Archive for July, 2008

Generate HTML from a JSON Without any Template but HTML and Javascript

July 31st, 2008 by Mic | Posted in PURE | 21 Comments »
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A few weeks back now, we started the development of our new web application BeeBole.

Of course we had to make several important choices for our IT architecture.

We started by choosing a light, flexible and really fast back-end as mentioned in our post: Why Erlang ?

For the front-end, we wanted the browser to be the center for rendering and aggregating services. (Read our post about True Aggregation, the Browser as a Platform).

To achieve this goal, we had to decide for:

  1. a JavaScript library to ease the cross-browser issues and advanced DOM functionality
  2. a communication language between the browser and the back-end: JSON ? XML ?
  3. a template engine to render the back-end services in HTML

Continue Reading »

3000

July 27th, 2008 by Yves | Posted in General | 2 Comments »
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3000 is the number of unique visitors, in two days, who read our last post: Why Erlang ?

In comparison, our last busiest day was 82 unique visitors.

So, just a bit of self-hugging, thank you Hughes for the great post !

I guess, it is some of those startup momentum’s that give you the will and motivation to do better.

And guess what ? We have better incoming !

More precisely, this week will be an important step for us, so…

Stay Tuned.

We also made a few changes to this blog and added two new features:

  1. Now you can directly share our posts in your favorite social bookmarking application, clicking on the Share button at the bottom of each post.
  2. You can now ask for email updates when you let a comment in a post, just to know if someone has answered you or if the discussion simply keeps going on.
  3. Minor design changes.

Why Erlang ?

July 24th, 2008 by Hughes | Posted in erlang | 19 Comments »
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Why we chose Erlang over Python, Ruby, PHP family for our back-end.

The short answer :

Because it’s a completely different approach from the OO programming languages (even from the pure functional ones like Lisp or Haskell), it’s concurrent, stateless, has been battle tested in real large-scale industrial products, has an active web app centric community and finally, because it fits perfectly with our view of a light back-end delivery service engine.

Continue Reading »

People Name Generator

July 21st, 2008 by Mic | Posted in General | No Comments »
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When you build a system based on people, at a certain time, you need to fill your system with data for mass testing.

If you need hundreds (or thousands) of people, finding names can be a painfull moment to go through.

Here is a spreadsheet that generates as much names as you want.

It comes with 1000 random names (English) and each time you change something in the list, it refreshes itself with new names.

With your favorite spreadsheet editor, you can then generate, for instance, a JSON dataset, emails,… simply by using basic formulas.

SaaS Startup Creation – BeeBole Technology Choices

July 15th, 2008 by Yves | Posted in General | 2 Comments »
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An important part in the creation process of a new SaaS offer is of course about technology choices.

You need to choose a language for your back-end, for the front-end, you need a DataBase, you might want to develop everything on an existing platform, …

In some extent, you may even want your technological choices to mirror a certain corporate philosophy.

In the coming weeks, Mic and Hughes will share with you some technical posts about our findings, thoughts and decisions.

We don’t have the pretense of coming out with an absolute winner for each choice that we make. In fact, we think there is no such thing. Each technology has its pros and cons and even those might change depending on the context.

Continue Reading »

Regular Expressions: Where to start when you are a beginner ?

July 10th, 2008 by Mic | Posted in General | 3 Comments »
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For years, every time I would use Regex, Regexp, Regular Expressions (you name it), I would find myself crawling through the enormous library available on RegExLib.com, hoping to find that someone had posted the exact expression I needed.

Then I decided to invest some time in demystifying the beast. I read dozens of websites.

Here’s a series of links that helped me get started:

  • Plenty of sites offer tutorials, but this was the first website to show me the light. Granted, the web design is particular. But the content is gold.
  • JavaScriptKit presents a simple and clear JavaScript use of regular expressions.
  • While learning, I did some testing with the Firebug console, but quickly needed a real testing tool. Lots of free online tester tools are available, you can find them by googling: regexp testing online. The one I prefer and currently use is from gskinner.com. I use the Adobe AIR based desktop version (it was my first AIR app download and I was pretty impressed by the smooth and neat installation).
  • Once you are in the comfort zone, Regex cheat sheet is there to remind you the basics

Just a couple of hours of efforts were enough to get started and… a couple of days more of practice to get comfortable.

I hope this will help you. Don’t hesitate to add your own findings in the comments below.

True Aggregation, The Browser as a Platform

July 7th, 2008 by Yves | Posted in General | 8 Comments »
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It is my great pleasure to announce that this post has been published at the same time on the blog Diversity.

Ben Kepes, founding director of Diversity, has been very inspiring to us even before becoming a reader of our blog and I thank him for his trust.

Enjoy the reading !

__________________________

Every morning when I stop reading the last big news from about 30 blogs in Netvibes and switch to my countless SaaS Business Apps such as Gmail, Basecamp, Highrise, Remember The Milk, Google Docs, … I wonder why aggregation of information like news was present so fast in my day to day life and why Business Apps, when it comes to integration, are still in the stone age.

If I had to define the perfect Business Application, it would certainly be user-centric:

  1. I would have a single interface where I could find all my information and processes;
  2. The interface would be flexible. It would allow me to rearrange it the way I want: fitting my working habits and my organization of information;
  3. And finally, it would only include the features I need and for which I would eventually pay.

Even with such powers in my hands, I would still expect quite a lot from the software provider: security, maintenance, performance, scalability and innovation.

There are obvious barriers to reach that point.

First, I doubt we will ever have some kind of a single universal DB with information about persons, friends, contacts, habits, projects, … They will probably continue to multiply and spread as new web solutions will appear.

Secondly, I doubt a single provider will ever meet all my needs. Moreover, I believe innovation comes from diversity.

So, looking at how SaaS providers are responding to this demand, what can we find?

Continue Reading »

New Website for BeeLit

July 6th, 2008 by Yves | Posted in BeeBole | 2 Comments »
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Our first solution, BeeLit, has a new website !

BeeLit is an online solution helping freelancers, SMEs/SMBs or small teams of bigger companies with administrative tasks such as Time Tracking, Expense Management and Customer Invoicing.

To visit the website just type the following URL in your favorite browser : http://beelit.com.

Or simply push the big button hereunder:

Launch BeeLit Website

Today the website is quite basic and gives an overview of the main features included in BeeLit.

In the coming weeks, the content of the website will grow with more information such as detailed descriptions of the functionality, more screenshots, videos, …

Be sure to stay updated by subscribing to this blog.

Have a great week!