First and foremost, this post doesn't have any intention to strike down any parties as mentioned in my question.
In fact, I'm not sure whether i should ask this question to this forum or not, but after some thoughtful considerations i decided to just post it here due to my curiosity.
Shortly speaking, I'm working on IAM platform for one of my customer. I've prepared it using keycloak within a day which also cover custom provider to connect with their legacy user internal database.
But I got a pretty shock statement from my customer that they don't trust keycloak since it's free and open source. They only trust commercial products, and they suggested me to go with either forgerock or okta.
I have my own way to answer that statement, but I would also like to hear some feedbacks from the experts here with regards to that matter. Thanks in advance.
Maybe the customer concern is that there is no commercial support with Keycloak. It's a very practical concern, eg if you are not available at some future time and all apps are broken when something strange happens after upgrading the Authorization Server.
Of course on the technical side of things, keep code portable by implementing standards based solutions, so that you can switch providers. Avoid stuff like Keycloak Adapters if they are vendor specific.
DEPLOYMENT
As a containerized solution, Keycloak's deployment model supports multi cloud and means you can run in any cloud provider.
Then again, the Platform as a Service model of some providers is often attractive - no infra to manage and the hope of high availability. With some PAAS providers the trade off may be that there is less control over behavior.
WHAT ARE THE REAL REQUIREMENTS?
Commercial support
Guidance on app scenarios
High Availability
Ease of management
Extensibility
Portability
Different customers have different viewpoints and there is no right answer. The usual thing that software architects do is understand their audience, make recommendations, but let the customer decide - they are the boss after all.
Does anyone know where can I find any kind of technical documentation on Electronic Cash Register interface (ECRi).
It's supposed to be a standard for semi-integrated scenarios, where external application (POS) communicates with a credit card terminal using relatively simple commands (like start sale for $100), without having access to any sensitive credit card details (thus no need for PCI certification).
VeriFone Vx820 Duet is one of the terminals that implements this standard.
I assume communication is performed over TCP/IP, but I can't find anything more.
Is this really a standard, or just a common name for this kind of integration?
Are terminal vendors responsible for this kind of API -or- rather it is some application, that exposes this functionality, and is uploaded to the terminal by specific merchant/bank?
There are a lot of standards for ECR-EFT integrations, but there is no single protocol guaranteed to be implemented on both POS terminal and ECR side.
Generally, recognized standards are:
Polish FROB protocol - the one you're probably asking about is the new polish standard by Fundacja Rozwoju Obrotu Bezgotówkowego, which is supposed to become a part of ECR fiscal certification. You can register for free at the website and access the repository w/ code snippets, simulators and specifications. Kindly note, that the work on specs is still in progress so it may be subject to change. There were also minor bugs in simulators implementation at the time we were working on our own integration project, maybe something has changed since then.
Nexo - European approach to ECR-EFT unification
OPI - Open Payment Initiative
ZVT - German standard, far exceeding scope of current integrations
on the polish market there are a lot of semi-semi-standards, as a lot of ECR manufacturers implement each others proprietary protocols. There are options to implement only a few of them to gain a significant market coverage, but for that you'll have to do your own research and check with customer needs.
Let me know, if you have questions regarding specific markets or usages
I have recently completed my bachelor's degree in Computer Engineer. I have had one small internship till now.
I have little coding experience.
After searching for months (Does not mean I am desperate for the job-Just wanted to clarify so that your answer is not based on it), I have been offered a job at a start-up to design and develop their web application for user interaction and management. I am the sole technical hire and will be the only person responsible for the development of the platform. The founders, though highly educated, do not have any sort of technical background.
It seems like an interesting opportunity but I am wondering if it too much responsibility too early?
I know this is not a standard programming question but I think this is a programming ability understanding type of question.
I would highly value your insight on this subject.
Thank you.
Just looked at your LinkedIn profile. Looks like you have great entry-level programmer qualifications.
Being the sole technical member of the team, with limited industry experience may be a great opportunity for growth.
However, the flip side argument is that you may be losing out on opportunities to grow with adequate mentorship. In all reality, the college/university CS/CE curriculum does not typically prepare you to handle real-world problems that senior-level software engineers address daily. In a company where you are NOT the sole technical staff member, you will have the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from experienced pros. In my opinion, that is a huge factor in selecting your first job.
So ... assuming this startup grows quickly ... are you qualified to:
Make day-to-day technical decisions regarding scaling, security, and prioritization of product features?
Interview, hire and evaluate the performance of additional technical personnel?
Develop the full-stack of a web application including setting up and administering server, database, APIs and associated frameworks, client side technologies?
If you are uncomfortable with any of the above (which is a very limited set of questions) you probably aren't yet ready. It takes a long time before any of us are. Before I took my first leadership position in a startup, I had over 10 years of experience in multiple industries and with several technologies. But that's me ... you have to make this decision for yourself.
