. onto your layout document which then becomes your summary.
This is of course doable by hand but it's a lot more work and it's not as easy to extend it - you can't just make room for new information on a full piece of paper (and summaries, especially the ones you can take to exams, tend to be very full).
Now, I'm really curious about the next-gen Xbox, which will almost undoubtedly be built on a version of Windows 8. Hopefully this means the same tools for developing Xbox, Windows Phone, Surface, and desktop apps (HTML-based, if I recall)
The long and short of it is a) developing a non-Xbox Indie game is incredibly expensive and prohibitive b) (for now) state of Xbox Indie game network and framework is crippled c) Steam is a much better, although still imperfect, beast to deal with.
I've been a beta user of Streem, and how fast my videos are ready to view is pretty incredible. Other services I've tried easily take an hour to transcode, but Streem gets it done in a few minutes. Really excited to see more folks using it.
With Flex and AirVideo transcoding is done in real time and works really well. Zero wait time for uploading and transcoding sure beats even a few minutes.
Interesting. At the latest Rubyconf a few months back the Thunderbolt labs guys stated they didn't think RubyMotion was quite ready for production apps. Perhaps it is now.
I was confused as to how a lot of folks took the post to mean I didn't know what polymorphism was...and then I experienced the whole Arrested Development-esque "I've made a huge mistake," probably a little too late.
A lot of folks drew attention to "You can reuse code with inheritance. Absolutely crazy. Brilliant." and took as equivalent to me saying "It's absolutely crazy and brilliant you can reuse code with inheritance." I get that both in- and especially out-of-context that's how it comes off, but it's not what I meant. It was sloppy and I should've been more careful in writing.
I meant it to come off more like "...everything is dynamic and decided at run-time, plus you get a great plugin architecture if you do some polymorphic tricks with these RowType objects. And all of these benefits came from just one simple refactoring. The power of small refactors is absolutely crazy. Brilliant." (I've added this as an addendum to the post)
Like the point of the whole thing wasn't about the refactor itself and if/how the code "rocked my world", but the fact that a refactor could have a seismic effect on the future of a project and the direction it takes.
The addition of many more row "types" wasn't even in the orbit of my thinking without the refactor, and it really helped shape where the project went: there were just those 4 branches in the `if`/`else` tree in this post, but there are now 20-odd default row configurations.
We're building the next generation of native mobile app creation. We dabble in iOS (RubyMotion/Objective-C), Android (Java), JavaScript (Backbone), and Rails, and are solving Really Tough problems across the board.
We also do tons of open source work (https://github.com/usepropeller), and we're anxious to share even more of the tech we build with the community.
If what we're up to sounds interesting and you want to know more, shoot me a message at clay at usepropeller.com