[HN Gopher] Replit Mobile App
___________________________________________________________________
Replit Mobile App
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 248 points
Date : 2022-10-19 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.replit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.replit.com)
| rchiniquy wrote:
| Love to see this on the Steam Deck.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| That would be a downgrade. SteamDeck already has a linux
| desktop and chrome browser. Can always pin replit.com website
| to steamOS homescreen.
| ellis0n wrote:
| Hello, I'm Viktor from Ukraine, the author and founder of the
| Animation CPU mobile coding platform, which I've been developing
| for 10+5 years.
|
| 2 years ago during COVID-19, 2014-2022 war in Ukraine and
| financial pressure, I wrote to Amjad with my ideas about mobile
| coding and was looking for support.
|
| He was introduced as a judge in the Pioneer.app remote
| accelerator and as an investor, and I had reason to trust him. As
| a result, he copied 5 ideas out of 5, about which he said that
| they say "I still do not understand what your project is about"
| and silently copied everything. I am a programmer with 20 years
| of experience and this looks like the biggest YC programmer scam
| in the world. Considering how russian maniacs want to steal
| everything and destroy Ukrainians and European civilization.
|
| I asked Amjad to help my project, make a donation and help
| Ukraine, but he never did.
|
| Lets try my original mobile dev project
| https://twitter.com/AcpuStudio
|
| 2012-2020 https://animationcpu.herokuapp.com (covid-19)
|
| 2012-2015 https://acpul.tumblr.com (original old school)
| brap wrote:
| This is not surprising, based on his past behavior. I think you
| should make a "Tell HN" post.
| ellis0n wrote:
| I thought about it, but still can't figure out what benefit
| it will bring. PG loves Amjad very much, apparently this
| project scheme will allow programmers to be placed in the
| cages of the matrix.
|
| Ukrainians die every day so that civilization can continue to
| build international unicorns, but I am against continued
| parasitism on Ukrainians. Is this what Steve Jobs, Apple and
| others were aiming for?
|
| Since PG relies on Amjad, then the actions of anti-fraud
| organizations are needed if Amjad is related to the russian
| capital and money laundering, for example. This threatens the
| entire American startup ecosystem with YC.
|
| Perhaps this is the business of lawyers and I cannot
| understand what pluses and minuses "Tell HN" will bring in
| progression.
| javier123454321 wrote:
| I mean, I think this is just the start. If I am able to create
| entire environments all cloud based, I can then just use an ipad
| when I'm travelling. Ok, not ideal for everything, but this is a
| use case that I've been waiting for a while and it's just not
| quite there yet. Eventually I can see there's people that will
| get to employable levels of coding proficiency without
| understanding the underlying complexities of environments, and
| the hardware which is running your code. This is problematic in
| some sense, but an incredible abstraction which can increase
| productivity in the other hand. Overall, I see this as an amazing
| positive.
| bogota wrote:
| People have already got to that level without understanding the
| environment and hardware. I have worked with them and spent a
| lot of time explaining how the system works.
|
| I personally don't understand how people enjoy programming
| without understanding the stack they are ontop of but im sure
| some C and assembly programmers said the same thing about most
| of us today.
| javier123454321 wrote:
| This is a necessary part of creating more sophisticated
| systems. Abstracting the lower ends of complexity to focus on
| the higher ends. The problem is, of course, when the
| abstractions leak and you need to debug a level lower than
| you're used to dealing. Still, I think that this is the best
| discussion on the matter [law of leaky
| abstractions](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-
| law-of-leaky-a...). In the end, yes, it's best to understand
| everything all the way down to the thermodynamic processes
| that enable something to be produced, but you cut your losses
| at some point in order to get started. A leaky abstraction is
| when you are forced to learn, and how you discover that some
| of your assumptions are mistaken.
| keeptrying wrote:
| That joystick control struck me as a great idea.
|
| This really opens up coding to people who only have a phone -
| which is a large number of people in say Rural India.
|
| One way of working I've constantly thinking about is using
| replit's as the unit of work.
|
| Imagine finishing your work and sending the replit to someone
| else to review, run and then push to beta. No need for any setup
| on the reciever side or the QA side. If PM specs are also part of
| this environment, its very self contained and would be a great
| way for remote teams to work and helps avoid meetings.
| stblack wrote:
| Presently on iOS it appears this is an iPhone app that doesn't
| scale to iPad screen dimensions, even when expanded. It's using
| between a third and a half of the available viewport in landscape
| orientation.
|
| That said, it appears to work pretty well in side-by-side mode,
| concurrently with another app, but it still uses about half the
| available viewport in this mode.
|
| I expect this will get addressed PDQ.
| brundolf wrote:
| Came here to ask about this. Using it on a phone seems great
| for learning, toy projects, and maybe quick fixes, but I think
| you need more space to do sustained development. Having this on
| an iPad with a keyboard would be exciting.
| CamCrain wrote:
| I think their main focus is allowing people to code who only
| have a mobile phone, so my guess is iPad is a lower priority
| (because most people with iPads have full size computers they
| can use instead).
