Qrowd

Any creative endeavor starts in a vacuum of nothingness with fear, uncertainty, and doubt about whether or not what is envisioned can actually be built.  Combined with the uncertainty of whether or not the creation will actually be useful and how it will be perceived by others, then you get a taste of what it is like being an inventor/entrepreneur wanting to improve the world with a new invention.

Just a few minutes ago, Qrowd took its first breaths.  The main processing engine is fully integrated into the wiring editor and part libraries.  Live data from the web flowed through its veins.  The concept that started in my mind’s eye is turning into reality.

As exciting as it was to watch my creation come to life, it is daunting to realize how much work remains before Qrowd will be ready to be used by anyone.  I call this phase the “productization phase”, where there are usually no technical pitfalls lying ahead, just a whole lot of necessary plumbing that has to be laid.  Boring things like database storage, account management, error handling, etc.

Some thorny technical issues do remain, but they are entirely within OpenLaszlo’s DHTML runtime support (primarily with Internet Explorer).  The pace of Qrowd’s development has been slowed to a trickle recently, to wait to see if the forthcoming OpenLaszlo 4.1 release will address these.

Still, enough of Qrowd has been built to prove the viability of my original concept.  Hopefully Qrowd’s technical development will be downhill from here…