If you can push all your data to the front-end all at once, yes. DataTables makes this pretty straightforward.
Otherwise, his point stands. DataTables has hooks for this stuff, of course, but that's just a way of saying "DataTables doesn't itself solve this problem".
I rather like the fact that DataTables doesn't try and solve the whole problem (front end and server back end) - otherwise you end up with things like ASP.Net server controls and DataGrids which are really just an attempt to port desktop development approaches to the web - creating an unpleasantly leaky abstraction along the way.
I find that using DataTables as front end and hooking it up to a backend is pretty straightforward and results in a nice separation of concerns - let the server/database worry about paging, sorting, searching and filtering. Of course, if you have a relatively small amount of rows then just let DataTables do all the work - but at least you have the choice.
> If you can push all your data to the front-end all at once, yes. DataTables makes this pretty straightforward.
Paginagtion(ajax or page reload takes care of it). I use slickgrid https://github.com/mleibman/SlickGrid; pagination is straight forward, filtering takes some work. But do the hook once, and wrap the table in jquery-ui css framework's ui-widget, and you have a good looking, working table.
> but that's just a way of saying "DataTables doesn't itself solve this problem".
slickgrid is sortable, but filtering needs work. In fact, "slickgrid doesn't do everything" is part of its philosophy.
I have come to opposite conclusion that of author's. Having an excel sheet replacement in your repertoire is important, especially when you are replacing enterprisy stuff.
I found DataTables was much, much faster when I passed a JSON data hash - I think the DOM manipulation is what normally kills it. We've got some tables of several thousand rows in a small internal app and performance is fine, even in older IEs. (I think I tested up to several tens of thousands before IE started to be unreasonably slow - YMMV, of course.)
Be very careful with screwing with your sleep cycle. Our bodies and to some extent our minds are hardwired to depend on the natural rhythm caused by daylight/night-time. Obviously this is pretty easy to mess with thanks to artificial light and the cross-over of light spectrums.
There are chemicals in our brains which are only produced by certain rhythms, not to mention the need for sunlight and vitamin D. Being especially hard on your body can be detrimental to your long-term health and when we sleep is almost certainly as important as how much sleep we get.
I write this as someone who has a very tough time on both counts and is seriously envious of his wife who gets good sleep at the drop of a hat.
Disagree. As a Canadian entrepreneur and someone who has previously worked as a sole proprietor for many years you should absolutely consider incorporation.
If you are a sole entrepreneur looking to go with a Canadan Controlled Private Corporation you should NOT pay a lawyer to get your business set up. Do your research, choose the jurisdiction that fits you best and get to it. It's dead simple and once you've determined the correct steps you can easily accomplish what need in a matter of days, or less.
Secondly, if you are paying $2k+ for your first fiscal year (let's assume that the company has not broken even) then you are being ripped off, plain and simple. You do not need audited accounts at this time. I paid roughly $450-550 annually for the first couple of years for the services of a very competent firm who I would refer in a heartbeat.
Being a sole proprietor is simple, both from the tax and setup perspectives however it is not without some drawbacks. The tax rate is much higher than that of a corporation and you will be doing business as yourself. This has far reaching legal ramifications if you want to accept money from people you don't know (online sales for your SaaS, for example) and many things that you will need to get to this stage are going to require a registered business at the very least. There are also some avenues that will be inaccessible to you because of your sole proprietor status (certain grants, tax credits, etc.) and you will constantly be fighting the little guy image.
The moral of the story is, if you ever want your business to move "beyond yourself", you should seriously consider incorporating.
My guess: severe burns, pulmonary edema and cardiovascular collapse. I'm basing this on the temperatures of lava vs. what would be expected inside of a fully involved house fire (I used to be a volunteer fire fighter).
I'm willing to bet that Pizza Pizza isn't missing out on much money over their website. It is far more common for someone to place an order for pizza by dropping by the establishment or making a two minute phone call.
What is more likely is that the majority of their customers really don't care about the website and so Pizza Pizza has little incentive to improve it. Why spend time and money on something that virtually no-one uses?
You're an exception to the rule. Businesses aren't as stupid as you think: they're simply putting their resources elsewhere. Online accessibility is not a priority for many businesses and the poor execution that follows should not be mistaken for anything else.
Pizza Pizza received 111,111 orders through their mobile app in the past six months. [1] Dominos' gets over $1 million a week in sales. [2]
Online ordering accounts for millions and millions in revenue for pizza shops alone. Anecdotally, I know several pizza shops that get more than 1/3rd of their orders from the web now.
IBM made a similar argument about microcomputers. "Our customers aren't interested in microcomputers. They want mainframes. We'd be better off optimizing our mainframes than investing in microcomputers."
That's the nature of the innovator's dilemma. If you listen to your existing customers, you lose out on the ability to win a nascent, but growing market that ends up being bigger than the market you're in right now.
I wouldn't be surprised if in the next decade or so another pizza chain came along with a better website and ended up with a more dominant marketshare than Pizza Pizza. As more and more people get ubiquitous internet access, the competitive advantage of having a web-based order form will grow.
Does IBM really apply here? They seemed to do alright with the PC.
'web interface' is not the first or second thing I think about when ordering pizza. Here is what I care about:
1) Taste
2) Time to door
3) Price
Everything else has little or no impact. Now if I could say 'Siri, order me my usual' and siri ordered my usual from the closest Pizza Pizza and had it delivered to my determined location? Gold!
In the end, the PC market almost killed IBM. Remember, they ditched the PC during their restructuring, and have been doing much better ever since.