Depends on the type of the company. If there's going to be interaction between the users and the site a lot and it just doesn't serve the purpose of providing information, then you'll have to handle things on the server side as well to provide proper response and you need to be quite good with your stack and as a fresher, it isn't quite recommended to be a sole performer in the technical section of an entire firm.
Since you tell, web application, I assume the user does have to interact. I wouldn't go for it if I were you. But you haven't told about the level of expertise you possess in your skill set. So, can't say whether or not you'll be able to handle it.
and this is just my opinion btw.
This is not a question per se, but it would be great if Desire2Learn supported webhooks.
Github does this - https://help.github.com/articles/post-receive-hooks
If D2L were to support webhooks, this would greatly aid in development especially for applications that require synchronization.
For example, let's say I needed to synchronize a course's discussions. With webhooks, after every discussion post, a POST request would be made to a specified URL and I would receive the data needed to synchronize it.
Without webhooks, I would need to do some form of cronjob and write some elaborate code to prevent duplicate activities, etc.
If a D2L representative is reading, please pass this on to the development team.
Thanks!
We do read questions tagged with desire2learn, but, as you point out, this isn't really a question. 8)
Webhooks are an extensibility technology that is under consideration by our development planning group, but we have no definite targeted release vehicle for such a feature at this time. Generally, the most important priority driver behind our feature roadmaps is our clients' expressed needs, so thanks very much for expressing your need to us.
We're also working on a set of expanded venues for interaction with our developer community so you don't need to ask these kind of "questions" here in the future. 8)
As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, visit the help center for guidance.
Closed 10 years ago.
Myself and a friend have created a startup, but we are both software developers. We are quickly realizing that we are going to have to deal with and understand, all of the intricacies of business.
Are there any resources that can help us avoid common problems encountered by the non-business-savvy? How do you balance creating your product with maintaining realistic goals to reduce time-to-market.
It's like you need to take off your programmer hat and put on the business hat, and vice versa.
My software business was in a very, very small niche market centered on computer aided design of the magnetic layer in hard disk drives (www.micromagnetica.com - please note that I am in the process of closing down my business as the number of potential customers has shrunk to the point of making the business not viable. The web site reflects this point). I have been in business for 10 years and have done pretty well. My competition was a series of commercial and open source programs (mostly university or government sponsored), so, although the market was small, I was able to create a unique product that sold well.
Pitfalls:
Putting your needs above the customer - Customer comes first - always listen to your customer's needs and make sure your development follows their needs rather than yours. Every programmer has a list of things they want to learn or do. Don't use this list a guide for your development unless it solves an issue or helps create functionality that the customer wants/needs. This one point can make or break your company.
Not clarifying your business idea - Put together a business plan - it will help clarify what you are doing. Read the book, "The Art of the Start", by Guy Kawasaki to get the business perspective of starting a business. If you need money then you can use this to help secure financing from either angel investors or venture capitalists. Otherwise, it will help clarify what you are doing.
Not marketing yourself - Do this the following:
(a) Find a good name for your company and secure your domain name. Even though a bad choice for company name won't kill you (my first company was called "Euxine Technologies" and it doesn't get much worse than that), but my product sold itself and was not encumbered by the name.
(b) Put together a web site as soon as possible with a good description of your product. Google will eventually find you and traffic will start flowing to your site.
(c) As soon as you have a working prototype create a mechanism where potential enthusiastic customers can download it and start helping you find bugs. You can make this the full version with a limited time or a limited version with no time limit. I have done both and both work. Make sure that users know it is a beta (or alpha) version of the software. The most important part of creating the beta user relationship is they will ask for features that you did not think about and this could take development along an otherwise unforeseen (and lucrative) path. This will also give you a way to keep your hand on the pulse of potential users.
(d) If your product is applicable to a particular industry go to relevant conferences
(either get a booth or make contact with potential customers) and sell your product through demonstrations, flyers, and the distribution of free limited versions of your software on CD.
Not Branding yourself - come up with a logo that you will use to identify you and your product. This logo will show up on your web, your business stationary, and business cards.
Not Managing your money - initially there is going to be a long spell before the money starts coming in. Be very frugal with your seed money. The money will not start coming in the moment your deem the software is ready to sell. There could be a time-lag of at least a couple of months between when people show interest in your software and when the sale comes in. This will depend on how much your software costs. The more costly the software the longer the time-lag.
Once you start making sales, there will be seasonal variations in how much money comes in. Always try and keep at least 6 months worth of money in the bank to cover salary and operating costs.
Not knowing who your customers are - Once you start selling software, make sure you know who your customers are - they might be different from what you thought they were. When I started my software company, I thought my customers would be all R&D engineers who were doing research in magnetic layers. After a while it became clear that most of my users were the subset of this group that couldn't program, but understood the physics behind the software.
Not acting in a professional manner - When interacting with customers be professional - act and dress in a professional manner.
Creating a product because the technology is cool, rather than because there's a market.
Creating a product because you want it, rather than because there's a market.
Creating a website that lists the features of your product, rather than the benefits.
