Yet another example of how bad people want to make money really-really bad without actually doing anything. "Go from idea to a product in a few weeks with some help of an offshoring developmet team".

Since when software became so easy to make that it takes only weeks to "convert an idea..."?

How about building something hm... more complex than a dozen of HTMLized SQL SELECT outputs?

You don't develop on laptops. This is not what they are built for: they slow, keyboards are not capable of decent typing speed and screens are tiny.

Stop trying to look hip and get yourself a workstation.

Some of us like to code in bed. Or on the floor, or outside, or while watching TV.

For me, the convenience of being able to take my computer wherever I want far outweighs the bigger screens and hard disks of a desktop. And I've never found the keyboards to be a problem; I type 90+ WPM on a Dvorak-layout laptop keyboard.

Depends. I've been developing our site on a macbook pro. I prefer a workstation for the faster hard drive, but when developing a web app based on an interpreted language, that doesn't really matter.

And I'm using an external keyboard + LCD, so I have the best of both worlds.

I would have to agree. I can deal with a laptop in a pinch, but it slows me down considerably.

How is Linux at supporting dual monitors?

Having used laptops with both ATI and nVidia chips inside, nvidia support is definitely the way to go between the two, especially for multi-monitor setups. I actually returned my old laptop with ATI graphics because their Linux drivers and support was terrible.

I hear that the new Intel graphic chips are also quite nice, and the fact that they open sourced the drivers should make them the ideal Linux graphics adapters, but I don't have any experience with them.

That would have been my answer to the parent: I use an external monitor, mouse and keyboard at home.

I've managed to get the ATI Radeon under Ubuntu to display both two desktops or only use one screen or the other. But it was quite a fight. And more fancy things like one large desktop on two screens didn't work out.

For ubuntu & ati check this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1773544

if you're using nvidia like me, then it's as simple as adding a couple of lines to your xorg congfig

Bullshit. Web "development" is a high school skill. Which is why web frameworks are trivial to implement, learn and use. Which is why building web sites takes months, not years. Tenths of thousands of dollars, not millions.

Complex software takes good knowledge of complex algorithms and man-years of development. Well.. since everybody wants to get rich quickly these days, innovation scaled down to web "applications", where the only valuable thing is percisely the idea. And your only advantage is the time to market.

It took years for other big firms to develop search engines as good as google's is. THAT is what I call "implementation is hard". Implementing something as trivial as myspace is less complex than compiler class project in college. (I've done both).

If web development is so easy, why is the poster posting here instead of simply "whipping up" a competing application?

Why do hundreds of kids bother applying to YCombinator?

Can't they just whip up a webapp in a few months?

Yes - web dev is easier than desktop app or complex client/server applications, but Hitting the High Notes (as Joel says) will never be "easy". Simple, yes. Easy, no.

Ok, let it be simple. My point is that Kawasaki is 100% right. If your idea can be so easily stolen, it probalby wasn't a great idea to begin with. Maybe it's that social networking aspect she is adding is actually what will make it successfull.

Hate to sound negative though, having that happen to you surely hurts...

And yes, kids apply to YCombinator exactly because they can whip up a web app in a few months. YCombinator puts them in front of VCs after that.

Right, but how good is their app after 3 months? Not very.

There are always exceptions to every rule though, re: the original point.

i.e. MySpace. Talk about crappy technology (or so it would seem; they've managed to scale well), and a has-run idea.