I don't think the point is "web interface", it's basic points about access and usability. I agree that the taste of the pizza is paramount, but as companies like Amazon have discovered, even a slow website, or a challenging ecommerce transaction will turn off many potential customers.
What nearly killed IBM was (1) their devotion to their 'mainframes' and (2) Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Sun, HP, Oracle, Gateway, Dell, Cisco, Juniper, Micron, Seagate, Western Digital, EMC, AOL, etc.
In particular in three years near 1994 they went from just over 400,000 employees down to just over 200,000 and lost $16 billion. Their Research Division went from 4500 full time employees down to 1000 plus about 500 'contract' employees. They thoroughly cleaned out rush hour traffic in NY counties Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess. There were suicides.
Why? One of their deepest analyses was "God ceased to smile on IBM". The truth was that IBM had their head in the sand, and Andy Grove, Bill Gates, Mike Dell, etc. ate IBM's breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime snack and took their house, car, shoes, suits, ties, and shirts.
In 1984, IBM had everything in computing -- X-ray lithography, microelectronics, circuit design, microcode, computer architecture, virtual machines, mass storage, various operating systems, middleware, programming languages, productivity software, system management software, packet switched networks, marketing, and customer support, in the US and around the world. Nine years later they were nearly bust. One of the biggest extractions of defeat from the jaws of victory in all of business history. Main reason: Head in the sand. Actually, internally from various sources, both internal and external, they were always just awash in accurate and deep analyses of just what was going on. It's just that the top management had their heads in the sand. Dumb.
Pretty much everyone I know in College only order online due to it's convenience. Domino's isn't the best pizza in the world but their website is built pretty well, and as a result most pizzas you find on the college campus I am thinking of are either from the school pub or from Domino's.
Yes, the two most common ways of ordering pizza now are via the phone or in person, but there's no reason to expect that this will stay constant. Communication between people has trended away from voice contact for a while now, and if a company has a working web interface to order a product, people will use it.
Some advantages of ordering pizza online through a proper interface:
- No chance of orders being misinterpreted on the order side
- Ability to see all of the options that you can order
- No need to reenter delivery information
Each purchase vector should either be done right or not at all. Having poor implementations will just lower the opinion of your consumers and can discourage them from using your company at all in the future.
I agree with your point that "each purchase vector should either be done right or not at all." In Pizza Pizza's case they should have stopped at an easy-to-use location finder with address and contact info and avoided the ordering bit altogether.
As someone who frequently uses the Pizza Pizza online ordering site, I couldn't disagree more. It has problems but it's way better than nothing or using the phone, which always becomes a clusterfuck because nobody can decide what they want until you're on the phone.
I'm willing to bet that Pizza Pizza isn't missing out on much money over their website. It is far more common for someone to place an order for pizza by dropping by the establishment or making a two minute phone call.
I think online pizza ordering is becoming much more popular. In my area, there is a website that allows you to order online from local shops, for a slight fee. I have seen dozens of people use this service, even though they could have called in to save the extra fee. I feel that these people would have a bad experience with Pizza Pizza, and bad experiences usually affect the perception of a product as a whole. This is where you really start to lose money.
Also, this article is using Pizza Pizza as an example. If a large chain is failing so miserably, I am sure other companies are hurting badly from poor web development.
In addition, much web development suffers from the "bike shed problem"[1]: The designers, programmers, managers, and everyone else involved in creating the web site feels that they "know" what their users needs are. Nobody bothers to actually test the sites using real users.
The exception to this rule is sites that are the only way to purchase something. These sites have a monetary incentive to make their customers successful.
I only order pizzza online...that way I can be 100% sure that they actually got my order, and that they'll make it the way I ask for.
Sure if you are only getting a single peperoni pizza you can just call it in, but if you want anything custom or are making a large order, going online is the way to go
For other businesses, I always need to make sure that they a) have good reviews and b) have a decent online presence that shows they are competent
Exactly. There is something nice about the lack of ambiguity. If you get a screwed up phone order, you have no idea who made the mistake. You, the rep, the store, the driver, could be anyone.
When you order online, you know exactly what you need to know because you are both the customer and the rep, and you get an e-mail copy to reference. Errors in the order become indisputable, which is nice.
Making the age old question "Did he forget to bring that or did I forget to order it?" obsolete is reason enough to use it in my book. There are other benefits, but that's one of the best.
Are you sure about that? I would order pizza online in a heartbeat if I didn't think that it was going to take twice as long, my order was going to get ignored, or they were going to deliver it to an address in the wrong city. If I had any confidence at all in the local pizza shop's website and the way the process orders from it, I'd never phone an order in again.
Really? It blew my mind when I used it because of how good it was. I needed to create a pizza with half-and-half toppings and it was really easy to do. Maybe not all corner cases have been handled well, but given the limited UI space and just how complex ordering pizza can be (your use case to wit), I think they did a great job.
Same here, I was floored by how good it is. I'm obviously rating it on a scale of "Apps by Canadian companies" and in that scale, it's the best without question. It's not like I'm looking for the Pizza Pizza app to have a Reeder quality level.
I've reported bugs, submitted reviews, and recommended it to others. That's the benefit of doing it properly. I sure as hell haven't recommended or supported the terrible, half assed apps other Canadian retailers have on the app store.
I don't think I've written anything extraordinary about running a startup in relative isolation but I am curious to know what other people think of the idea.
I'm definitely on the "it's better to be closer" side of the fence but I'm willing to be converted and hear what other people have to say about their startup experiences vs. proximity to other like-minded people.
