4 ms·

Wouldn't be HN without the "you can build this trivially" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224] response.

by noodle 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Philip-J-Fry 5y ago
I'm not saying it's trivial to build this. I'm just saying that the "paper website" part is greatly exaggerated. The real meat of the pie is in website builder which _is_ more complicated than tweaking some parameters on some off the shelf OCR/GPT3 solutions. It's cool, I've never shipped a project like this, and probably never will. But I've worked on my fair share of software so I know what it takes behind the scenes.
- option_greek 5y ago
  You are not looking at this from user perspective. It's very much a paper based flow for them. Where it wins is that it lets people forget about digital devices while creating their content while letting them choosing to share some of it online post that. There are magic notebooks, magic pens etc that use ocr to achieve the same but you still need to do the creation using those devices (which are at least twice the $99 price). Because you are a developer, you are thinking in gpt/ocr/website building etc. Lot of people especially older generations eager to share stuff will find this useful if not amusing. For them its write something on paper and get a link back. Real users don't care about WordPress plugins.
  - cxr 5y ago
    > You are not looking at this from user perspective. They are looking at it that way. Because what you just described would be great for the user. The only problem is that what you described doesn't match how this service actually works. That it should work like but doesn't is the entire basis for Philip-J-Fry's comments. Both comments here make it clear enough what he or she is talking about, so the response admonishing them (to empathize with the users) is odd.
- trulyme 5y ago
  You both have a point, except yours is a narrow(er) engineering one. OP solved a real-world problem, and actually solved enough of it to be useful to many people, who were thrilled enough to become customers. That is impressive by itself, but what makes it even more impressive is that it is a new niche! Would adding new features make it easier to create more complex pages? Yes. Would it improve the experience for the users? I doubt it. It's like adding full text editing mode to a chat - technically viable, but takes away the magic - just give me text and emojis and stop there.
MCneill27 5y ago
It's pathetic. So many egos that need to be assuaged every time a clever execution they didn't do is brought to their attention.
- setr 5y ago
  IMO it’s a generally good mentality — the fact that dropbox is not that hard for your average programmer to replicate (by plumbing with existing tech) is exactly why you have so much variety in the software space. Of course, turning a functional program into a function business is no simple feat, but no one should be looking at these things and thinking “it takes a genius with a once-in-a-lifetime idea” — because, well, it clearly doesn’t. And it’s really not the most incredible or innovative idea. The intelligence was largely in transforming something you could do into something you could easily do — and identify that it has a potential for profit, and identify how to extract that profit, and executing on it long enough to achieve that profit.
- 1123581321 5y ago
  I think that's in play either way--people need to tell or be told that their idea is actually technically challenging, unusually insightful into business or users, etc. Critics are silenced because there must be no way they've read patio11 if they're posting, etc. Capacity for mutually appreciative disagreement is low on HN. The average business is not brilliant and yet is still not easy to execute long enough to succeed. Life is hard.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 5y ago
  "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html No doubt we're all more motivated by ego than we believe we are, but comments that take a supercilious stance and put everybody else down don't help—and are not part of the culture we're hoping for here.
Drew_ 5y ago
"You can build this trivially" is a fair criticism once you build your own products and realize how rampant IP theft is. Aside from that, the infamous dropbox comment you linked doesn't at all say "you can build this trivially".
- habibe 5y ago
  Not word for word, but pretty close: "...you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially..."
InGoodFaith 5y ago
Wouldn't also be HN without the misinterpretation of BrandonM's response. Here is dang's comment about that topic/meme [1] 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29178442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29178442
bluecatswim 5y ago
That's not what parent said at all, if anything he meant the very opposite. He was just suggesting missing features. The site is a nice tiny project but it's not what you'd expect when you think of making websites from paper, you'd think it would understand layouts and convert them to CSS or let you create a sitemap from a tree but as it is it's just OCRing text and uploading it to a page with an editor next to it.

