4 ms·

If the browsing user selects one of the samples on the site (which is verified easily with a quick hash on the client side), why on earth are you processing it

If the browsing user selects one of the samples on the site (which is verified easily with a quick hash on the client side), why on earth are you processing it again? Load shouldn't be an issue here. Honestly, users shouldn't even be able to ruin your sales pipeline by interrupting your pitch. Why let us enter any markdown? It's an example, you have a few representative samples, just take their output and hard code it and move on. As it stands now, I probably won't remember to come back so see what this is all about, and waiting for an email isn't really going to increase the odds that I come back. Just some honest feedback for you. TL:DR: I was intrigued by the first page, put off by the unnecessary wait when you could've hard coded the response when a user chooses an existing sample.

jordanwallwork 10y ago
Exactly what I thought. Crazy to be prompted to register an account when I'm just trying to run the demo
- pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
  the advertising geniuses behind it probably thinks it's crazy to offer a demo for any reason other than to directly get more accounts registered.
- danfromberlin 10y ago
  Maybe I can also share a bit more insight into what's actually going on behind the scenes. When a user on stacktile creates a workflow, we are also executing a linux container environment on their behalf. This container provides the interactive environment to run the code in the workflow, but it's also a resource (and operational cost) which need to limit at the moment.
  - Turbots 10y ago
    this is not necessary for your pitch and adds unnecessary load and cost... During the pitch, you need to explain your users how it works (like you did in your comments), not ACTUALLY start up the containers... You can show the explicit startup of the containers when users REALLY want to dive deeper in your product. You're just adding more cost and load on your website because of this
- iamjason89 10y ago
  That and for those of us seeing the notification that their server is backed up, I can't even see it in action right now. Seems like this should have been cached
- simple10 10y ago
  I tried it a couple of times. You only get prompted to sign up if the system is overloaded and it dumps you into the waiting queue. Otherwise, it goes right into the demo which creates a clickable preview to auto enter commands or you can type directly into the shell. This looks promising. Nice work Dan and Stacktile team. Looking forward to seeing what the community does with it.
  - danfromberlin 10y ago
    thanks for the kind words
danfromberlin 10y ago
Hi, Dan from stacktile here, I might be misunderstanding your feedback, but I think you're asking why we enable the user to edit markdown in our "try it now" demo -- and thus "interrupt the pitch". Our rationale with our live demo is to show what the content creation process looks like for our prospective customer. The visitors to a completed workflow won't have the ability to edit the markdown. again -- I'm sorry about the limited number of users we can support at the moment (and thus the redirect to our signup page).
- hmmdiggy 10y ago
  I think what OP was getting at was is if you're processing each example on the fly, why aren't the unedited default examples cached so if a user just hits "Run" they can see it working, regardless of whether it's their own content or not.
  - danfromberlin 10y ago
    I think the explanation that might be missing here is that every user that hits "Run" gets his or her own linux container in which they will be working. The process of provisioning a new container (especially under high load that we're seeing today) is what takes a few moments. We however do a fair amount of pre-allocation and other tricks to speed this process up.
    - spdustin 10y ago
      I figure that's what you're doing, but man, why do you want to re-run a container when the result is already known?
      - iamjason89 10y ago
        Yeah, you should not process your four examples over and over with that cost
      - danfromberlin 10y ago
        Since the purpose of our product is to give each user his or her own execution environment to freely explore the software that stacktile is helping to demonstrate, we need to give that user access to his or her own container. Perhaps the confusion is coming from the fact that a stacktile workflow is more than "pre-known" static content -- it is markdown coupled to a an interactive, running shell process in which code can be executed. I hope that helps clarify

jordanwallwork 10y ago

Exactly what I thought. Crazy to be prompted to register an account when I'm just trying to run the demo

pg_is_a_butt 10y ago
the advertising geniuses behind it probably thinks it's crazy to offer a demo for any reason other than to directly get more accounts registered.
danfromberlin 10y ago
Maybe I can also share a bit more insight into what's actually going on behind the scenes. When a user on stacktile creates a workflow, we are also executing a linux container environment on their behalf. This container provides the interactive environment to run the code in the workflow, but it's also a resource (and operational cost) which need to limit at the moment.
- Turbots 10y ago
  this is not necessary for your pitch and adds unnecessary load and cost... During the pitch, you need to explain your users how it works (like you did in your comments), not ACTUALLY start up the containers... You can show the explicit startup of the containers when users REALLY want to dive deeper in your product. You're just adding more cost and load on your website because of this
iamjason89 10y ago
That and for those of us seeing the notification that their server is backed up, I can't even see it in action right now. Seems like this should have been cached
simple10 10y ago
I tried it a couple of times. You only get prompted to sign up if the system is overloaded and it dumps you into the waiting queue. Otherwise, it goes right into the demo which creates a clickable preview to auto enter commands or you can type directly into the shell. This looks promising. Nice work Dan and Stacktile team. Looking forward to seeing what the community does with it.
- danfromberlin 10y ago
  thanks for the kind words

danfromberlin 10y ago

Hi, Dan from stacktile here, I might be misunderstanding your feedback, but I think you're asking why we enable the user to edit markdown in our "try it now" demo -- and thus "interrupt the pitch". Our rationale with our live demo is to show what the content creation process looks like for our prospective customer. The visitors to a completed workflow won't have the ability to edit the markdown. again -- I'm sorry about the limited number of users we can support at the moment (and thus the redirect to our signup page).

hmmdiggy 10y ago
I think what OP was getting at was is if you're processing each example on the fly, why aren't the unedited default examples cached so if a user just hits "Run" they can see it working, regardless of whether it's their own content or not.
- danfromberlin 10y ago
  I think the explanation that might be missing here is that every user that hits "Run" gets his or her own linux container in which they will be working. The process of provisioning a new container (especially under high load that we're seeing today) is what takes a few moments. We however do a fair amount of pre-allocation and other tricks to speed this process up.
  - spdustin 10y ago
    I figure that's what you're doing, but man, why do you want to re-run a container when the result is already known?
    - iamjason89 10y ago
      Yeah, you should not process your four examples over and over with that cost
    - danfromberlin 10y ago
      Since the purpose of our product is to give each user his or her own execution environment to freely explore the software that stacktile is helping to demonstrate, we need to give that user access to his or her own container. Perhaps the confusion is coming from the fact that a stacktile workflow is more than "pre-known" static content -- it is markdown coupled to a an interactive, running shell process in which code can be executed. I hope that helps clarify