1 year ago. (OK, it's a bit more then that):
On Oct 21, 2011 I said this.
About a week later Google shut down the share feature and got rid of your followers. I wrote code and had a replacement sloppily built shortly after. Which I then tried to refine, over the course of the last year (with some interruptions due to anxiety and job work keeping me busy). Realized It wasn’t going so hot, and started over.
Hivemined.org is now on it’s 3rd rewrite. I have been calling it Return of the Jedi(v3). The 1st version was just as fast as I could type it, that frantic weekend and couple days last Oct and Nov. Then v2, ( where the infamous 81% came from ) a front end speed up and redesign. After beating my head trying to make it better for quite a while it then dawned on me that I was approaching this the wrong way from a architecture stand point and the code was never gonna get better. That brings us to v3.
Return of the Jedi(v3) is a complete rewrite. All new code written from the ground up with all the knowledge I have now from v1 and v2. It’s super fast, and robust. The feeds updates in real time (pubhubsubbub). It can handle nearly all feeds, whatever error they might have or other weirdness. Works on nearly any language. My testing feeds have 50’ish Arabic(left to right text), 20’ish Chinese / Japanese / Korean, and a dozen in other languages (not to mention 1000’s of other feeds in English ).
The feed engine and ‘reader’ side are done’ish ( backend:99%, frontend: 50% ). Sharing/Social is the next thing after that gets all finished. ( Backend: 30%, fronend: 0%)
I’m invested in hivemined.org a 100%. It will be done or I think I might go mad, lol. I want it to be real, complete and to use it. Nearly every day I am checking my reader and there is at least one story I still move the mouse to click share :( I am slowly pushing my way to a finished, at least base line of features done, product. As soon as I have something worth users, I plan on sending out a ton of invites and letting everyone know. It’s gonna be awesome.
Here some stats and other cool info.
Lines of python:
Hive-v2: 6099
Return of the Jedi: 11085
These are numbers without extra libraries. This is the code that powers the site currently.
Lines of Javascript:
Hive-v2: a lot
Return of the Jedi: even more
Both have too many Javascript lines to count with the all the libraries.
I had a hard time getting counts without jquery/backbone/etc.. getting in the way. Let’s just say there is a lot of javascript going on.
Site and Followers:
1,224 visitors to the lander page last month. (avg 40ish a day)
1,855 followers on twitter (awesome)
5,544 people on the email list. (awesome!!)
I get 3 to 5 emails a week about hive and its status
I may not respond to them all, but I read them and it makes me feel awesome.
Closing
You guys and girls are awesome. Keeps me going that other people want and need this everyday. When Hive comes it’s gonna be awesome! Built for sharing, community and content. The same community who has stuck by me and this project. For those who still know the best way to share and comment on things and wish for it back.
For the 1000+
(someone made this and I found it, lol)
Some extra Francis info:
In the last year. I have:
- Worked on hive, and when not working on it I thought about it every day.
- Reconnected with lady college friend.
- Convinced mentioned lady to move across the country and move in with me
- Did tons of work for my real job. (work for consulting company)
- Finished 2 projects for a $4 billion public traded company
- Had a work related site featured on techcrunch, mashable and a ton of other tech blogs
- Went on some business trips.
- Made some mobile apps.
- A bunch of other web apps.
- Woke up one day and rented a car and drove 13 hours to the Grand Canyon. (Never seen it before. It’s amazing)
- Drove down the amazing California coast from SF to LA
- Drove from Seattle to SF. Through the amazing mountains of Washington and Central Oregon.
- Got a button machine and have been making buttons for friends and people on the Internet. (with the help of my lovely lady friend)
- Tons of bands live.
- Bunches of other stuff.
- Lived and enjoyed my life and friends. No one wants to look back at there late 20’s and say I wish I worked more.
Also, I learned a ton. I am a much stronger programmer, designer, UX/UI, server admin, information architect, etc.. Allowing me to now build the best possible hivemined I can, for the best possible people on the planet.
PS: You’re beautiful. Thanks for reading all that.
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