Assuming that advertising on Google AdWords will work for you.
"Build it and they will come."
The #1 rule of StartUp Club: Every startup should have both nerds and businessmen.
Most computer nerds don't know anything about how to run a business or market and sell a product. There should be at least one businessman at your top level (but watch them like a hawk, lest they steal away with the fruits of your labor :-).
Not understand/knowing who you are competing with.
Not understanding/knowing your target market.
Not including your customers in the design phase.
Not spending enough time gathering product requirements.
Spending too much time gathering product requirements (analysis paralysis).
Not enough marketing.
Have a strong team so you can trust the people you hire to do their job.
Be prepared to do whatever it takes to succeed (ethically of course).
Not having a direction (business plan).
Not having goals or having unreachable goals.
Not understanding cash flow. There are a vast number of profitable businesses who do not succeed because of clash flow issues. Just because you sold a 1000 units doesn't mean you can afford to pay your staff and or other expenses. As I have heard it before "Cash is king!"
These are just some things that might get in your way. I would recommend not only worying about the business side, but worry about what are reasons software projects fail. There are numerous books about how to collect requirements, produce quality code, testing code (e.g. TDD), project methodolgies (e.g. XP, Agile, ...), and many more topics.
Your startup will likely fail if you can't deliver a product or if you can't deliver a product that doesn't solve the problem.
Finally, it is hard to judge success if you don't define what it means to succeed. Is it staying in business, doubling your revenue in 1 year, breaking the $250,000 mark, or doubling your staff size. You need to define what it means to succeed not only in your business, but with each product you create.
Do your homework. If you are in the US, the small business association is a good place to find resources.
Trying to be all things to all people.
Often in trying to create a product that appeals the everyone, the product becomes so general that really no one can get excited about it.
In my opinion, it's better to target your product to a niche community of people with a very specific need and then fill that need better than anyone else.
Here's a common pitfall, but it's not restricted to just small companies: Lack of diversity in the management. The kind of diversity that's important is diversity of experience. I've seen a couple small companies that suffered from this pitfall. They can often go along for a while making good decisions. The problem is that it's almost impossible for them to tell when they're making bad decisions. This doesn't necessarily mean that they'll fail, it just weakens them to varying degrees.
Company Development - in the software industry you can make a lot of money (respectively to other trades) in a very short-time. most people tend to get greedy and want more money so the accept more projects and hire lots of people - but they don't develop their infrastructure, their communication-lines, their responsibilities, their developers etc. Because it costs money and you don't have a direct benefit from it and you lose your cool "flat-hierarchy-everyone-is-a-boss"-image (which is not the case anyhow)
I myself witnessed two promising start-ups fail because the grew way too fast.
So keep an eye on that one.
Shiny! Don't let developers chase the latest shiny thing on the internet that catches their attention. Keep developers focused on the core strategic needs of the company instead of steering your product in different directions as their interest is caught by other things.
There's a blog full of tips at OnStartups. A few recent, relevant posts: learn from the underpants gnomes: have a business model, and here are some marketing tips. The author is a developer-entrepreneur himself, which sounds like exactly your perspective.
Update: Dharmesh just set up a StackOverflow-powered site for just this sort of question: http://answers.onstartups.com/
Make sure you know your target users and their needs.
I worked in a really cool startup where we thought we had a great product, but we were unable to generate that great user story to really demonstrate how our product filled some need for them. This shortcoming prevented them from "connecting" with our product in an exciting way.
In my opinion, the disconnect was due to the fact that we didn't know our target users and understand their problems as well as we should have.
Sales Sales and More Sales. Plus a willingness to release before the code is "perfect" and release features incrementally. There is actually a pretty good Hanselminutes about this very topic and this very site (http://www.hanselminutes.com/default.aspx?showID=152)
Not having some people on the team with different ideas/backgrounds/personalities.
If everyone is always agreeing with each other all the time, and there isn't any friction, you aren't going to get anything done. Oh, you might be alright for a while, but if everyone thinks the same way, when you get stuck (and you will), you will stay stuck. When you're on a roll, a curveball is a distraction; when you're stuck in a rut, or up against a wall, a curveball can get you moving in a different direction. It might be the wrong direction, but at least it's a direction.
Not having enough knowledge and experience in marketing. Although selling a good product is easy.
The problem is what I call IBM OS 2- geniuses build a very good product but the product is not marketed well nor tailored to effectively massage the ears of buyers. I despise some things about business workers like short-term thinkings, perfering quick-and-dirty developers over slow-but-great developers and other issues- but they are the ones who make money and drive software into customers' hands. If a start-up does not have developers who can function effectively work with business issues- then it need to go get someone who can. Failure to do so make is what made Windows 95 a hit and IBM's OS 2 a dinosaur.
Not having a specific market in mind when developing a product. A couple of places where I worked tried to do anything and everything which lead to not enough effort on one market to get profitable first so the business could still be running.
Micro ISV links has some links that were shown in a top secret presentation I attended a little while back that may also be useful.