Are websites difficult to develop?

daveslaine · Nov 1, 2012

Are websites such as google, facebook, fiverr, paypal, ebay, and craigslist, are they difficult to code?

I mean can a coder on BHW create a website like that?

Moreover, do these companies usually have the founder with the coding knowledge, or do they have the idea and have some coder program for them? And wouldnt such a coder get a share of the company?

I dont know much about coding, so sites like that seem like they require extensive coding and data.

Could someone here make a site at least like fiverr oe craigslist? Or are they difficult to produce too?

jazzc · Nov 1, 2012

daveslaine said:
Are websites such as google, facebook, fiverr, paypal, ebay, and craigslist, are they difficult to code?

I mean can a coder on BHW create a website like that?

Sure. In the freelancing sites, the average price for a google search clone is $500. If you go for the extra services like mail, drive and translator, you should expect double.

Moreover, do these companies usually have the founder with the coding knowledge, or do they have the idea and have some coder program for them? And wouldnt such a coder get a share of the company?

No, all the founder needs to do is to have an idea and a forum account.

I dont know much about coding, so sites like that seem like they require extensive coding and data.

Naaaaah, don't believe the hype.

davedale · Nov 1, 2012

I'm a lead coder for a living.. A site like fiverr for example would take at least 3 months of full time coding with a staff of 3 to get up and running to the level it is right now. It is gonna cost a dime, I would estimate the cost to be $40,000. If you're talking about something that resembles fiverr in a most basic form, it would probably be cheaper.

Shares in the company are typically negotiated at the start of the venture. You give up your salary in favour of shares but sometimes they let you keep both (perhaps with a smaller share).

Zapdos · Nov 1, 2012

The functions they perform is not hard to do. Having likes, indexing the web, making profiles is all fairly basic. The difference between a google clone and google is that google is designed to handle many times the amount of information and process it more thoroughly in a much faster way than the clone. Clones copy functionality, not scalability.

As for company share, it may or may not happen. It really depends on the contributions of the owner/founder and the coder.

daveslaine · Nov 1, 2012

davedale said:
I'm a lead coder for a living.. A site like fiverr for example would take at least 3 months of full time coding with a staff of 3 to get up and running to the level it is right now. It is gonna cost a dime, I would estimate the cost to be $40,000. If you're talking about something that resembles fiverr in a most basic form, it would probably be cheaper.

Shares in the company are typically negotiated at the start of the venture. You give up your salary in favour of shares but sometimes they let you keep both (perhaps with a smaller share).

Interesting. Where would one find a team of such coders? Did fiverr founders code themselves? Or did they just take the idea to a venture capitalist then hire some coders with the cash?

davedale · Nov 1, 2012

Could be either. I would assume though that they got the money from somewhere to code it. Like another poster said, you're only looking at the surface layer; the interface. There is months and months of effort in the backend that make the web apps what they are.

As to where you'd find coders like that? My first inclination would be to look on linkedin or devbistro. Alternatively, you could try outsourcing to other countries, but the quality of the product will reflect that. We have outsourced some development tasks and unfortunately there were a lot of corners cut in the delivered product. You also run into communication barriers and timezone issues.

jazzc · Nov 2, 2012

Thread moved to the programming section for more exposure to the programmer crowd

redfishyellowfish · Nov 2, 2012

I so agree with this.
I saw a 500 dollar quote and I thought thats way too low for a site like fiverr.
If the OP wants a site like fiverr you may want to create a low budget version of it yourself.
You can just get CMS software and setup shop on raptor or something.

jazzc · Nov 2, 2012

Of course, I was just being sarcastic on my first post.

As Zapdos said, the scalability is what costs a lot.

daveslaine · Nov 2, 2012

davedale said:
Could be either. I would assume though that they got the money from somewhere to code it. Like another poster said, you're only looking at the surface layer; the interface. There is months and months of effort in the backend that make the web apps what they are.

As to where you'd find coders like that? My first inclination would be to look on linkedin or devbistro. Alternatively, you could try outsourcing to other countries, but the quality of the product will reflect that. We have outsourced some development tasks and unfortunately there were a lot of corners cut in the delivered product. You also run into communication barriers and timezone issues.