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| iPad users also have access to the desktop version of their
| site
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Making it scale properly to iPad screen sizes and doing
| nothing else shouldn't be too hard to do and would make it a
| lot more useful for people. Even if they don't want to spend
| the time developing an iPad specific layout, no reason not to
| use the full iPad screen with the current layout.
| ja3k wrote:
| I've been programming on my phone with termux + vim. It's been
| sort of a delight.
| yewenjie wrote:
| In case you want the same Termux experience but also the huge
| nix packages collection - check out
| https://github.com/t184256/nix-on-droid
| barbazoo wrote:
| The thought of using vim on a phone gives me mild anxiety but
| I'll definitely check termux!
| ja3k wrote:
| I've found the phone's small keyboard makes a lot of the
| silly vim shortcuts I've learned over time actually worth it.
| z3t4 wrote:
| Vim comes from a time when we did not have screens, you had
| to print out the code on paper. Probably why it works
| surprisingly well on mobile. Being able to see the code is
| a luxury. Typing speed is also not an issue when writing a
| program, although modern languages are verbose compared to
| assembly. I would worry about ergonomics when working on
| mobile though, like neck/back and thumb issues. I would
| suggest having the terminal screen built into glasses, and
| a wireless keyboard for input. Maybe we can innovate on the
| keyboard part so it can fit in your pocket
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> The thought of using vim on a phone gives me mild anxiety
| but I'll definitely check termux!
|
| termux also has emacs, nano, and a few other text editors.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I know I know that's why I'm giving it a shot :)
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> I've been programming on my phone with termux + vim. It's
| been sort of a delight.
|
| Seconded.
|
| With Termux (https://termux.dev/en/) I have C, C++, Rust, Go,
| Perl, Python, Ruby, and more in my pocket.
|
| The screen is small, but the tools are mostly the same you
| would find on your favorite *nix box.
|
| No network connection needed beyond getting the packages you
| want installed.
| abxytg wrote:
| I love it. The next app that eats our lunch is going to be
| written by some kid on a school bus. That is killer.
| pbiggar wrote:
| Very very cool. Have been thinking about this for Darklang for a
| while. One thing that's changed since I started thinking about it
| is how big a deal AI assist is.
|
| Originally, I thought a structured editor would be essential, but
| now while it's helpful, I think AI assist can do like 90% the
| benefit you get.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| is darklang going anywhere? It's a good tech demo but is there
| a product market fit yet?
| pbiggar wrote:
| Lol, thanks for asking! Yeah, I think we're making progress.
| There's a lot to do, and I feel it is getting done (see
| progress at https://darklang.com/changelog).
|
| I don't believe we have product market fit yet, the plan goes
| like this:
|
| - rebuild the technical foundations (DONE)
|
| - fix a lot of the jankiness in the editor <- we are here now
|
| - make sure language is fully baked (coming soon)
|
| - add a package manager/user management
|
| I think the last step is where we'll start to see some
| product market fit.
| petercooper wrote:
| For some reason the video in the post refuses to load for me, but
| it's also at
| https://twitter.com/Replit/status/1582750139621380096 - it's not
| for me, but it's a compelling pitch and I wish them every
| success. I'm a Replit user simply to use it as a clean testbed
| for various experiments and the value I get for $7/mo is very
| good.
| gmaster1440 wrote:
| I'm seeing a lot of responses clarifying that this app is
| designed for folks who either can't afford to code from a
| computer (for various reasons outside of their control) or want
| to quickly prototype ideas or make changes to existing projects.
| To better illustrate my skepticism (and bias), I'd like to invoke
| an imperfect analogy to writing novels.
|
| Imagine a mobile notes app that touts an impressive list of
| features and ergonomics that allows anyone to write the next
| novel from anywhere. You no longer need a computer or even an
| internet connection, just the $100 phone in your pocket and the
| desire to put words on (digital) paper. It'll even figure out
| what you're writing about and suggest novel plot devices and
| character arcs to add to your work in progress.
|
| This sounds great on the surface, and it will definitely
| encourage more people to feel comfortable writing more often,
| which will no doubt lead to more literature being written as a
| result, much of which will benefit from the creative AI-injected
| prose.
|
| The main issue as I see it (and I realize the analogy to writing
| novels is imperfect), is that the environment in which you're
| writing, navigating, executing, and debugging code contributes
| greatly to one's productivity and the quality of the final
| product. I can see the argument for being more of a playground
| for toy projects and ideas (much like a note-taking app), but I
| struggle to see this taking over as the primary tool by which
| technology companies are built.
| runevault wrote:
| At least one novel I'm aware of that was traditionally
| published was written on a phone, I think a Blackberry, mostly
| during commutes.
|
| https://bgr.com/general/the-novel-on-the-f-train-an-intervie...
