I never said it was a coincidence that Apple was hugely successful. But, those at Apple that made it what it is would not appreciate so many attributing so much to Jobs. I doubt it makes his family feel comfortable either.
"they just coincidentally happened to gain superpowers when he was there"
I do not believe that they gained superpowers, literally or figuratively. I do think Jobs had incredibly talented people working for him. He was a great leader. But, he didn't do it all himself.
To me this is like U.S. citizens attributing too much to the president. They think the president started an unfair war, the president is getting them universal healthcare, the president caused the economy to falter. One man does not cause these things, and although leadership and charisma are important, even critical, just as critical are all of the others who do these things, and those around them that relay their messages.
I like to think he had mowed grass. That is what a common man does in the U.S., and it would be a sign of his humanity. I also like to think he just wore the shoes because he was sick, in pain, and he needed a comfortable pair of shoes.
He was a great man. But, he wasn't perfect. He basically took credit for Woz's creation, backed the losing Lisa (and prior to that the Apple III) rather than the Mac and jumped ship to the Mac when the Lisa tanked. The OS X technology was written by NeXT before Apple bought them. iPod (etc.) was a design win and a business win, but Jobs just helped hire good people. He makes a great front-person, was a stellar businessman, and helped make Silicon(e) Valley what it is today. He seems to have been a great father and husband also. My heart goes out to his family and friends for their loss. But seriously- the man was a front man for great technology that people use.
Bulldonkey. Javascript on client side will continue for the foreseeable future which means those developers would want to use the same language to do server-side. Just because it hasn't taken hold, doesn't mean it won't.
Developers using many major frameworks/languages don't need to quote a single or even a set of "gods" of the framework/language to back up their point. This is one of the problems in Rails, imo. Everything is still about following celebrities like sheep. That is a bad road, my friend. I would much rather live in the midst of a thriving city or within a growing town that had promise than within a hippie cult commune (regardless of its size or the quality of its food or company). Think for yourself. What would you like to use, and why?
I think at any point in time, the answer is the one that is a combination of the following (1) it makes the most sense to you, (2) it is maintainable/it is widely used (or has the potential to be, if you are willing to take the risk of something becoming quickly obsolete and impractical to maintain or impossible to find resources that will work on it), (3) it is simple, (4) it is flexible, and (5) it is potentially scalible.
There are a number of frameworks that meet those requirements now, including Rails. My point was that Rails has a real problem now in that it is a framework that fewer want to spend the time to learn, in my opinion and the opinion of others that make their living writing Rails apps. I see very smart people and people I work with (not necessarily, but sometimes mutually exclusive ;) ) promoting technology these days that doesn't fit the requirements I stated above for a framework/language/tool that will serve the test of time. That bothers me.
If you are really looking for a suggestion, I say go to the following URL and start comparing frameworks. This will at least help give some indication of usage. Then go to the forums, mailing lists, etc. and see whether things are getting more or less active over time:
http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends
That was only one study. Another study said it is $10 under. And none of it takes into account people purchasing apps, the $29 covers, etc. The bigger risk to their bottom line would be the SNL episode newscast that disses the Fire. Apple must have seriously paid NBC off for that. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3058207
Wow, this is a huge fail. It should have started with graphs based on studies of major customers that tried to make the switch and failed and why on the first 20 pages, but instead it starts off by naming the leaders in the space that use NoSQL. They've convinced me to use NoSQL now, because they couldn't just shut up. Oracle, you screwed Sun, and now you are screwing yourself.
Rails 3.x jumped the shark. It is getting too complicated for anyone new to come on easily. This is the reason that Scala, Clojure, Haskell, etc. will fail, too- complexity. I'm not a PhP guy, but it isn't hard to see why it is still wildly popular. Make it easy enough, and fun to use, and it will take hold.
So while he may make money on Rails geeks that continue on and with those that want to learn, there are fewer that are coming on and will come on now then there were.
If you like Rails, listen to Ryan. I've been doing RoR a while and really, really appreciate the Railscasts (and the Asciicasts of his Railscasts- thanks Eifion!). But if you are looking for a long-term framework to stand by, keep looking.
"This kind of shit lands on Craigslist so often that it makes you wonder what they actually teach at business schools."
Other than "business", they teach confidence, which for the most part is what wannabe entrepreneurs lack. Unfortunately, the salaries they provide (unless you are the cream of the class at Wharton, Harvard) aren't up to par with senior developer/engineer salaries, which is the reason many techs/developers that would otherwise do well in a startup because of their experience need an MBA to handle "everything else".
Many MBAs may come out of school wanting to start another Facebook, but they do have a purpose in life- and that is to have the education/experience/skill to handle the "business" side. Their purpose isn't (necessarily) generating ideas, though, which is a good point. Developers/engineers have plenty of ideas also, and not all of them good either.
I can't see how doing a startup in Canada in general is a good idea. Policies there are a lot more restrictive than the states. It's a great place to visit, though.
Apple made their big money in the past 10 years really because of the combination of content available and style. People still want style, but the style market is already owned by Apple. Apple doesn't own everyone, because not everyone can afford or buy into it. For the past two years, various companies have captured a big part of rest of the market, but data plans, etc. are still prohibitively expensive, so not everyone has either an Android or iOS device. But, here comes Amazon. It has an extremely large part of the market already, and now they are going to pick up all of the people that couldn't drop $500 for an iPad. AND they say if you get Prime, you have unlimited streaming movies. It is a no-brainer.
I bought a $29.99 Kindle Fire Zip Sleeve, which is easily at least $10 in profit to Amazon. Unlike iPad owners, Kindle customers buy covers, so I'm probably not in the minority, even if it is a relatively cheap device.
When ours comes in, I also plan to buy apps, etc. Easily an additional $10 will be spent within days of acquisition. My guess is that they will have at least another $30 in profit the first year from books, etc. and may sign up for Amazon Prime to get unlimited streaming, which is something I hadn't considered seriously until I saw it on the Fire page.
No wonder Amazon stock went up about 20% over the past several months. Some people knew this was going to be a big win.
"they just coincidentally happened to gain superpowers when he was there"
I do not believe that they gained superpowers, literally or figuratively. I do think Jobs had incredibly talented people working for him. He was a great leader. But, he didn't do it all himself.
To me this is like U.S. citizens attributing too much to the president. They think the president started an unfair war, the president is getting them universal healthcare, the president caused the economy to falter. One man does not cause these things, and although leadership and charisma are important, even critical, just as critical are all of the others who do these things, and those around them that relay their messages.