1. Allan Chao
Startup Consultant
Startup V8
allan@startupv8.com
UC Berkeley Extension, Summer 2012

2. Question of the day:
How many ways can you explain to someone
over the phone how to draw a house?
Humor of the day:

3. The Agenda
 Quiz
 Quick review of last session
 Advanced IDEs
 Backend Programming
 Databases
 APIs
 Technology Stacks

4. Quiz Time
Good luck!
10 minutes max

5. Quick review of prior material
 Client Server Architecture
 IDE = Integrated Development  Request, Response
Environment  Frontend Programming vs Backend Programming
 Syntax highlighting  HTML = Hypertext markup language
 Content and structure
 Auto-completion
 HTML 4.01
 Debugging  Tags, nesting
 Notepad++  CSS = Cascading Style Sheets
 Presentation
 Source Control = Version Control
 Cascading in layers
 Dropbox  JS = Javascript
 Subversion (SVN)  Interaction
 Mercurial  HTML5
 Makes plugins (like Flash) obsolete
 Git
 Twitter Bootstrap
 Testing
 Jquery
 Locally
 Cross Browser Compatibility
 QA = Quality Assurance
 Separation of concerns
 Staging
 Code re-use
 Production
 Specification “the spec”

7. Review of Notepad++
 General purpose IDE
 Very Simple
 Syntax highlight

8. NetBeans
 IDE mostly for Java, PHP, Python, C++

9. Visual Studio

10. IDEs summary
 There are lots of different IDEs
 Generally used for different purposes
 Some are easier to learn than others

12. Comparison
Frontend Programming Backend programming
(this session) (next session)
 Generally, easier to learn than  Generally, harder to learn
backend programming than frontend programming
 Programming how it looks  Programming how it works
 Visual  Functional
 See what you’re doing  Can’t see what you’re doing
 Easier to identify problems  Harder to identify problems
 Code runs on the browser  Code runs on the server
 Mistakes are usually non-critical  Mistakes break the website
 HTML, CSS, JS  PHP, SQL, C#, Python, Ruby
on Rails, Java

13. Introduction to Backend Code
 Complicated!
 One line of frontend  many lines of backend… lots of
files
 Truly Requires Clarification of ideas

14. Complexity of Backend
 One line of frontend  many lines of backend
 Multiple conditions
 Data Validation
 Error handling
 Database access
 Security
 Each case must show
different frontend
 Every “fringe case”
must be handled
http://danm.ucsc.edu/web/TechnicalHelp/php/upload_images.php

15. Programming Languages
 All programming languages have their own syntax
 Each programing language has a different framework
 Different frameworks are better at different things
 Changes all the time
 Each one has its own quirks

16. Different languages to do x! = x * (x-1)…

17. PHP Example

18. Open up Netbeans Sample
 Look at project organization
 Look at code, totally different from frontend code
 Look at visual editor

19. Open up Visual Studio Sample
 Look at project organization
 Look at code, totally different from frontend code
 Look at visual editor
 PRACTICE:
 Program a calculator
 Frontend first
 Use the right words
 Input validation
 Error handling

20. Principles of Programming
 Many solutions
 Good Code
 Simple
 Readable
 Modular
 Flexible
 Efficient
 Secure
 More code != better code
 Bugs happen, but good programming avoids many

21. Mistakes have a high cost

23. Introduction to Databases
 Databases stays behind your application
 Database stores the data
 Users
 Allows multi-access
 High performance
 Very reliable
 Enormous size

24. Database Model Example

25. Designing a Database
 “Entity Relationship Model”
 Figure out everything you need to store
 Anything you don’t plan to store will not be stored
 Figure out what “data type” each one is
 An integer?
 A number?
 A time?
 Words? How many letters long?
 Figure out how it’s all related
 Draw a little picture with lines

26. SQL = DB programming language
 SQL = Structured Query Language

27. Database Engines
 RDBMS = Relational Database Management System
 The program that runs the database
 Distinct from the program that runs the website
 MYSQL
 Free, open source
 Most common place to start
 SQL Server
 Expensive, Microsoft-owned
 Many others
 PostgreSQL, MongoDB

29. Introduction to APIs
 API = Application Programming Interface
 Integrate a 3rd party app with your app
 Generally, can use any programming language
 Generally, requires API support for features

30. Examples
 Facebook OpenGraph
 Integrate Facebook
 Paypal
 eBay
 LinkedIn
 Twitter
 YouTube
 Google Search
 Google Maps

31. SDK
 SDK = Software development kit
 When you want to learn to program with any
particular technology, you need to find the SDK
 E.g. Want to build a Facebook app?
 Find the Facebook app SDK
 E.g. Want to use Google maps on your website?
 Find the Google Maps SDK

32. Precautions
 Generally, APIs are generally poorly documented
 Generally, APIs will change without warning, breaking
your code… very hard to debug
 Generally, programming on APIs takes a lot longer
 Generally, APIs make any project much more complicated

34. Introduction to Technology Stacks
 So many technologies!!
 Make some choices…
 Source Control (SVN, Git, Mercurial)
 Development Environment (Netbeans, Eclipse, Visual Studio)
 Server OS (Linux, Windows, Cloud)
 Server Physicality (Dedicated, shared, virtual, cloud)
 HTTP Server (Apache, nginx, IIS, node.js)
 Database Engine (MYSQL, SQL Server, MongoDB)
 Database Access Layer (SQL, stored procedures, LINQ, etc.)
 Server side framework (PHP, python, C#, Ruby on Rails)
 Client side framework (javascript, jQuery)

35. LAMP
 Linux
 Apache
 MySQL
 PHP
 (sometimes perl or python)
 Free, open source tools
 Easy to start

36. WINS
 Windows
 IIS
 .NET
 SQL Server
 “Microsoft stack”
 Less popular among startups because of the cost
 More commonly used for enterprise level apps

37. Choosing a Technology Stack
 How well does it scale? (x 1...000)
 This is a useless question… all technology stacks must be very significantly changed in
order to scale
 How much does it cost?
 How easy will it be to get developers?
 Most stacks are free
 Microsoft stack costs $$$$$, but BizSpark program makes it free for the first 2 years
 Importance of the architect >> the stack
 Find the best developer you can, and let them choose.
 One caveat… keep it simple and don’t experiment

39. Final Project Presentations
 Present your startup to an investment firm
 Target a 15 minute presentation
 Pitch deck
 Business plan
 Demo (wireframes, mockups?)
 How far you’ve gotten in your project (code, deployed?)
 5-10 minutes of questions and discussions
 Alternative Final Project Presentation
 15 minutes about a startup case study or research subject

40. Homework
 (Team) Keep Programming!
 Build as many pages as you can.
 Design the database model
 Choose a backend framework and start putting it together
 (Team) Keep Going!!
 Keep working on the pitch deck
 Keep marketing your new startup
 Occasionally review the market research data (Google
Analytics, etc.)