davcro

Then I discovered Heroku. I would have done anything to have this when I started out. The platform teaches (forces) you how to build a scalable architecture. You can try out new ideas for apps for essentially nothing (1 dyno is zero dollars). Since moving to Heroku I spend about 5% of my time working ops. The craziest thing is I've actually saved money since switching from dedicated hardware to Heroku. I was really bad at configuring servers and the stuff I built was inefficient and expensive. Heroku's cloud stacks are optimized better than my old hardware environment.

Heroku's architecture is great for wild traffic swings common with Facebook apps. Well except for their database services. They don't seem reliable or scalable. I prefer RDS.

In sum, Facebook and Heroku is a great starting place for learning to build web apps. I would have done anything to have this tech four yeas ago.

This incident convinced me that non-iPad tablets have a fighting chance. I'd like to see this exercise done again in one year. I believe non-iPads will gain more traction.

  Y'all don't know my struggle 
  Y'all can't match my hustle
  You can't catch my hustle
  You can't fathom my love dude
  Lock yourself in a room doin' five beats a day for three summers
  That's a different world like Kree Summers
  I deserve to do these numbers

  - Kanye West, Spaceship