I recently re-read Douglas Crockford’s JavaScript: The Good Parts. I have been writing more and more JavaScript lately, especially object-oriented JavaScript plugging into existing frameworks. Re-reading the book has definitely been a useful exercise — I think when I first read it approximately 6 months ago, I didn’t fully understand it. But now, I do. … Continue reading The danger of feature-driven design
I’ll start off this post with a somewhat controversial claim: I invented Dropbox. I’ll show why this claim doesn’t matter later, but for now, I’ll assure you that it’s true. How many of you out there use Dropbox? If you don’t, you should — it’s an excellent tool. In its free version, it provides you … Continue reading Persistent Folders: Or, why ideas don’t matter, and execution does
A few days ago, I got a call from my girlfriend, Olivia. I was so deep in working on my startup, Parse.ly, that I hadn’t checked my bank account statements in several weeks. We just went into private beta last Thursday, after DreamIt Demo Day. She noticed some suspicious charges, and so I looked into … Continue reading Chase’s completely insecure and broken “secure” document exchange system (aka securedx, secure-dx)
This is Andrew Montalenti’s personal site for code, essays, and ideas. Andrew was the founding CTO of Parse.ly, a real-time and historical content analytics platform running on thousands of sites. In February 2021, Parse.ly was acquired by Automattic, the fully distributed company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce.com, and WPVIP.com. Andrew is a long-time Pythonista, with a deep … Continue reading About Me