Hi,
How did you manage to get them to pay you hourly to create a project plan?
What did you propose? I also need to do this for my venture but never clicks. Please share some advice.
Thank you.
(a) In the short run, a good job generally gives much better financial returns than a startup. From the overall vibe of your post, I would say don't startup unless you have a compelling drive to startup.
(b) Stay sharp. Don't depend on "bigco" to manage your career/skills for you.
(c) Spend wisely, Save wisely. There's no silver bullet there. Of course all the savings might not be enough for certain cases, but that holds true for both bigco and small biz. Don't become a slave of your lifestyle while the going is good for you whether it is a small-biz or a bigco job.
I have tried D, loved the language but I feel the ecosystem and environment issues need to be addressed asap. Here are a few inputs
(1) setting up env different operating systems eg GNU/linux variants. Compilers ldc, etc are not really easy to setup on all systems.
(2) Memory usage during compile can get out of control resulting in mid-build crashes if sufficient memory is not available.
(3) Setting up of a simple http server should be made simple. (ideally the way Go allows to convert any regular Go program to a http server)
They could have been serious contender in semantic search. I remember trying to reach out to some yahoos regarding an ambitious, yet serious proposal on semantic search using ThatNeedle.com. we could have made an impact. I could not get to the right audience even for a demo or a proposal. I guess they have too many silos built on top of an ivory tower.
Nonetheless, it would be sad to see them fade away.