| gmaster1440 wrote:
| For sure, hence an imperfect analogy, and I have no doubt
| some cool projects will come out of this replit mobile app
| too. I just don't see it becoming the weapon of choice for
| most production development environments.
| runevault wrote:
| Oh yeah I wouldn't want to do anything serious on a phone
| period, well with the caveat I find it weirdly easier to
| write rough drafts of poetry on my phone and I have no idea
| why.
| haolez wrote:
| The only issue that I see is that it's a proprietary solution
| that no one knows where it's going to be in the future.
|
| I'm not trying to be harsh on Replit. They are just starting,
| after all, and my point above can be addressed in due time if
| they feel like doing so.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| The languages are all bog standard and you can configure the
| environment for execution via Nix. Not on the mobile (or I've
| missed it) but via the website you can connect projects to
| git repos. So none of the data is locked in in any way.
|
| In principle, this means you should be able to clone any
| project and run it on your own machine(s) with little effort
| if you're aware of how to set up nix and git in the first
| place.
| joshxyz wrote:
| never as the primary tool of course, but it's great for
| starters.
| gmaster1440 wrote:
| This is one of those examples for me where the idea is far
| superior than the implementation. The idea of anyone being able
| to quickly write code from anywhere, as the main promo video
| suggests, is fantastic and greatly motivating. In practice,
| coding on an iPhone (even with an innovative new joystick), is
| gimmicky at best, given how deeply ingrained good ergonomics are
| in the coding process.
|
| I struggle to see this as one of those "bicycle for the mind"
| products, hope I'm wrong!
| ebiester wrote:
| This may be an example of skating to where the puck is at.
|
| Consider that the new iPad has the same power as a desktop and
| can be used with a desktop monitor. (This is the $450 version.)
| You can also connect an iPhone to a display to an HDMI monitor,
| but they haven't done the work to have a desktop mode yet.
| Android desktop mode but they haven't been . If iphone cracks
| it, android will have to catch up.
|
| Phones have the power today and they have the storage today.
| It's just missing the work and make an external keyboard and
| storage display a first class experience.
|
| And the moment you can can add a $100 monitor, a $15 cable, and
| a $40 bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo, you are at a developer
| machine for about $150 over their phone that they have anyway.
| lupire wrote:
| What do you call a phone with a big external keyboard and
| display?
|
| A developer machine like that is already $150, called a
| Chromebook or a Raspberry Pi.
| morby wrote:
| Chromebooks and raspberry pis don't detach from their
| keyboard and display to become mobile smartphones
| neb_b wrote:
| This is mostly aimed at people who don't have the luxury of
| coding from a computer.
|
| See this tweet from the CEO:
| https://twitter.com/amasad/status/1582754947480793093
|
| > We partnered with @TeamMindjoy to test the app by teaching
| girls how to code in a South African township and we made a
| video about it. During this time the wifi was super unstable
| and the few laptops they had were unusable, but kids continued
| to code on $100 Android phones!
| amasad wrote:
| Yes we have stories from all over the world where people are
| using mobile to build real things. There is a kid in Egypt,
| for example, that built discord bots for a living on his
| phone.
|
| Additionally there are also lots of cases were fairly well
| off folks with access to desktop computers and wifi that find
| themselves with a phone and want to prototype an idea or make
| a quick change to a project. I've been using it and I find it
| relaxing to lay back on the couch and do some fun coding.
| Especially with Ghostwriter (our Copilot-like thing:
| https://blog.replit.com/ai) it's super usable. I built large
| part of my toy Lisp in Python in the app while in the park,
| waiting at the doctor's office, or simply relaxing after a
| long day: https://replit.com/@amasad/Lisp-in-Python
| lupire wrote:
| I appreciate the spirit but you are going to destroy your
| eyes doing that. At least grab a tablet.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| I use google remote desktop to check on some IDE code and
| sometimes need to type a bit of code and the default
| keyboard is useless...
|
| I'd pay just for the joystick keyboard.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > During this time the wifi was super unstable
|
| Unless I'm doing something wrong it seem that you still have
| to be online to create and run code.
| ignoramous wrote:
| For folks in the global south who might own a smartphone but
| not a macbook, a native mobile dev env is god-sent. For others,
| the Replit mobile app is but a _start_ , even if it looks like
| a toy, and can help in building only toy apps, and deal only
| with toy codebases. This is a start in the _right_ direction.
|
| Besides, in the future, more advances in AI might mean, folks
| only need to key in prompts.
| alexashka wrote:
| Isn't this entire problem addressed by having an 11" laptop?
|
| I struggle to see what this is good for, besides solving LeetCode
| and/or other small, isolated, well defined puzzles on a small
| screen.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Not everyone has a laptop is the point I think.
| tpmx wrote:
| I think they'll make more money from relatively affluent
| people than from people that can't really afford access to a
| proper screen/keyboard with superior ergonomics.