Honestly, I just want to create a one page site. Essentially, a person signs up, then writes a few things, includes his name, last name, some stuff, maybe ads a picture, and a video, and depending on the options he or she chose, clicks ok, then has to pay, when he pays, his content is listed on the website as a title, numbered, and it shows the date and time posted. But you see, this is where I run into custom coding problems. Wordpress may have this, but idk.

jazzc · Nov 2, 2012

You can definitely use wordpress as a base for what you describe, you 'll probably need some custom theme/plugin.

madoctopus · Nov 2, 2012

fiver, craigslist - doable by a single person in a few months
google, facebook - sure, if you afford the billions to build and maintain datacenters and the army of employees

is not as much about coding the site as it is about making it handle the shiltoads of traffic and providing the extra services required to operate

affarmy · Nov 2, 2012

All the above is very doable- you're forgetting the main ingredient: Marketing. Plain and simple

madoctopus said:
fiver, craigslist - doable by a single person in a few months
google, facebook - sure, if you afford the billions to build and maintain datacenters and the army of employees

is not as much about coding the site as it is about making it handle the shiltoads of traffic and providing the extra services required to operate

madoctopus · Nov 2, 2012

affarmy said:
All the above is very doable- you're forgetting the main ingredient: Marketing. Plain and simple

He's asking if it is hard to develop. Can you develop google alone? When you can, then you can say they are doable. You don't need just developers to develop a big site. You need:

- System admins
- Network admins
- Optimization specialists
- Suppliers
- HVAC engineers
- Electrical engineers
- Security engineers
- Accountants
- Lawyers
- Fiscalists
- Support employees
- Billing employees
- Marketers
- Advertising
- Business development
- A bunch of other employees for various things

and only then you have the developers that code stuff.

I'm obviously talking about a big business like Google or Facebook. Even Fiverr which is rather small has a team behind and is not run by one single person. I'm not even mentioning the fact that some of the big sites have uncommon know-how, R&D and intellectual property behind. I'm not even mentioning it took them 10 years or more to get here.

About how difficult it is to be a developer - it takes several years to become proeficient in a programming language. It is the equivalent of becoming a poet in a foreign language (if you're American, write poems in Russian). While you can learn how to code and a specific programming language in as little as 4-6 months, it will take you many years to become really good at it. Many areas require inter-disciplinary knowledge as well. For example to be a great web developer you would need not just PHP knowledge but also MySQL/RDBMS, security & computer forensics, Linux, CSS, HTML, JavaScript + a library as JQuery, maybe a PHP framework, usability, performance optimization (system/linux, client, network, database, etc), design/UI, SEO, marketing, psychology, etc. You won't be an expert in any of these areas but you need to have at least decent knowledge in each if you want to call yourself a good developer. You can of course just code in PHP and not care of the rest but then somebody would have to come and kick your ass every 20 minutes for doing something stupid like not filtering user input, leaving XSS holes, writing CSS that is not cross-browser, making a layout that is unfriendly, etc. Or, if you work by yourself, you would simply fail at obtaining what you want - a site that is useful for users and makes you money. The world is full of noobs that think Internet Marketing means installing WordPress, writing 5 posts and building 10000 comments with ScrapeBox. It is also full of nobs who think SEO can be learned from others. Also full of noobs who think being a copywriter means spelling right or being a writer means having proper grammar, or being a spinner means knowing how to use TheBestSpinner. I've said it before and I am saying it again - people are simply not willing to engage in a quest that will last years. They want instant gratification. They want to "make money fast", "make money easy" while not improving themselves and staying at the same level they are now. They do not want to accept the simple fact that succeeding (at anything) means changing you from who you are now to a new you who is capable to obtain success. That means you do not break, you do not bend, you do not flinch and you do not want shit. You just "run on the thread mil" until you die and you never complain or whine, you just keep running until you are who you want to be or you laying down dead. You either got there or you died in the process and you can be proud of your self for giving everything and having no regrets. That is how you fucking succeed. If you think it is hard you don't want it hard enough. It is not hard, it is not easy - those are irrelevant things. The only thing relevant is: DO YOU FUCKING WANT IT? But most people don't. They want it only if it is easy and fast and if implies no sacrifice and if other people won't point a finger at them for doing it and if they are cosy and they don't face the possibility that tomorrow they might have to clean toilets to afford to buy food so they get energy for one more day of running on the thread mill knowing that next day they might drop dead. People are afraid of life because they are afraid of death and they are afraid of death because they know they never gave everything they got to anything in life. Change the Universe (even what seems to you a tiny bit) and you will be part of it even when your body will be long gone. You do not have to make others happy, you do not need cars and yachts and billions. You only need to make it so YOU are happy and proud of yourself and get what YOU want from life. When you truly understand that and make your choice fully, everything else will fall into place and everything you don't care about will dissipate around you. Be afraid and you will always feel fear from anything. Be beautiful and you will always see beauty in everything. Your life is not shitty because somebody else made it shitty. It is shitty because you make it shitty yourself and always focus only on the shitty aspects of it.

