Looks awesome! I'm curious, there seem to be quite a few transactional mail services on the come-up these days, each with their own little bit of special sauce (SendGrid, Amazon SES, PostMark, et al).
If I were evaluating Mandrill in addition to those services, what are the main things I should focus on that really sets Mandrill apart from those other providers?
There are a few things that we think set Mandrill apart from the pack. Our application is designed with responsiveness in mind, and we have mobile application on both of the major platforms so you can get access to your email stats and reputation wherever you are. We have search and analytics deeply ingrained in the application in a way that is fairly unique - letting you see your emails in context and trying to derive the context for you when we can. We also integrate deeply with the main MailChimp product. They use the same underlying delivery engine, the same templating and content personalization systems, and we have a heavy discount for users of both products.
Mandrill's still a rapidly iterating product for us, but we think we can take the same sense of usability and power that we have in MailChimp and extend it to email more broadly.
Not yet. The inbound system right now is really basic - we'll parse out the messages and deliver them to a webhook, but we won't munge it much beyond breaking apart attachments and things.
Yes - the pricing is flat rate. Right now charging for inbound emails is turned off since the feature is so new and basic, but inbound emails will be indexed and tracked the same as outbound emails, so they'll be charged the same.
I love Heroku's little "language and community" section of these articles when they add a new supported platform. For example, the link to the explanation of Scala's Hindley-Milner type inference method (http://www.codecommit.com/blog/scala/what-is-hindley-milner-...) definitely taught me something new about the internals of Scala, and in general a new topic in Computer Science.
Congrats on shipping yet another supported platform!
Minor correction - Scala does not have the Hindley-Milner type inference method and for technical reasons it would be very hard to have something similar. Languages that do have Hindley-Milner are those from the ML family, like Ocaml, Haskell and F#.
The codecommit article is a good intro to H-M as in Haskell, OCaml, F#, SML (AKA Damas-Milner by at least one dev I respect), here is codecomit guy re: why Scala can't use HM / DM, rather, Scala is flow-based, or "local type inference".
Oops, thanks for correcting me. I think the original article claimed it did use it, or at least something very similar - it looks like Herkou has tweaked their article and pulled that link.
We use syslog where I work, and I've always felt the same way, but never heard any suggestions for better options with as wide adoption, support, and background as syslog.
Out of pure curiosity, what do you see as the tool most likely to displace syslog in the future? Is there any alternative available that fixes most of these problems without rolling your own from pieces and parts?
I think we're stuck with syslog, but for app logging, ad-hoc database storage --- especially if you have either (a) a database optimized for message queueing or (b) a schemaless database --- is going to tend to beat syslog. You're not going to realize it until you need the information you're logging, though; until then, it's going to seem like syslog is everything you could reasonably need.
That is a great question - we actually didn't consider using elastic search, we went with Solr because we use it for Octopart and are experienced with it so it made developing ThriftDB easier. We're evaluating other options now and will have a look.
Due to Amazon's limitation of 100 buckets per account and the coupling between bucket name and CNAME, hosting files for our clients and supporting custom CNAMEs has not been possible for us. If we were to move to Google Storage, it would be.
Multipart uploads only sort-of address this. For one thing, the minimum "part" size is 5MB, so you can only resume at 5MB boundaries (or whatever part size you use). You also have to manage more state yourself.
Pardot is hiring software developers to help us build and maintain our Prospect Insight web application marketing automation system. This role will expose you to a variety of projects and allow you to significantly expand your development skill set. We pride ourselves with having an awesome work environment that includes large, dual monitors, fast machines, and a variety of operating system choices (Mac, Linux, and PC).
Responsibilities:
Back-end code development in PHP on symfony
Front-end development using HTML + jQuery
Unit testing (PHPUnit, etc)
Technical documentation
Requirements:
B.A./B.S./M.S. with a strong academic record.
One to five years of post-graduate programming experience.
Strong interest in technology or marketing.
Overall fluency in software development.
Please include the following in your cover letter when you apply:
In your favorite programming language, write a recursive function that takes in an integer n and outputs the first n numbers in the fibonacci sequence in order starting with 0.
Email zach.bailey@pardot.com and mention hacker news for preferential treatment :)
Disagree. A quick google shows most sources claim the optimal temperature for brewing coffee is somewhere between 195-205F (92-96C) which is certainly hot enough to cause first degree burns in your mouth.
Now certain herbal teas on the other hand are brewed at lower temperatures to keep from scalding the leaves. That may be what you're thinking?
I'm curious, what's your optimal temperature and how do you brew your joe?
I've spent a good long time studying coffee prep. I'm not a pro, but I am a mildly obsessive foodie geek, so that may inform how many pinches of salt you take this with.
In non-pressurised or Turkish coffee (French Press, pour-over, other filter) the optimal extraction temperature varies between 93C and 89C - above that you'll start to "scorch" the brew, which means you'll be over-extracting caffine amongst other things, causing that bitter taste.
(I'm fairly sure those are the figures that Harold McGee quotes in "On Food And Cooking", although my copy is buried below a stack of books at the moment whilst we redo our kitchen.)
However, yes, 93C is definitely hot enough that it'll be no fun to drink.
Yes that brew temp is correct. Any hotter and you'll scald the coffee. That's the temperature that the water hits the ground beans, not the temperature it should hit your lips.
In a french press, the brew then sits for 3-4 minutes before being served at a hot, yet palatable temperature. Same goes with a pour-over drip or a chimex.
The problem people have with coffee that's too hot is usually related to subpar brew methods, either scalding the coffee grind with water that's too hot (during extraction) or using a cheap drip machine that has a burner that's overactive and basically scorches any coffee that's left out too long.
I'm very surprised people have not mentioned this app does not work very well (if at all) when the phone is in any orientation other than straight up and down.
Why is it not possible for the developers to use the orientation sensor/gyroscope to accomodate for this? Many times it's easier to fit a bunch of text on the camera in landscape mode than the alternative. It's also a lot more natural for me to hold my phone in landscape mode when using the camera.
Just my $0.02 and congrats on all the hubbub. Can't wait for more languages :)
If I were evaluating Mandrill in addition to those services, what are the main things I should focus on that really sets Mandrill apart from those other providers?