Hehe, I thought to start with it was some kind of level or I wasn't understanding what he said...

Juk

i perused his posting history... i agree with turner on all counts.

this is from sedgewick's algorithms in c. am i taking crazy pills or do each of these for loops only get executed once no matter what?

nevermind it evaluates the condition before the variable update.

Sedgewick could use a lesson in creating readable code

I've got plans for a fairly big web project. It's going to include

• a large userbase with secure logins (i know a number of different ways to do this, and I'm not really worried about it),
• subscription payments (I have no idea how to automate this so that people automatically lose their , but presumably there are lots of simple options for this?),
• a large database with distinct permissions for each user, done securely and not lazily,
• dynamically generated pages obv,
• an AJAX-style user interface (never done this before),
• and a ton of other things.

I was originally just going to pay someone else to do the vast majority of the coding, but I'm getting more into the idea of doing a decent chunk of it myself because I've got a lot of time on my hands, and I think web design/coding has gotten a lot cooler in the past couple years. So, I'd like to actually do a decent chunk of it myself.

I've made websites that have most of this functionality before, but I've never made them well--They've been visually ugly, coded sloppily, and poorly organized because they weren't meant for many eyes. Plus, they were written entirely in self-coded PHP, which I really don't want to do again because PHP sucks and reinventing a bunch of wheels is stupid. I've also built very large, nice websites with less functionality by hacking standard website-in-a-box packages like WordPress.

Anyway, my question is what platform(s)/framework you guys recommend for a project like this. My primary coding language is Python, so I'm currently planning to learn Django and go from there. From what I've been reading, it seems to be a really amazing framework, and it seems to integrate a lot of the core functionality that I want, which is awesome.

I've never used django but I've done pylons/pyramid and enjoyed it. Python is fun.

Also, these might help (not sure if you know about them):

https://stripe.com/
http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/

Just to make sure I'm understanding correctly because I've never heard of bootstrap: If I were to use that, it would just be for formatting?

Stripe looks awesome, but the fact that their fees end up being higher than PayPal for high volumes is sorta a big deal... I might need to set something up with different processors for different users or something lame like that.

Sort of.. at its core it's a CSS framework. The most useful components to begin with would be the 12 column grid layouts and pre-formatted typography, tables, forms, buttons etc.

It also offers a lot of other cool features like nav bars with dropdowns, modals, tooltips, tabs etc. It can save a ton of time during the development process.

Django seems like the obvious choice. I used it for the first time about a week ago and it took me about an hour to get a simple blog with comments up and running and I'm not very good with Python.

Yeah.. Bootstrap looks pretty sexy.

You can get very creative with bootstrap if you want. My bootstrap site doesn't look very bootstrap, and neither does coursera.

Stripe should be more expensive than Pay Pal. I can't tell you how many times my Pay Pal account has been hacked and the stories you can find about the company is a novel of people getting burned. Just an awful company and you'd be a fool to depend strictly on Pay Pal.

I have no advice irt to what to use. I know I'll probably y never use a CMS or framework again, but I can only say that because I've only built sites using Drupal and Clojure.

I agree. I hate PayPal really strongly, but it also just seems really natural to instantly compare everyone's prices to the elephant in the room.

Yeah... I don't expect to be using a CMS for this because I'm going to want to customize way too much stuff. There's always the possibility that there happens to be something perfect out there, though, because the internet is a magical place made of dreams and fairy dust.

drupal can be heavily customized, ive gotten a lot of help in irc

But Pay Pal doesn't really have a critical mass outside of eBay and P2P transfers. Maybe that situation would change if banks offered Pay Pal and AMEX stickers on cards instead of Master Card and VISA.

I mean, with all virtual ink spilled on making buying as quick and easy as possible, Pay Pal requires tons of extra steps when compared to whipping out a CC or Debit Card and being done with it. I think it's an unfair comparison to check a price of someone who is navigating the extremely difficult waters of CC-land while taking on security for you vs Pay Pal, who basically just sucks.

How does Drupal compare to other PHP frameworks? Is is fair of Drupal to call itself a framework at all, or is closer to a CMS with a few extra features than WordPress?

(note: I've used Drupal for some pretty basic things, and I think it is pretty decent for what it is, but I don't know much more than a few advanced theming ideas and hooks)

By the time you're running at high volumes, you can re-code using another processor (who's likely going to be harder to integrate than Stripe).

I haven't looked at PayPal recently but when I last did it blows and its not nearly as friendly as Stripe (both for you and the end user).

Not saying the difference in price is worth it for you, but I think more and more people are realizing that Stripe (or similar) is the way to go.

Has Stripe changed something recently or is it still restricted to US/Canada only? I dunno what your userbase will look like but excluding all of Europe might not be the greatest idea (if it's something poker related for example)

The business has to be based in the US or Canada, but the customers need not be. Of course, they don't accept many of the popular Euro-only credit cards.

its ******ed not to accept paypal, despite how much they suck. everyone uses paypal

you dont want to make it difficult for people to give you money

Ah ok that makes it better. I'm not aware of any "popular Euro-only credit cards" :P
(then again I only have a CC for online payment and have never used it to pay for anything in real life)

But how many people have a Pay Pal that doesn't have a standard Debit Card and how is Pay Pal easier than using a Debit Card? If Pay Pal requires you to have a bank account to use them anyways, I'm having a difficult time believing that people are going to stick their nose up at your site for not taking Pay Pal. I would wager that a Pay Pal -only site will lose opportunity far quicker than a MC / VISA - only site.

How many times have you, as a payee, had your account frozen, funds withheld, and your account hacked? I can say each of these items happened to me at least 2 times and I barely use them for anything. In fact, every single time I have used Pay Pal since I've had them as a card-holder for the past 6+ years, I've ran into issues with them.

But my point wasn't really about Pay Pal, my point was that Noah was comparing a one-item, half-assed payment portal price to another payment portal taking on a far more complex payment style and doing it correctly. It's totally unfair.

i dunno, lots of people want to just use the funds in their paypal account already that they have received from friends/ebay/whatev instead of using cards i guess.

thats obvious and not even up for debate. its whether you should accept paypal in addition to cc. thats what i'm saying

re: web apps

can python/ruby load a .dll file and run normal code to interact with a users desktop? suppose i wanted users to log into my website and my app would load a gui window which would give a thumbnail view of every window on their desktop. is that possible? or would i need to use java for that?

IMO, this is the strongest argument for using Paypal. Just getting some damn customers is such a huge challenge in the beginning stages for most startups.

I don't doubt that offering Paypal along with CC is better than offering CC payments only, but do you guys think that the degree of advantage in doing so is different depending on what you're selling?

I use Stripe, and my app is b2b. It seems unlikely to me that there would be much of an advantage at all if I offered Paypal. But a b2c business seems like it could gain more from offering Paypal as an option.

Also, and I'm just guessing, but it seems like if a business is subscription based or has recurring payments, it would be less advantageous to have Paypal as an option b/c it seems like more people would use a CC for recurring payments.