I'll stop here because I started with web development and ended up somewhere else.

affarmy · Nov 2, 2012

No disagreement here. Valid. It's just that so many people tend to overlook the guts and concentrate on the shell.
It always boils down to the simple formula. Eyeballs. Clone whatever you want. How can you drive traffic and monetize and create profit? That's where I see so many fall short.

madoctopus said:
He's asking if it is hard to develop. Can you develop google alone? When you can, then you can say they are doable. You don't need just developers to develop a big site. You need:

- System admins
- Network admins
- Optimization specialists
- Suppliers
- HVAC engineers
- Electrical engineers
- Security engineers
- Accountants
- Lawyers
- Fiscalists
- Support employees
- Billing employees
- Marketers
- Advertising
- Business development
- A bunch of other employees for various things

and only then you have the developers that code stuff.

I'm obviously talking about a big business like Google or Facebook. Even Fiverr which is rather small has a team behind and is not run by one single person. I'm not even mentioning the fact that some of the big sites have uncommon know-how, R&D and intellectual property behind. I'm not even mentioning it took them 10 years or more to get here.

About how difficult it is to be a developer - it takes several years to become proeficient in a programming language. It is the equivalent of becoming a poet in a foreign language (if you're American, write poems in Russian). While you can learn how to code and a specific programming language in as little as 4-6 months, it will take you many years to become really good at it. Many areas require inter-disciplinary knowledge as well. For example to be a great web developer you would need not just PHP knowledge but also MySQL/RDBMS, security & computer forensics, Linux, CSS, HTML, JavaScript + a library as JQuery, maybe a PHP framework, usability, performance optimization (system/linux, client, network, database, etc), design/UI, SEO, marketing, psychology, etc. You won't be an expert in any of these areas but you need to have at least decent knowledge in each if you want to call yourself a good developer. You can of course just code in PHP and not care of the rest but then somebody would have to come and kick your ass every 20 minutes for doing something stupid like not filtering user input, leaving XSS holes, writing CSS that is not cross-browser, making a layout that is unfriendly, etc. Or, if you work by yourself, you would simply fail at obtaining what you want - a site that is useful for users and makes you money. The world is full of noobs that think Internet Marketing means installing WordPress, writing 5 posts and building 10000 comments with ScrapeBox. It is also full of nobs who think SEO can be learned from others. Also full of noobs who think being a copywriter means spelling right or being a writer means having proper grammar, or being a spinner means knowing how to use TheBestSpinner. I've said it before and I am saying it again - people are simply not willing to engage in a quest that will last years. They want instant gratification. They want to "make money fast", "make money easy" while not improving themselves and staying at the same level they are now. They do not want to accept the simple fact that succeeding (at anything) means changing you from who you are now to a new you who is capable to obtain success. That means you do not break, you do not bend, you do not flinch and you do not want shit. You just "run on the thread mil" until you die and you never complain or whine, you just keep running until you are who you want to be or you laying down dead. You either got there or you died in the process and you can be proud of your self for giving everything and having no regrets. That is how you fucking succeed. If you think it is hard you don't want it hard enough. It is not hard, it is not easy - those are irrelevant things. The only thing relevant is: DO YOU FUCKING WANT IT? But most people don't. They want it only if it is easy and fast and if implies no sacrifice and if other people won't point a finger at them for doing it and if they are cosy and they don't face the possibility that tomorrow they might have to clean toilets to afford to buy food so they get energy for one more day of running on the thread mill knowing that next day they might drop dead. People are afraid of life because they are afraid of death and they are afraid of death because they know they never gave everything they got to anything in life. Change the Universe (even what seems to you a tiny bit) and you will be part of it even when your body will be long gone. You do not have to make others happy, you do not need cars and yachts and billions. You only need to make it so YOU are happy and proud of yourself and get what YOU want from life. When you truly understand that and make your choice fully, everything else will fall into place and everything you don't care about will dissipate around you. Be afraid and you will always feel fear from anything. Be beautiful and you will always see beauty in everything. Your life is not shitty because somebody else made it shitty. It is shitty because you make it shitty yourself and always focus only on the shitty aspects of it.

I'll stop here because I started with web development and ended up somewhere else.

SEO20 · Nov 2, 2012

Remember: you don't got a problems scaling your code. Your ONLY problem is you don't have any users. Start off cheap with a fast prototype. If it proves business value and attracts users/paying subscribers fine-tune your code.