| xnx wrote:
| I'm bullish on this because mobile (and web) development is
| ridiculously overcomplicated to a beginner. I think it's a common
| misconception that coding/logic is difficult. I find the
| development setup and deployment to be much more complicated. As
| evidence, take a look at the impressive workarounds that citizen
| developers use to make things work in an easy environment like
| Excel.
|
| A keyboard and mouse probably solve most of the complaints in
| this thread.
| duped wrote:
| > I find the development setup and deployment to be much more
| complicated
|
| My understanding is that is the problem repl.it is trying to
| solve. In a sentence: think about your code and not your
| environment.
|
| My curmudgeonly self thinks that there are deeper problems and
| externalities that programming on a phone/tablet or in the web
| only exasperate. Computer literacy is shockingly poor among the
| incoming generation of people who have only used mobile
| devices, WebUIs, and maybe a Chromebook - and that's not the
| fault of people or technology, but the business models that
| only succeed by locking users into platforms and hiding details
| of how those platforms work. The issue with programming on
| mobile or through something like repl.it is that it hides _too_
| much - at the end of the day, tinkering with computers requires
| computers that can be tinkered _with_ and software systems that
| can be introspected.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _The issue with programming on mobile or through something
| like repl.it is that it hides too much_
|
| VT100 and IBM360, you didn't have to be in the mainframe room
| to learn to code.
| 015a wrote:
| I'm, generally, not bullish: But only because the predominating
| "what value do products like this bring" arguments from those
| who are bullish is some variation of "it's great for
| learning/beginners". That's simply no way to build a venture
| business (and replit has received... $105M).
|
| Higher layers of abstraction can make sense; no code tools can
| be killer; but that isn't really replit. Replit is just a weird
| product on the side of the abstraction spectrum which requires
| its devs to understand a large chunk of what would be required
| to get, say, a nodejs server running on, say, Heroku.
| ramenator wrote:
| I think the idea here is to enable people in places of the
| world that may not have laptops, where mobile phones are
| people's only computer. That's how I'm looking at this, but
| that's just my guess.
| dumpHero2 wrote:
| Think people with chromebooks or old laptops who cannot use
| it for development. Or restricted laptops loaned from school
| which do not allow anyone but admin access to install
| anything.
| xnx wrote:
| I agree. I think it's great. I was trying to point out that
| most(?) Android and iOS devices allow you to connect any
| cheap USB or Bluetooth keyboard.
| quechimba wrote:
| My MacBook Pro died from humidity while I was trapped in
| the amazon rainforest during the panedemic, and I had to do
| some work, so I bought an USB keyboard in Iquitos and I set
| up a development environment with postgres, vim, tmux,
| ruby, rails etc, inside Termux. Small screen, and no
| devtools in mobile browsers, but worked pretty good
| otherwise.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I suppose I'm "bearish" on selling development as it presently
| exists for the exact same reason?
|
| Right now, what's being sold is "more people can go into the
| career of programming" as opposed to "no really, it's possible
| to bring so-called 'programming' to everyone.'"
|
| Put differently, it wasn't that Hypercard didn't catch on, it's
| that things like Hypercard get "killed."
| epolanski wrote:
| And how is repl.it different here compared to GitHub
| codespaces, codepens, codesandbox and many others?
| bidirectional wrote:
| Are any of those workable on a phone?
| barbazoo wrote:
| It would be really cool if this worked offline but I get how hard
| that is to do.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| I want a token based keyboard with the following properties
|
| Language and syntax awareness. When I'm writing JavaScript - it
| should provide keys for 'if' 'each' 'function' etc.
|
| When I have unbalanced parens, braces etc, it should tell me how
| many levels deep I am and what context I'm in.
|
| Instead of me naming variables it should generate random names
| and let me declare with a single tap. Provide easy refactoring
| tools so I can rename them later.
|
| On mobile I want to manipulate symbols or the AST directly rather
| than rely on text input.
|
| Take advantage of a keyboard that can display infinite variation
| and change on the fly.
| ellis0n wrote:
| Lets follow and try much better alternative
| https://twitter.com/AcpuStudio because amjad replit copy our
| ideas without consensus with us
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| Excited to see more mobile first development experiences.
|
| I didn't think I'd use them, but Autocode's WebUI works on mobile
| and I've found myself tweaking app logic from my couch for a Halo
| integration.
|
| For more in-depth focused work, I prefer a keyboard and mouse.
| But fixing a quick edge case I missed? It's super handy to be
| able to tweak a few lines of code with the device in my pocket.
| another_story wrote:
| As a teacher the basic Replit stuff is great, but their class
| management stuff is atrocious and unintuitive. For example, under
| one class I created 9 units with a number of challenges under
| each unit. You copy that to a new class (Team is what they call
| it) and all sections disappear). Then if you want to reorganize,
| even if there are sections, you have to drag and drop, scrolling
| up or down the page and repeating the drag to get it to the right
| section.
|
| Another thing is when you organize sections there is no drag and
| drop, but arrows moving boxes up and down.
