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Show HN: My First Web App - A Pizza Coupon Search Tool
A little background: I'd been throwing this idea around in my head for a while, and finally had some free time between two quarters of school, and decided to make the site. I spent several days over the break laying out the backend for the site, and starting coding, and then the next few weekends finishing it up (and I've been making small changes since then).
Where I got the idea: I originally got the idea when trying to look up coupons for some pizza places, and having a lot of trouble finding any that worked at my store since they were all regional, or weekly codes, so I just manually tried codes until one worked.
The site is a bit limited at this point in time, as it only contains one site, but I made the backend flexible enough that adding more sites shouldn't be too difficult.
How it works: I have a python script running on my server that watches a database, looking for new coupons that need to be added, and updates codes every day. It stores which codes work at which stores in a database that is used by the site to display working codes for each store.
I know that this site may not be the most interesting thing ever to everyone here, but I learned a ton about php, mysql, and web crawling with Python in the process of making it, and would love to hear your thoughts on the site.
Link: http://abiteofpizza.com
- AznHisoka 14y agowhat happens when the html structure/schema of the site you're scraping changes?
- xur17 14y agoI'll have to make some changes to the crawler, but everything is decently modular, so it shouldn't be too difficult.
- 27182818284 14y agoI'm pretty sad it is just PapaJohns :( Otherwise I love the idea. It reminds me of https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/retailmenot/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/retailmenot/
- xur17 14y agoYeah, I am working on adding more sites. I was trying to get the base system setup to work automatically, and iron out any bugs before adding more sites, which I am getting pretty close to. It was partially inspired by retailmenot, but I always had trouble trying to search for pizza codes there since they are regional, so you can only really find national codes (since people downvote anything that doesn't work at their local store).
- vblord 14y agoI've been using that site for the past few months... thanks for building it. I like how clean and easy it is to use. The only problem I have is that it's only for papa johns. BTW: how are you making any $ off this site?
- xur17 14y agoGlad to hear you find it useful! I used Twitter bootstrap, which helped out a lot for making the site since I am not all that great at making a site look 'good'. I have plans to add some other pizza sites to it, and started working on adding Dominoes to the site yesterday. I put some adsense ads on the site that cover hosting, and a little bit on top of that, but I'm definitely not getting rich off the site. I wish there were affiliate links for pizza places, but I haven't found any yet.
- codegeek 14y agoI love pizzas and your site is cool. One thing though. You search box says "Ener Store id". I do not know store Ids but I entered a zip code anyway and it worked. Why not reword to "Store Id OR zip code" if both work? I will definitely use this whenever I crave pizzas :)
- xur17 14y agoGood catch! That is left from the original system that required entering a store id to search, but since then I have added the ability to search by address or zip code. I'll fix this when I get in front of a computer later.
- lewisgodowski 14y agoI had the hardest time finding a Domino's coupon to use a few nights ago, ended up just grabbing a sub-par Little Caesar's Hot-N-Ready. Look forward to watch this service progress (:
- onedev 14y agoDon't you dare call Little Caesar's SUBPAR.
- nurik 14y agoI love how "simple" and useful it is. Great job!
- countessa 14y agono love for the non-US?