FACT: You will rewrite/re architect several times once you got the volume. Again - you don't do this first - prove your value and grow with your needs.

Cas87 · Nov 2, 2012

madoctopus said:
About how difficult it is to be a developer - it takes several years to become proeficient in a programming language. It is the equivalent of becoming a poet in a foreign language (if you're American, write poems in Russian). While you can learn how to code and a specific programming language in as little as 4-6 months, it will take you many years to become really good at it. Many areas require inter-disciplinary knowledge as well. For example to be a great web developer you would need not just PHP knowledge but also MySQL/RDBMS, security & computer forensics, Linux, CSS, HTML, JavaScript + a library as JQuery, maybe a PHP framework, usability, performance optimization (system/linux, client, network, database, etc), design/UI, SEO, marketing, psychology, etc. You won't be an expert in any of these areas but you need to have at least decent knowledge in each if you want to call yourself a good developer. You can of course just code in PHP and not care of the rest but then somebody would have to come and kick your ass every 20 minutes for doing something stupid like not filtering user input, leaving XSS holes, writing CSS that is not cross-browser, making a layout that is unfriendly, etc. Or, if you work by yourself, you would simply fail at obtaining what you want - a site that is useful for users and makes you money. The world is full of noobs that think Internet Marketing means installing WordPress, writing 5 posts and building 10000 comments with ScrapeBox. It is also full of nobs who think SEO can be learned from others. Also full of noobs who think being a copywriter means spelling right or being a writer means having proper grammar, or being a spinner means knowing how to use TheBestSpinner. I've said it before and I am saying it again - people are simply not willing to engage in a quest that will last years. They want instant gratification. They want to "make money fast", "make money easy" while not improving themselves and staying at the same level they are now. They do not want to accept the simple fact that succeeding (at anything) means changing you from who you are now to a new you who is capable to obtain success. That means you do not break, you do not bend, you do not flinch and you do not want shit. You just "run on the thread mil" until you die and you never complain or whine, you just keep running until you are who you want to be or you laying down dead. You either got there or you died in the process and you can be proud of your self for giving everything and having no regrets. That is how you fucking succeed. If you think it is hard you don't want it hard enough. It is not hard, it is not easy - those are irrelevant things. The only thing relevant is: DO YOU FUCKING WANT IT? But most people don't. They want it only if it is easy and fast and if implies no sacrifice and if other people won't point a finger at them for doing it and if they are cosy and they don't face the possibility that tomorrow they might have to clean toilets to afford to buy food so they get energy for one more day of running on the thread mill knowing that next day they might drop dead. People are afraid of life because they are afraid of death and they are afraid of death because they know they never gave everything they got to anything in life. Change the Universe (even what seems to you a tiny bit) and you will be part of it even when your body will be long gone. You do not have to make others happy, you do not need cars and yachts and billions. You only need to make it so YOU are happy and proud of yourself and get what YOU want from life. When you truly understand that and make your choice fully, everything else will fall into place and everything you don't care about will dissipate around you. Be afraid and you will always feel fear from anything. Be beautiful and you will always see beauty in everything. Your life is not shitty because somebody else made it shitty. It is shitty because you make it shitty yourself and always focus only on the shitty aspects of it.

I'll stop here because I started with web development and ended up somewhere else.

This should be the first thing every one should read before deciding to become a website developer..

Or something along those lines.. best thing i have read in a while ++

berkolish · Nov 6, 2012

Zapdos said:
Clones copy functionality, not scalability.

Agreed. Plus don't forget the cost that is incurred to keep improving the site and making it more user-friendly.. Then there are cost of servers. I guess one guy could code something like the above-mentioned websites.. But as the website takes off, invariably many more people will have to be brought in to control and manage the various moving parts.

loclhero · Nov 6, 2012

daveslaine said:
Honestly, I just want to create a one page site. Essentially, a person signs up, then writes a few things, includes his name, last name, some stuff, maybe ads a picture, and a video, and depending on the options he or she chose, clicks ok, then has to pay, when he pays, his content is listed on the website as a title, numbered, and it shows the date and time posted. But you see, this is where I run into custom coding problems. Wordpress may have this, but idk.

A bit off topic but why would someone pay? I guess what I'm asking is what is the purpose of the site? It almost sounds like you're trying to set up a dating site which obviously would be more than one page.

opiates · Nov 16, 2012

You can go to Yahoo Geocities, or several other sites that have site builders, such as: msn, facebook, or many others.They have several free tools that help with that. I suggest that you check out yahoo geocities.

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