|
| I've sent in dozens of issues for various bugs and annoyances,
| and even dug into the js to point out how to fix things, but
| after nearly 2 years they are still there.
| abdellah123 wrote:
| Very cool and exciting Kudos
|
| A very annoying bug is that the first chatacter is a capital
| letter in mobile. And parentheses are not suggested along with
| brackets and curly braces.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Microsoft's "Touch Develop" research project from a decade ago
| was actually amazingly productive and usable. It made each
| separate part of a line of code into a selectable element, and
| used predictive analysis to guess what your next entry would be
| with surprising accuracy. So, for example, if you've already
| created a variable within a specific scope like a function, when
| you've come to a point in a line where a variable would be useful
| like "a += [variable could go here]", you could just tap-select
| it from a list. Since the named elements were kept track of, you
| could select and rename a variable or function and it would
| automatically be changed everywhere. You could grab whole
| functions like this and move them around as needed.
|
| It had some clunky bits and had to use its own language, but I've
| been surprised some of the ideas of the system hasn't made its
| way into normal IDEs. The key advantage is that you never had to
| worry about syntax. You couldn't forget a semicolon, because you
| were never typing out a line, just picking and choosing from
| options, while still piecing together a line of code as you would
| if you were typing it out manually. It was a higher level than
| normal coding, but well below something like Blockly. I think for
| beginners - who really struggle with syntax - it was brilliant,
| and even for more advanced developers it would be sort of handy
| not having to do find/replace or copy/paste and missing that last
| bracket or whatever.
|
| Conceptually, imagine that instead of writing out a line of code
| as a text sentence, you were assembling the program's syntax tree
| by choosing from a pile of premade items you've created, and then
| being able to grab whole branches at a time and manipulate them.
| It was an interesting experiment.
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/touchdevelo...
| netfortius wrote:
| Five times attempting to create an account by using a Google
| account, on Android phone, five times phone receiving request for
| approval, five times approving the request, five times bouncing
| back to the app on the "create an account" state.
| sirjaz wrote:
| Is there any hope for a native desktop app?
| kasajian wrote:
| I'm all for native desktop apps, but do you have a particular
| reason for this over what you can do through the web-browser?
| It works very well as is, and if it were to run as a desktop
| app, it would basically do what the web version does but in a
| desktop form-factor. Which I suspect is not what you want, but
| you want some features that are missing in the web app, right?
| if so, what are those?
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I would like to code on a smartwatch, please. And on the
| dishwasher lcd.
| babl-yc wrote:
| Did anyone else learn to code on a TI-83+?
|
| Although I doubt I'd use this in a professional setting, making
| coding accessible to more people sounds great to me.
| victor9000 wrote:
| Yep, TI-81 here
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Tandy 1000, parents sold it. Then TI-85 until a student I was
| tutoring stole it. Then a TI-86 and HP-48G, plus a high school
| CS class that used True BASIC on some kind of Macintosh, and by
| that point C++ and others on my PC at home.
|
| But a lot of time in chemistry and on the school bus rides was
| spent programming on my calculators.
| orliesaurus wrote:
| This app makes sense when:
|
| - You're just solving "seriousplay" i.e. code challenges
|
| - Most of the code is boilerplate and you can inject a couple of
| variables here and there and press a button to deploy
|
| - Quickly fix something that can be done on the fly while you're
| sitting in the underground (typos, small PRs)
|
| - Any future where AI takes over and starts suggesting the code
| you want to write and literally takes your hand and guides you,
| so you write better code faster.
| Jyaif wrote:
| I originally thought that programming on phones was ridiculous,
| but then I remembered that I did a great deal of programming on
| TI calculators when I was a kid.
| mradek wrote:
| On a related note, it would be cool if there was a "coding mode"
| mobile keyboard option. We have built-in keyboards for phone
| number and formatters for particular things.
|
| It would be cool to have a built-in coding keyboard that adapts
| to the language being written via plugins, etc.
| swyx wrote:
| i would kill for browser devtools in mobile safari. so many
| things i want to edit oneoff
| emdashcomma wrote:
| I agree. A great start would even be to do something like what
| iSH does, where you have buttons for tab, control, escape, and
| a similar joystick for the arrow keys. As of now, I can't issue
| a tab in the shell, for example.
| evan_ wrote:
| definitely would be nice to have but also don't forget that you
| can connect any bluetooth keyboard to an iPhone.
| [deleted]
| d0mine wrote:
| There are such things e.g., Pythonista 3rd party keyboard on
| iOS (android is even more likely to support custom keyboards).
| sva_ wrote:
| Login for a text editor. The mobile phone software experience
| sucks (in general).
| cantaloupe wrote:
| Wow! I haven't used it yet, but I'm impressed by the demos. Seems
| like just the mobile editor with joystick and autocompletion
| would be a viable product by itself, not to mention the power of
| repl.it behind it.
