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joel spolsky

trello

Joel Spolsky- How he made it possible from a blog ‘Joel on Software’ to setting up Trello

Trello is an online collaboration tool launched in 2001 to help in managing and organizing projects. A software engineer and technical writer Joel Spolsky is the founder of this amazing platform. He introduced feasible and flexible project management or task organization in an easy manner with the help of Trello. However, Joel is also known for his blog Joel on Software where he used to teach how to develop software.

Apart from this, he has a great contribution to the establishment of several hit companies like Fog Creek Software. Most importantly, he assists in launching the Stack Overflow programmer for his question/answer sites. For this, he used Stack Exchange software products. This method powers the stack overflow and many followed the steps of Joel. Presently, more than 170 Questions and answers are hosts with this programmer.

Person behind Trello- Joel Spolsky

He is a software engineer, developer, blogger, and author. Joel wrote five books among which few are related to interface design. In fact, his books are very useful for the newly enter programmer and the software developer. If you are from the software development field, you may have heard about The Joel Test. Well, it is also created by Joel Spolsky. As well, he is the first person to talk about fixing it twice for the process improvement method. Let’s see the personal and professional life journey of Joel Spolsky.

Early life

He was born in 1965 in a Jewish family. However, he spent the childhood days in Albuquerque in New Mexico, but then the family moved and set up in Israel. Thus, Spolsky completed his basic education as well as the military service in Israel.

To complete the graduation, Joel chose to return to the USA and in 1987, he did it so. Thereafter, he attended the University of Pennsylvania and shortly transferred to Yale University. In 1991, Joel graduated in Computer science.

Career

After graduation, Joel became part of the Microsoft team and started working as a Program Manager. Many people don’t know that Joel helped to design the Excel Basic during his early career. As well, he worked for Microsoft’s visual basic for application strategy. In 1995, he switched the location as well as switched the job. He started working for Viacom and Juno online services.

Towards the own business

It will be nothing wrong to say that Joel became a master in his field in a very short time. One after one, he was showing his excellence in software development. This excellence continued with his very own Software firm Fog Creek Software, established in 2000. Shortly after that, he started the blog known worldwide as Joel of Software. Spolsky became one of the first bloggers who also run the business.

Stack overflow

Later on, he changed the history of question and answers sites by co-founding Stack Overflow. In fact, this site turned out useful for software developers who are in the learning phase. Also, the large software developer community has been shaped by this initiative. Till 2019, Joel served as the CEO of stack overflow. Last year, he expressed about chairmanship of HASH, an open-source simulation start-up.

Also Read: Stack Overflow : A Programming Hotspot Created for the Coding Enthusiasts

The backstory of founding Trello

During 2010, Fog Creek software started using for potential products and some basic regular creek weeks. But for high-level management, there were few limitations that could not be ignored. For that, a prototype called Trellis is developed. Soon, to convert the prototype in the real product, J. Spolsky launched Trello back in 2011. While developing the tool, Joel also considered the Kanban methodology.

New experiments of Trello

In 2011, it launched the web and iPhone apps for consumers. Year a later, Joel’s dog name Taco introduced as official Trello spokes-husky. More than 50 lakhs customers showed faith in Trello, and the firm shortly launches Android app for the users.

Later success

Trello preferred to handle their own business from 2014, and separated from Fog Creek. Shortly, Trello raised the investment in A-series and continue exploring the business. In 2015, the firm entered in international competition. Now it has more than 5 million users. However, to explore the region more and to mark the new beginning, Trello preferred to become part of the leading firm Atlassian. From 2017, Trello is an integral part of Atlassian.

stack overflow

Stack Overflow : A Programming Hotspot Created for the Coding Enthusiasts

Some people might say that the job opportunities in the IT sectors are gradually reaching a saturation level, but is it really true? Today, while the world is getting consumed by the trove of technology, IT sectors play the most important role in functioning and developing of our world. Even, if you are launching a small product in the market, you need to create certain algorithms, a website, and definitely, a user interface, for which one needs to hire developers. In this 21st century, coders are on demand! Be it a pure competitive programmer or a developer, their contributions to the IT sector is certainly the need of the hour.

And, to help out the programmers out there be it an expert or a beginner, an online Q/A platform, Stack Overflow was created 11 years ago. Stack Overflow, the flagship site of the Stack Exchange Network was mainly created to answer the queries of the programmers based on any programming language, and the user can solve problems on the website as well.

The two finest minds who created this platform for every coding enthusiast out there are Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky. They launched the site on 15th September 2008, eleven years from now, and today, the website witnesses over 50 million monthly visitors.

Stack Overflow Founders

About the Founders

Jeff Atwood is a software developer, who runs his own blogging site, Coding Horror, since 2004. Apart from co-founding Stack Overflow, he also launched his new company, Civilized Discourse Construction Kit, Inc., in 2013. He met Joel Spolsky after he started maintaining his programming blog.

Joel Spolsky is a software engineer and writer belonging to New Mexico. He maintains a blog called Joel on Software, and he is also the creator of Trello. Before founding Stack Overflow, he was a project manager of Microsoft Excel and also founded Fog Creek software.

Spolsky contacted Atwood on 2008 and together decided to set up a Q/A website related to coding.

The journey of Stack Overflow

Within months of the launch of Stack Overflow, it attracted a lot of coders from around the world, and even the beginners, who just wanted to learn something new. People helped each other by answering the doubts, learnt new things about any specific language, and even, if someone was showing off their coding skills, it worked out pretty well for the website.

Since both, the founders had their own personal blogs, they had enough number of subscribers. Atwood invited his subscribers to try the beta version of the newly released website, on 31st July 2008. And on 15 September 2008, the company announced the release of this beta version for public, where anyone could seek help and ask queries related to programming.

The website also incorporated a badge system for the users. For example, if you answered a question and your answer got upvoted you were given certain badges, that is, awards which upgraded your reputation. Thus, the more you answer, you are likely to gain certain incentives given that the quality didn’t drop.

But, it was noticed that a similar question was posted many times, giving rise to the same answers. Spolsky turned this drawback into a positive point, saying that if similar questions drove more traffic to the website, as it appeared on multiple search results, there is no harm in it after all.

The success of the website

In 2010, the company raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures. In April 2009, the company added a feature called “timed suspension” which showed the user’s reputation at “1” because either they didn’t show enough interest to improve or engaged themselves in disruptive behaviour. After implementing this policy, 92% of the questions were answered within a few minutes.

In 2011, another $12 million was raised in Series B funding led by Index Ventures with the participation of Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures. Another $10 million was raised in Series C funding in 2013. Till now, the company has received around $70 million in funding.

Within five years of its launch, Stack Overflow answered 5 million questions related to coding, thus making the coding community even stronger. Around forty-four million visitors checked out the website every month by 2013.

Today, around 250 employees are working for Stack Overflow, with the majority working in head offices of New York, London and Munich. Around 14 million questions have been answered so far, and the site also partners with many big companies to help them recruit developers.

Majority of the queries that are posted on the website are regarding PHP, JavaScript, Java, Python, HTML, C#, jQuery and Android.