

Ask HN: Am I living in a parallel universe to think my idea is super awesome? - bursurk

So I  thought one day while searching for some code snippet on the web (because that&#x27;s what developers do), how cool it would be to have a website where for a particular problem I can see a list of various implementations in one place. And the code snippets are already validated with test cases and I can try them online to see if it suits my purpose.<p>I tried searching for such a website. Nothing found.<p>&quot;I can make this and its an awesome idea&quot; I said to myself.<p>&quot;I need to be careful, all the traffic I would get would overload my server&quot; the naive self said.<p>So a few a weeks later I deployed a first version, initially for c#<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;volatileread.com&#x2F;UtilityLibrary?id=1083<p>And then I waited..... And waited.. No users.. Shared the link on HN.. Din&#x27;t even make it to the first page. Opened Analytics, saw 10 sessions. Digged deeper, they were all from me.<p>Is something wrong with me to still think this is an awesome idea?
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Avalaxy
I like the idea. Some thoughts:

\- Microsoft built this as well, it's called Bing Code Search:
[https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a1166718-a2d9...](https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a1166718-a2d9-4a48-a5fd-504ff4ad1b65).
It fetches popular snippets from StackOverflow and it should come with nice
integration in Visual Studio, but unfortunately it doesn't work for me. I
don't know what they're doing with the project but it seems they abandoned it.

\- I never heard of your project. I can't use it if I don't know about it.

\- It's probably too much of a hassle to search for your site and then search
for a snippet. I'm better off just searching for the snippet on Google, much
faster. StackOverflow usually provides multiple different ways to solve a
problem.

\- You don't want people to submit their snippets to your site. Too much
effort, won't work. Just get the data from stackoverflow if you're going to
pursue this idea.

\- How will you make money? Or isn't that your goal?

~~~
bursurk
Thanks for the tips. I would like people to submit their versions of code. The
snippets then can be then be compared on the basis of perf & mem (in progress)
based on test cases as they share the same contract. But all this would
require a community which I don't think the site is capable of.

Making money is secondary, I just need to cover the server costs.

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Throwaway90283
I think the idea is average. If you search on Google, you'll likely find a
code snippet for most questions. StackOverflow has the advantage of comments
and opinions, which add more value, instead of just a block of code. Right
now, you have no content, and the idea looks like an afterthought added to
your existing site. If you want to give this a try, then...

1\. Get a catchy name, like Snippr.com.

2\. Setup categories for different programming languages.

3\. Write code snippets for the most common functions people are looking to
find. For example, visit Google and type... 'PHP how to', and you'll see
frequent search terms, people wondering how to connect to a MySQL database,
how to send an e-mail, how to upload a file, how to get the current URL, how
to redirect to another page. People are looking for these answers, and they're
easy to write. You can write hundreds of these snippets in a day and start
building content.

4\. SEO. Right now your links are
[http://volatileread.com/UtilityLibrary?id=1084](http://volatileread.com/UtilityLibrary?id=1084).
They should be [http://snippr.com/php/how-to-get-the-current-
url](http://snippr.com/php/how-to-get-the-current-url).

With that being said, I don't think it'll work. People don't open their
browser and visit a site of code snippets. Instead, they have a problem, and
they search Google for the answer. Showing up on the first page of Google for
these common terms is not an easy task. You're competing with successful sites
that have existed for the better part of a decade. I honestly don't think
you'll be able to outrank them, and therefore you'll receive little to no
organic traffic, and that's the traffic your site will rely on.

------
yen223
There's a fairly popular site that's similar to your idea -
[http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:Programming_Tasks](http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Category:Programming_Tasks)

Your idea is good. You need to figure out how to incentivize users to submit
code.

------
edgarjcfn
It is an awesome idea. You just have to turn into an awesome product now. Even
though the software is there, the product still lacks development (like said
here already: SEO, Marketing, etc.)

You need to translate your goals into KPIs and optimize for those.

That being said, I think your idea would be incredibly amazing if it offered
some kind of IDE integration. I believe Visual Studio had something similar a
few years ago, but I don't believe it ever caught traction. Maybe worth it to
research and see why it didn't work, and how you can improve on that.

From my perspective it would be amazing to read discussions about code, and
get the most used (upvoted) snippet into my code, without ever leaving my IDE.

------
trevyn
Nope, this is an awesome idea, I've had it myself several years ago.

My immediate reaction to your implementation:

\- C# is icky.

\- Would be cool to automatically compare performance of solutions, e.g.
timing, memory footprint, etc.

\- "Run" button doesn't appear to provide any output?

When I had this idea, I also wanted to be able to provide sample inputs and
outputs, and have all potentially matching functions run, to see if any match.

In general, you've hit the problem of building a community without an actual
community magically appearing. Keep at it.

~~~
trevyn
Ok, played with this a bit, and added the Hamming Weight snippet. Seems to
work fine in the solution-tryer, but I can't add a test case; even the blank
default gives:

[CS1501] No overload for method 'TestCase_0710c06f5bfa4a9b9b44678df9dd933e'
takes 0 arguments

Again, I'd say keep at it, and try adding a lot more content. Hell, I wonder
if this is something you could even hire random CS students to add content to.

~~~
bursurk
Hey.. Thanks for trying it out. I'll see what is the problem with the test
cases.. You see nobody was using it..

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ceeK
My impressions:

Build this into a collaborative desktop app instead. I'd much rather have an
incredible UX built on top of code snippets I can drag out into my IDE.

I think this already exists; I've used something similar, but the UX and
searching was poor, and their was no collaboration.

You'd have to nail the indexing.

------
doczoidberg
I can't see a real difference to stack overflow.

You should also learn about online marketing. Having a great product isn't
enough to get traffic. I don't want to be offensive but your product isn't
even very awesome.

~~~
bursurk
Thanks for a honest feedback.. But I think I'll continue working on this.. May
be some day I'll have a few contributing users..

------
taphangum
I like the idea, but you need to execute and position much better. Here's a
book that will help you do that:
[http://brainaudit.com/](http://brainaudit.com/)

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mooreds
I think you need some serious SEO, because most developers I know just take
the first or second applicable result from Google.

See also, StackOverflow. How is your site different from that (except for
being more focused)?

~~~
bursurk
Stack overflow doesn't allow you to run solutions nor compare different
solutions for the same problem. I know google isn't being nice to me.

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mromanuk
Your idea is fine, and looks useful. But as with any idea, the implementation
is what matters.

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stephenboyd
It's a great idea, but C# is not popular with the Hacker News audience.