| sneilan1 wrote:
| I already have a mobile editing setup using blinkssh, Tailscale,
| mosh, tmux, lunarvim, typescript and Lsp servers on my iPhone 13.
| It works surprisingly well and while it's slow to code on, I can
| actually do it. Autocomplete works too and typescript really
| helpful in catching bugs made by bad keyboard strokes.
|
| It won't ever replace my mouse and keyboard but it is useable.
| Just slow.
| aryamaan wrote:
| I like what Replit is doing with Ghost writing, and having DB,
| Auth, Analytics available for their Repls.
|
| I wish all of these things were available with my current IDE.
| Replit is winning in other things and lacking in IDE game.
|
| I also know that building rich IDE is not as much priority for
| them as much is onboarding new users to start programming on
| Replit.
|
| It's just that I would enjoy all the features they are building
| with the comform of my existing Jetbrains IDEs
| msoad wrote:
| Thinking of all the kids in lower income situations that only
| have an Android phone as their only computing device and how
| Replit will make it possible for them to discover their talent
| and passion for programming makes me so happy!
|
| Imagine learning how to code well enough, get paid for it to buy
| your first computer!
|
| Great work!
| user3939382 wrote:
| This is the founder who turned into a psycho tyrant (I forget his
| exact words, but something to the effect of, "we're not the same
| small company, I have money and lawyers now") on an ex-employee
| for an innocent side project, threatened to sue him, etc, until
| it went viral and then backpedaled and offered some non-apology.
|
| I remember stuff like that and will never use this company's
| tools, which is a shame because I was a fan prior to that.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| Let it be a lesson... Hacker News never forgets?
| golergka wrote:
| What if the founder is really a bad guy, but the product
| company releases is useful and could really improve lives of
| many. Should we use it and advertise to others who might find
| it useful? Or should we abstain from it to punish bad
| behaviour? Those aren't rhetorical questions, I honestly don't
| know.
| Aliabid94 wrote:
| A company is more than the personality of its CEO. Gates,
| Zuckerburg or Elon's personal faults shouldn't override the
| work and mission of thousands others.
| victor9000 wrote:
| I would argue the exact opposite. Companies like Amazon and
| SpaceX have shaped their entire company culture using the
| values of their respective CEOs.
| sneak wrote:
| It depends on the CEO. I think SpaceX reflects more on the
| culture of the COO than the CEO; the company does not
| operate like the CEO does.
| duncan-donuts wrote:
| A company usually mirrors the values of its executives.
| You're right it shouldn't override the mission of the many,
| but the faults are baked in there somewhere.
| cpsns wrote:
| It often does though, which is why having the right people in
| high positions is important. The CEO is the face of the
| company and for better or worse the company will be judged by
| their actions to some degree.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| IIRC, not even an ex-employee, but an ex-intern.
| sneak wrote:
| I have a similar story about DigitalOcean from when I published
| the fact that they were intentionally leaking customer data
| cross-account because they didn't understand thin/sparse
| provisioning of block devices.
|
| One time I was interviewing somewhere and the interviewer spent
| the whole call super unprofessionally trashing a close personal
| friend of mine (also prominent in the industry) when I had
| mentioned working with them on some research.
|
| I think everyone paying attention in this industry has a list
| of companies and people we will never work with.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Oh wow that is really bad.
|
| I remember YC pushing them heavily as a unicorn for a few days
| seemingly out of nowhere a while back, but that blitz has since
| died down.
|
| Remains to be seen if they can be an actual viable business.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Paul regularly still pushes replit on his twitter.
| bin_bash wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27424195
| joshxyz wrote:
| damn that thread really got 4k internet points >.<
|
| i dont know if that guy ever got his act straight but im still
| rooting for their company, especially for third-world countries
| where students only got mobile devices and got no access to
| computers and laptops.
|
| it was horrible seeing students not being able to do hands-on
| activities during the recent covid years. let alone other
| problems like dysfunctional / laggy / buggy low-end mobiles,
| slow internet connection, oh dear.
| ellis0n wrote:
| Amjad copy 5 of 5 ideas of our 10 years development startup
| for mobile coding from Ukraine where World War right now. See
| also my comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33267464
| sneak wrote:
| Copying ideas is only a threat if you think the copying
| party is:
|
| 1) better at executing than you
|
| and
|
| 2) understands the market better than you
|
| It is generally accepted wisdom that if someone copies you,
| you are doing something right and should focus on
| fundamentals and shipping/customers.
| ellis0n wrote:
| Okay...
|
| Did you read my link post
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33267464 ?
|
| 1) No. I'm not dumb and programming language author, CTO,
| polygot, architect, old school, and make better software
| all my life. I made the world's first mobile IDE and
| real-time reverse debugger
|
| 2) No. 4k likes HN post shows the opposite. I asked Amjad
| for help while COVID-19 because no job, no money, don't
| know what to do and this people said him is investor and
| looks relevant from Pioneer.app startup accelerator.
