Stories from a start-up

Counting number of lines in a solution

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:34:53 GMT

One question that I find myself asking frequently throughout the year is "how many lines of code have been written", or "how many lines of code is project/product X". Although line count really isn't a great indication of project complexity, size or development velocity, it is still sometimes useful to know and acts as a rough code for estimation models such as COCOMO.

I have been using Microsoft PowerShell since the beta stages, and although I'm not expert I definitely find the rich shell useful in certain situations.

This command will count the non-whitespace lines in C# source files, markup in ASPX/ASCX files and JavaScript; and exclude the generated designer files and JQuery.

PS C:\YourSolutionFolder> (dir -include *.cs,*.aspx,*.ascx,*.js -exclude *designer*,*jquery* -recurse | select-string .).Count

Sample Output:

Hope that helps!

Google creates great advertising videos

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 07:23:32 GMT

You know, a picture speaks a tousand words, so this 1m32s video at 24fps speaks 2,208,000. I am already looking forward to my first marketing video!

Do Nike make the best trainers?

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 02:00:11 GMT

There are many things that fascinate me in life - why do people still post fake videos of UFO’s on YouTube?; how have Arsenal not won any silverware for so many seasons?; and why does my heating make that strange thumping sound at 2am in the morning. But, something that supersedes all of those (and there really is no explanation to my heating system problem), is how does an idea become a worldwide brand.

Take Nike for example. Nike was founded in 1964 by two people, and now it hires over 34,000 people and boasts revenue of nearly $20bn USD. That’s $20,000,000,000. Nike has offices in nearly 50 countries. I don’t know about you, but that is some impressive statistics, and something to aspire to.

But do they produce the best products? I can buy Nike trainers in almost every country in the world, so they can’t be bad. The working environments that the products are produced in are well documented and Nike is infamous for defining the “sweatshop”. Nike products aren’t cheap either - in fact Nike products are some of the most expensive on the market.

The truth is that none of it matters. The fact of the matter is that is that if they are good enough for Michael Jordan then they are perceived to be good enough for most amateur sportsmen. If Tiger Woods can hit 350 yards with a Nike driver then that’s a driver that I would consider purchasing. You see, it’s all about brand – marketing, reputation and trust.

When “The Facebook” started back in 2004, the brand, reputation and trust for the scope of the project was comparable to Nike. The Facebook was specific to the Harvard campus which automatically instills trust in the web application. It lived on the Harvard network the content was Harvard specific, so why would users not trust it? The trust, combined with viral crowdsourcing was enough to warrant growth and investment.

I have worked for software companies with a handful of employees operating in a niche market, and the same principles apply. If you perform well your reputation will precede you. A solid client base builds trust. A sprinkle of marketing, and you’re good to go.

I could drill down in the details, but I’ll save that for the future.

The allure of a beefy server

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:44:08 GMT

Ever since the Dell Outlet was first introduced I have had a fascination with owning a high specification server. Being the geek that I am, the thought of loading up a database with hundreds of millions of data items, whether thats Microsoft SQL Server or one of the many NoSQL solutions available is something that one day I will experience.

Obviously having experience as a software consultant for a number of major clients I have had the fortune to work on real world application architecture for relatively large scale. As an example, my last project involved web platform that served 3 million visitors per month.

This post is bought on by my initial shock at a few of the servers offered on the outlet at the moment. My usual filtering involves ramping the RAM filter as high as possible, currently that is 36GB+, and the order by price descending. At first I thought it was a typo, but the first result was outrageous. For a “mere” 39,980USD I could be the proud owner of a 4x 6 core Intel Xeon E7540 (24 cores, 48 threads) and an obscene 1TB RAM.

The second result was equally as mouth-watering. 33,209USD would get me 8x 6 core Intel Xeon X5660 (48 core, 96 threads), 96GB RAM, but 24x 600GB 2.5” SCSI Hotplug Hard Drives.

Back to reality for a minute, 2,399USD would get me 2x 8 core AMD Opteron 6134 (16 core, 16 thread) with 64GB RAM; I am hoping that Santa picks up on my hints.

How to start a start-up?

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 07:22:17 GMT

I have many observations about successful start-ups, but generally there is one common aspect – the start-up must be passionate about solving a problem or building/redefining on existing solutions on that problem. With that in mind, I find myself in a little bit of a conundrum as my instinct tells me that the decision to create my start-up is driven by the thrill of progress, improvement, accountability and ultimate ownership and not by my primary observation outlined above.

I don’t care though.

There are two ways that a start-up can form, one is someone stumbling upon a problem and building solutions and the other is through research and brainstorming. The fact is that I believe a successful entrepreneur has the ability to know when a problem is worth solving, or can find a unique selling point that creates a competitive advantage.

As I sit here with a notebook full of seamlessly random mind-maps and notes I definitely put myself in the latter category which is fine. There will be a number of proof of concepts, micro-sites and areas of research that I will undertake in the next 3-6 months; they might be iOS based, web based, or process based solutions. That’s what is exciting. Every day feels like Christmas Eve whilst finding that ‘thing’ you believe will change the world.. or maybe just a few people’s lives.

The birth of a new start-up

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 14:27:42 GMT

This is the first in what will hopefully be an engaging blog. My name is Stuart Holywell, and I would describe myself as a technical entrepreneur. Since I was around fourteen years old I have been developing software in C++, Java and most recently the Microsoft .NET stack. Professionally I act as an architect, software consultant, business analyst and development manager - priding myself in the growth of team members and process improvements from both a business and development perspective. I also enjoy presenting, and have presented at Microsoft, Reading, U.K. twice and in North America.

For the last ten years I have founded a number of small start-ups (read: learning experiences) spanning desktop, mobile and web platforms; all have been a success, for a variety of reasons.

I currently reside in Krakow, Poland working as a development manager to help initialize a new development centre for my employer, Infusion. Work keeps me busy and well traveled; in the last two years I have travelled to London, New York, Orlando, Sydney, Toronto and Krakow.

This formation of this blog defines the inception of an exciting new initiative - this blog will outline the thought process, learning experiences, technological review and birth of a new product, company or web platform.