Agreed about SASS (prefer LESS, but still applies), and somewhat with CoffeeScript (I'm in the "make-it-optional-not-default-but-i-heart-CS" camp)...but 100% about HAML. It just always strikes me as backlash against HTML rather than an actual improvement.
What happens when you give HAML to a non-Rails designer? Maybe it's just taste, but I feel that true markup with template tags for data (erb) is much better than a whole new markup language for designers to learn. YMMV.
"Backlash" is a good word. I agree (and without saying no-one else should use Haml.. people totally should if it "clicks" more with them).
I think "designers" or non-Rails people are only the tip of the iceberg though. I've been doing Ruby and Rails since 2004 and while I've tried Haml a couple of times, it never clicked with me because I already both knew and liked HTML. It felt like learning Japanese for the fun of it, yet I can already say everything I want to in English.
Haml user here. I use haml because it allows me to see an entire page's code in a much cleaner format than erb with HTML. I can hammer out or rearrange chunks of HTML much faster in haml. To draw a comparison: haml is to HTML as yaml is to XML. Haml is denser and cleaner but it won't do everything. I still use erb and HTML for some templates because the haml just gets ugly.
Edit: a note, I am plenty comfortable writing vanilla HTML, I just prefer the speed and clarity of haml.
Just a tip: most of the time, when your haml gets messy, you can clean it up dramatically by using the :textile, :markdown, or :javascript formatters (or just put regular HTML in the :erb or :plain formatters).
Agreed! (IMO the ML backlash is more of a XML backlash that carried over to other MLs).
Regardless - A designer that can design for any* framework with standard CSS/HTML is more flexible than a designer that knows HAML, but could't write vanilla markup.
That why I was surprised about the Coffeescript (preferring HAML is a popular opinion, as-is Rspec: yet Erb and Test::Unit are still the defaults).
Edit: I agree that alt. languages/syntaxes in frameworks are nice. Forcing them on people is not nice.
"A designer that can design for any framework with standard CSS/HTML is more flexible than a designer that knows HAML, but could't write vanilla markup."
This is a very bizarre statment. How can someone write haml without understanding HTML and CSS? How could that even be possible? Haml is little more than classes, ids and element names.
In my experience as a Ruby contractor I've seem many, many more WTFs in erb than haml, to the point where when I join a project using erb I now brace myself.
Mozilla nightly builds have always (AFAIK) been called Minefield. The name discourages non-developers from installing it (unless they mistake Minefield for a new version of Minesweep). :)
So it's still easier for people to find and buy your app than it was before the App Store - and you still have to do the same marketing that you would have without the App Store.
No problem. I'm just pointing out that you still have to work hard at marketing to get your app noticed. The original comment I replied to made it seem like Apple takes care of that for you. On the iOS store that's not really true anymore, that's all. I agree with what you said.
Take this advice! The people that are actually suffering from the problems your business solves are (usually) not managers, CEO, or anyone at the top. It is the people in the middle or bottom. They are usually also so happy to have something that solves their problems, that they will act as an internal champion for you during the sales process.
Agreed. Build for the problems you face now - not the problems you may theoretically have in the future.
If a business grows that rapidly - it is most likely that the original systems will have evolved dramatically from day one anyway - in ways you wouldn't have imagined.
I don't care as much as other people that Facebook === blue.
But, IMO it needs a bit more polish. To a designer's eye, this immediately screams "programmer-designed". You may want to hire a designer - hand them these mockups - and let them add a "designers' touch" [more padding, better typographic alignment, softer contrasts, etc].
That said - this is a big improvement over the previous design. Also, please don't feel like I am ragging on your work, just a bit of constructive criticism.