| Market - yes US vs Ukraine, non-competitive advantage. In
| my opinion, now we have a war in Ukraine and many victims
| due to the fact that we did not support people correctly.
| I ask Amjad for help directly. Here is the mail log:
|
| ---
|
| MAIL 1
|
| From: Viktor <viktor.XXXX@gmail.com>
|
| To: amjad@repl.it
|
| Hello Amjad!
|
| I'm Victor https://clubavatar.app/ on pioneer
|
| I'm developing ACPUL programming language and
| AnimationCPU programming platform (like Flash/HTML5)
|
| - ACPUL is a pure programming language
|
| - Reactive and live coding is everywhere
|
| - Mobile IDE (iPad Pro with keyboard)
|
| - Real-time reverse debugger (like https://rr-
| project.org/ with 60 fps and less ram)
|
| - Full git and video history (Bret Victor inventing on
| principle)
|
| - Team development and other features...
|
| Due to lack of resources, a hercules amount of work I'm
| looking an any support
|
| You can see demo on your iOS device with TestFlight
|
| ---
|
| MAIL 2
|
| From: Amjad Masad <amjad@repl.it>
|
| To: Viktor <viktor.XXXX@gmail.com>
|
| Hey Viktor,
|
| This looks interesting -- how can I help?
|
| Amjad
|
| ---
|
| MAIL 3
|
| Hi Amjad,
|
| I am looking for a way to fund projects, expand the team,
| to improve Animation CPU programming platform and virtual
| club Avatar
|
| 1) Donations / Sponsorship: Support ACPU / ACPUL open
| source development
|
| 2) Investments in clubavatar.app
|
| 3) Technical work: improving the programming language,
| libraries, platform, documentation, educational lessons,
| more code/nocode apps and examples, UI, IDE, etc
|
| 4) I am looking for a mentor to improve my open source
| community and communication skills, social media, etc
|
| Thanks, Victor
|
| ---
|
| MAIL 4
|
| Hi Amjad,
|
| As a program architect I highlight weak points in the
| previous mail (19 Aug 2020)
|
| In other words, I have a huge technical debt for new
| components, and a small debt to launch my application,
| but I don't have the funds for normal work. I just need a
| little help to kickoff my app to AppStore and generate
| the revenue. And it's much better than an app! This is a
| new world that likes everyone. You like it, djs like it,
| childrens like it, hackers like it, anyone likes it! I
| don't see a reason to spend my time for work on another
| world 1.0 react-bla-bla-bla app to develop a world 2.0
| app. I spent a huge amount of my time on social and
| financial issues and app doesn't work
|
| I'm not sure what is best reward for you. I can add
| Repl.it AD on top IDE, make a Repl.it demo and animation,
| make a app pushares (store), or something like that
|
| Best regards, Victor
|
| ---
|
| MAIL 5
|
| Hey Viktor,
|
| Just a bit of feedback for you. It's still not clear to
| me what your project is about. I suggest simplifying it
| into something someone can understand in two sentences.
|
| Best,
|
| Amjad
|
| <<< WTF??? "It's still not clear to me what your project
| is about." <<< in this mail he appllied steal everything
| and start working for replit a one year!
|
| 5 of 5 my projects in replit now!!!
|
| COOL???
|
| Due this my project delayed for extra 2 years but you got
| replit.
|
| Looks like good social engineering
|
| PS: I can attach screenshots of Gmail and I hope that
| after the Google Replit presentation they don't delete my
| emails and copy everything together without payment for
| ideas (c)
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| - The purpose of the project isn't clear (Trying to do
| heaps of different things)
|
| - Your ask was not clear (Asking for help with
| everything)
|
| - It's not clear which 5 projects/ideas Replit "stole"
|
| I have nothing to do with Replit and I dislike them after
| the intern project thing, but this is fair criticism from
| Amjad.
| aaronvg wrote:
| sorry but I think the features you listed as being stolen
| seem pretty generic. For example "mobile IDE (ipad pro
| with keyboard)" doesn't tell me what specific IDE
| features you'd implement. In this case, Replit made the
| "joystick" feature. Same with "team development and other
| features".
|
| Also it seems you're blaming Amjad for your project being
| delayed? Not sure how that is related.
| naillo wrote:
| Replit recently raised a bunch of money and have really raised
| their advertising focus enormously. I'm seeing so much hype from
| them but so underwhelming actual value provided.
| Kiro wrote:
| What? This is awesome.
| naillo wrote:
| You really think so? Stuff like this has existed for a while
| you tired real quick of doing anything significant on your
| phone (having tried a few before).
| csmeyer wrote:
| I think it's great that they've identified cursor placement as
| one of the trickier aspects of coding on a phone. The joystick is
| a great idea, I found it a bit hard to use at first (kind of
| flies around the screen) but the little buttons are good for
| getting your cursor inside a string literal, for example.
|
| I'm excited to get my students trying this, many of them only
| have a school issued iPad. I'm also curious about how well the
| autocomplete can be tuned. I think right now suggestions are a
| bit rough, I'm hopeful they'll start using language server
| suggestions soon. (Something like System.out.println, you should
| definitely get out as an option after System.)
