I hate to love Jason Fried

I went to see Jason Fried from 37Signals talk at Bravo Brasserie in Providence. A few of us went down from Boston. Me, Mark Doerschlag, Andrew Mitchell and Todd Galloway. I hate to love Jason Fried. His and 37Signals philosophies align with mine. Use beautiful tools to create beautiful, simple things. Get rid of all the bullshit and focus on what's really important to you and your customers.

I've criticised 37signals in the past, but must concede that software design is better off because of them.

37Signals flipped the software design process on its head. Start by using sharpies to draw an interface on paper. From there, start coding the HTML for the site. Iterate out until you have a finished product. You can read more about this process in their e-book Getting Real.

They develop exclusively on Ruby on Rails (RoR). 37Signals David Heinemeier Hansson (or DHH as he is known in the community) originally conceived and developed Rails. My current company Notati, built our Prayer Request social network, Prayabout on Rails. Rails also powers Radiant, a CMS I highly recommend.