

Show HN: 10-minute programming challenge. Let's do more of these. - pud
http://missstep.com/?origin=1600+Pennsylvania+Ave%2C+DC&destination=64+w+15th+st%2C+New+York+City

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eddie_the_head
<http://www.reddit.com/r/dailyprogrammer>

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vineet
This site looks good. But I wondering if someone has a similar list of apps
that are one steps larger than just algorithms - must have UI and be useful.

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jmduke
It's certainly not comprehensive, but here's the shortlist of stuff I make to
try out a new language, in order of increasing complexity:

\-- Sudoku verifier

\-- library generator (scan all of the music files on your drive and compile a
list of artists)

\-- dictionary app (using Wordnik API)

\-- flexible calculator that can detect postfix v. prefix

\-- Sudoku solver

\-- Hidato solver (which is essentially King's tour, but cooler)

\-- tumblr API wrapper (or really any OAuth service)

\-- n-gram language classifier

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vineet
Thanks for sharing. My list has much more CRUD apps with different UI
challenges (like a single person todo list).

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snippyhollow
For my daily (walking) commuting, it says 2.4km, which is right, for 24k to
33k steps, which is wrong: that's <= 10cm steps. It's one order of magnitude
away from the truth.

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pud
Is it possible you're reading it wrong?

I just put in a 2.4km address and it came out to ~2,500 steps.

See this permalink (click "go")

[http://missstep.com/?origin=Clayallee%209%2014191%20Berlin,%...](http://missstep.com/?origin=Clayallee%209%2014191%20Berlin,%20Germany&destination=Clayallee%201400%2014191%20Berlin,%20Germany)

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snippyhollow
I don't think I'm reading it wrong. Your link gives me:

"The fastest route is 2,4 km, which will take approximately 24,855 to 33,140
steps if you walked it."

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tantalor
Are those metric steps or imperial?

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pbjorklund
Guess that reading the google maps api to find the walking distance function
would have taken me more than 15 minutes.

The 15 minutes concept would probably make good katas to keep stuff you have
already used up to date in your memory. Would love to see a collection of
small challenges like this grouped under different kinds of tags. This one
might be javascript, google-maps for instance.

I would use that.

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mibbitier
OVER_QUERY_LIMIT

Such a shame that Google started limiting and charging for their APIs :(

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pud
I just fixed this by changing all API lookups from server-side to client-side.

I think Google's limits are per IP address, so doing the lookups client-side
should keep my app working for any reasonable amount of use.

Woo!

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nandemo
I'm curious, did you just happen to have a domain name containing the word
"step"? Or that was done after the initial 15 minutes?

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pud
I did not already have the domain.

Finding & registering the domain was part of the 15 minutes. As was setting up
(and propagating) the DNS.

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epaga
you should totally have recorded your screen while doing all of this, that
would be incredibly educational. great stuff!

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TimJRobinson
You should record a video of you doing the next one, I'd love to see your
process and tools that you use to get things done so fast. I'm always trying
to be as fast as possible but even to me 15 minutes from nothing to done is
mindblowing.

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beobab
It says fastest route, but would someone walking prefer the shortest?

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brador
In general, shortest would be fastest for walking (unless the difference is
large and fatigue sets in).

Or you could analyse ground gradiants for steepness and find the flatest.
Combine with your own personal fitness levels and solve for a better optimal
route :)

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Deestan
> In general, shortest would be fastest for walking

Traffic lights, crime-addled regions, embassies ( _I_ wouldn't dare jog
towards a guarded embassy carrying a backpack), loose gravel paths. All these
will slow down walking considerably.

Or outside the city: Marshes, mountains, thick forests, muddy hill slopes.

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delinka
So put the adjective "walkable" in front. The question is the same. These
things are unwalkable and therefore not able to be part of any route.

Same with your car: the places without roads are undrivable and therefore not
available for routing. But with a car, the speeds are so much greater than
bipedal motion, shortest vs. fastest is a viable question. When the routing
system avoids obstacles, it's mostly going give you the shortest and fastest
route. brador makes a good point about grade; with enough grade on the
shortest route, it might not be the fastest.

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Deestan
No, these are _all_ walkable.

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yitchelle
OK, I'm confused, what exactly is the challenge here? The creation of a
website (one with its own domain) that calculates the number of steps?

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brechin
I like the simple implementation. One small UI complaint: the text on the
button is hard to read because of low contrast.

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basugasubaku
I get: "The fastest route is 232 マイル, which will take approximately NaN to NaN
steps if you walked it."

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TamDenholm
Tech used?

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tantalor
From first glance, JavaScript, Google Maps API, and jQuery.