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| How's it compare to the "space bar trick" on iOS? That thing
| usually seems to work to let me position the cursor how I want
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Just tried it, you can use both within the text editor. I
| prefer the spacebar "trick". It was much smoother, I had
| trouble stopping at lines in the middle because it seemed too
| sensitive for up/down movement. The spacebar long press let
| me position the cursor anywhere within the text on the
| screen.
| tobr wrote:
| The joystick feels like a worse and redundant version of
| iOS's built in spacebar-as-trackpad feature, but having
| buttons to step left and right is useful.
| [deleted]
| fungiblecog wrote:
| This looks awesome... installs app on iPad... oh it doesn't
| support the full screen. Useless.
| epolanski wrote:
| I love coding on my tablet via codespaces.
|
| It's perfect for pre bed time when I'm more interested in
| learning software than implementing features.
|
| The experience isn't perfect because vs code was never meant to
| be a mobile editor but for writing few locs and trying stuff is
| okay.
| boberoni wrote:
| I read on another comment by a high school teacher that many of
| their students write essays on mobile. It seems that the younger
| generations are mobile-digital native, as opposed to desktop-
| digital native.
|
| I don't expect desktop apps to be completely replaced by mobile
| apps, but the migration of some specific use cases is interesting
| to watch:
|
| - Maps and navigation
|
| - Email / instant messaging
|
| - Photo editing
|
| - Video editing
|
| - Online shopping
|
| - Banking and accounting
|
| - and now, coding
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I recently read that many young people only use email for some
| professional communication
|
| And its chat for everything else, including professional
| things, which also matches my experience lately I just didn't
| think about it
|
| So then I started messaging young recruiters over chat apps and
| they are much more receptive than following up over
| linkedin/email
| troupe wrote:
| Is it because they are "mobile-digital native" or is it because
| what they are being asked to write is closer to texting than a
| normal high school level English paper? I've seen what
| community college teachers are having kids submit for papers.
| While they do definitely look like they could have been written
| on a phone, it isn't because they have some type of skill in
| writing on mobile.
| Sirened wrote:
| Most of the paper-writing-on-phones that I've seen is just a
| convenience thing. Google Docs/other cloud writing platforms
| make your documents available everywhere, and it turns out
| that there's a lot of down time where you can cram in some
| writing time if you're able to easily just pull it up on your
| phone. I remember writing papers on my phone in high school
| while on/waiting waiting for the bus. If you live near a
| college campus, you'll see a lot of students watching
| lectures, doing flash cards, and writing papers on public
| transit if you look close enough :)
| sneak wrote:
| I think the idea of the quality of text written being related
| to the screen size of the device on which it was input is an
| old person anachronism.
|
| This would be like saying novel quality written in a word
| processor would be inferior to typing on a typewriter, or
| handwritten.
|
| I write and edit almost all my HN comments on a phone, and I
| think they're identical in quality and tone to what I'd write
| on a computer.
| ndneighbor wrote:
| It's honestly impressive the amount of coding that young people
| do from their phones. There is a very healthy healthy community
| of those who have some solid environments on their (mostly
| Android) devices. Whats funny is that this was the dream of the
| One Laptop per Child non-profit that was solved by the flush of
| ARM devices instead of donor dollars (ftw free market!)
|
| I work at Railway and a lot of our younger, international users
| use Railway from their phones (usually in class) and it's quite
| impressive. Honestly, such a fan of Repl.it its why I am a
| customer of their service and this is a step in the right
| direction for the dream of the universal runtime.
| joshxyz wrote:
| still the best time to be alive. it's crazy i can ssh to my
| servers using my phones these days.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| This is going to be simply great for students. I bet Replit will
| get a huge boost in usage. Well done.
| kasajian wrote:
| Very little innovation is done in the area of coding on a small-
| form mobile device. Early attempts are needed in order to get
| feedback and learn from experience what works and what doesn't.
|
| It's nice to see repl.it is at least attempting to address this
| "market". Their previous mobile app was so bad I uninstalled it
| and used the web site directly instead. Hopefully this works
| better.
| kasajian wrote:
| Still doesn't work.
|
| 1. Already have an account 2. Continue with Github 3. Blank
| white screen and just stays there.
|
| I think I'll wait.
| jessenichols wrote:
| Repit support here: dm'd you on twitter to figure this out.
| swyx wrote:
| i had 1 and 2 same as you, didn't get 3. just worked as
| expected.
|
| you may just be unlucky.
| samsquire wrote:
| I use Repl.it web interface for programming on the sofa from my
| Android phone. There's various bugs in the editor but it works
| well enough.
|
| I currently subscribe to repl.it. the freedom to quickly create a
| Java or Python project is really easy and helps me work on
| problems where I want to write a small amount of code that is at
| the idea stage.
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