Wouldn't be HN without the "you can build this trivially" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224] response.

by noodle 5y ago

Wouldn't be HN without the "you can build this trivially" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224] response.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Philip-J-Fry 5y ago

I'm not saying it's trivial to build this. I'm just saying that the "paper website" part is greatly exaggerated. The real meat of the pie is in website builder which _is_ more complicated than tweaking some parameters on some off the shelf OCR/GPT3 solutions. It's cool, I've never shipped a project like this, and probably never will. But I've worked on my fair share of software so I know what it takes behind the scenes.

option_greek 5y ago
You are not looking at this from user perspective. It's very much a paper based flow for them. Where it wins is that it lets people forget about digital devices while creating their content while letting them choosing to share some of it online post that. There are magic notebooks, magic pens etc that use ocr to achieve the same but you still need to do the creation using those devices (which are at least twice the $99 price). Because you are a developer, you are thinking in gpt/ocr/website building etc. Lot of people especially older generations eager to share stuff will find this useful if not amusing. For them its write something on paper and get a link back. Real users don't care about WordPress plugins.
- cxr 5y ago
  > You are not looking at this from user perspective. They are looking at it that way. Because what you just described would be great for the user. The only problem is that what you described doesn't match how this service actually works. That it should work like but doesn't is the entire basis for Philip-J-Fry's comments. Both comments here make it clear enough what he or she is talking about, so the response admonishing them (to empathize with the users) is odd.
trulyme 5y ago
You both have a point, except yours is a narrow(er) engineering one. OP solved a real-world problem, and actually solved enough of it to be useful to many people, who were thrilled enough to become customers. That is impressive by itself, but what makes it even more impressive is that it is a new niche! Would adding new features make it easier to create more complex pages? Yes. Would it improve the experience for the users? I doubt it. It's like adding full text editing mode to a chat - technically viable, but takes away the magic - just give me text and emojis and stop there.

MCneill27 5y ago

It's pathetic. So many egos that need to be assuaged every time a clever execution they didn't do is brought to their attention.

setr 5y ago
IMO it’s a generally good mentality — the fact that dropbox is not that hard for your average programmer to replicate (by plumbing with existing tech) is exactly why you have so much variety in the software space. Of course, turning a functional program into a function business is no simple feat, but no one should be looking at these things and thinking “it takes a genius with a once-in-a-lifetime idea” — because, well, it clearly doesn’t. And it’s really not the most incredible or innovative idea. The intelligence was largely in transforming something you could do into something you could easily do — and identify that it has a potential for profit, and identify how to extract that profit, and executing on it long enough to achieve that profit.
1123581321 5y ago
I think that's in play either way--people need to tell or be told that their idea is actually technically challenging, unusually insightful into business or users, etc. Critics are silenced because there must be no way they've read patio11 if they're posting, etc. Capacity for mutually appreciative disagreement is low on HN. The average business is not brilliant and yet is still not easy to execute long enough to succeed. Life is hard.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dang 5y ago
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." "Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html No doubt we're all more motivated by ego than we believe we are, but comments that take a supercilious stance and put everybody else down don't help—and are not part of the culture we're hoping for here.

Drew_ 5y ago

"You can build this trivially" is a fair criticism once you build your own products and realize how rampant IP theft is. Aside from that, the infamous dropbox comment you linked doesn't at all say "you can build this trivially".

habibe 5y ago
Not word for word, but pretty close: "...you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially..."

InGoodFaith 5y ago

Wouldn't also be HN without the misinterpretation of BrandonM's response. Here is dang's comment about that topic/meme [1] 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29178442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29178442

bluecatswim 5y ago

That's not what parent said at all, if anything he meant the very opposite. He was just suggesting missing features. The site is a nice tiny project but it's not what you'd expect when you think of making websites from paper, you'd think it would understand layouts and convert them to CSS or let you create a sitemap from a tree but as it is it's just OCRing text and uploading it to a page with an editor next to it.