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I love Gomix. I spent the past weekend helping a friend migrate a static front-end only CSS skin they had made over to a live server on Gomix. That friend has m
by jc4p 10y ago
I love Gomix. I spent the past weekend helping a friend migrate a static front-end only CSS skin they had made over to a live server on Gomix. That friend has moved onto running webpack and babel locally to do more advanced stuff, but Gomix was a godsend in helping demonstrate to him that the problemspace isn't as horrifyingly large as he expected. We communicated and "code reviewed" via writing comments to each other in js files. It was a really pleasant experience.
I loved it when it was called Hyperdev too. At first I didn't really get it (I work at Stack Overflow so we're part of the same extended family meaning my first impression of Hyperdev was before it was as polished), honestly at first I was angry they were even spending the time doing something I considered so stupid. Until I had a use for it.
I had gotten a Raspberry Pi foundation touch-screen LCD, spent my Saturday morning setting it up, had a grandiose idea of what I wanted to make using it (basically just a "smart" note / TODO / grocery list manager I could attach to my fridge's door) and... realized I had to write yet-another-webapp. I've been making web apps for around a dozen years. The last thing I want to do in my life is spend the time writing the basics of a web-app.
My idea was going to be a thing where I'd use Trello (wow this is becoming an ad for all my sister companies remind me to plug FogBugz, Kiln, and CityDesk at some point too) as the "data store". I have Trello boards for everything. Work to-dos, Personal to-dos, even a trello list for the records I own and the records I want to own.
After writing the basics of what I wanted down, I started sketching the UI. And you know what? After I had all that set, I was able to make a prototype of the entire thing in less than 15 minutes using Gomix (at the time Hyperdev). You can view my prototype here: https://coal-sting.gomix.me/ https://coal-sting.gomix.me/
I didn't end up building the full flow, but I've been coming back to the Gomix project every month or two and adding one-more-MVP-checklist-feature to my prototype. And once I'm done with it? I can take all the JS I wrote, put it into a project bundled with webpack like the rest of my projects, and place it directly onto my RPi and touchscreen.
I know Gomix looks deceptively simple, but that's exactly why I love it. I really value minimizing the time it takes to go from "ooh that's a cool idea" to "holy shit I'm actually working on the idea and not the cruft and skeleton code I need to work on before I get to work on the idea itself!"
Half the time the reason why I stop working on a side project is because I'm getting bored before I get to even work on the real side project. I am always just looking for an excuse to give up and go back to playing video games.
Gomix is perfect for me. I can't wait until they support more languages so I can throw away all the time I've spent and code I've written making templates[0] and bootstrappers[1] for myself.
[0] https://github.com/jc4p/flask-react-skeleton https://github.com/jc4p/flask-react-skeleton
[1] https://github.com/jc4p/quickstart https://github.com/jc4p/quickstart
- therein 10y agoThis sounds forced/scripted beyond belief. It really reads like an Amazon review written in exchange of a product: > I love my FooBar 2001. I spent the past weekend migrating my dishwasher's contents into my new FooBar 2001 and it was a very pleasant experience. I was intimidated by how much work it would be at first but to my surprise it was A BREEZE. I'm so happy now with my new Foobar 2001 that I will probably use my dishwasher as a litterbox.
- techdebtland 10y agoYes he says he works at Stackoverflow
- PaulyGlott 10y agoIt's a legit comment. S/he is a long-time, thoughtful commenter.
- jc4p 10y agoI mean... I work for a related company (as mentioned in the post)... sorry for being excited about something they're working on? I just felt the need to comment because a lot of the comments remind me of my first impression of the product before I really gave it a chance. I was so angry they were working on it, they started working on it after a quiet period following the Fog Creek / Trello split and my first impression was they were merely looking for something to waste their time doing, it just didn't make sense. But, I tried it, and damn I love it. You can go look through my 5 years worth of HN comments if you'd like, when I like something I am always this excited about it.
- WhitneyLand 10y agoThere ya go - should have started out your previous comment with this text. This one sounds much more honest and thoughtful. Again, not questioning your ethics. Just trying help make your argument more impactful.
- jc4p 10y ago