
Runnable Wants To Become The “YouTube Of Code” - makeshifthoop
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/02/runnable-wants-to-become-the-youtube-of-code/
======
dorkrawk
This might be a minor nitpick, but it always bugs me when Ruby on Rails is
listed as a language, particularly by people who should know better
(developers). There's even a section for frameworks on the site. People
searching for code snippets should be able to understand that Ruby is a
language and Ruby on Rails is a framework.

~~~
alex_c
Well, that's the problem with dynamic languages, isn't it? The distinction can
get a bit blurry.

[http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.0.0/Array.html](http://ruby-
doc.org/core-2.0.0/Array.html) vs.
[http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/Array.html](http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/Array.html)

[http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.0.0/String.html](http://ruby-
doc.org/core-2.0.0/String.html) vs.
[http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/String.html](http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/String.html)

etc.

~~~
Scriptor
Just because it modifies the standard library classes doesn't make it a
separate language in its own right. If you used Java but with a different
implementation for, say, linked lists than the standard one you'd still be
using Java.

~~~
dangerlibrary
Absolutely! Rails is written in Ruby and is run by the Ruby interpreter. No
doubt about it. But if you dig in you find that pretty much every Ruby class
(including the low-level ones) has been modified for use in Rails. In
addition, a lot of Rails code is written in a purpose-built DSL. Rails has
built-in DSLs for web routing, email sending/receiving, database queries, &c.
You can split hairs and say that these are APIs and not real DSLs, but I think
the point about dynamic languages blurring the lines is totally fair. You
could implement the core Java spec in Ruby by modifying the base classes, and
at some point you aren't writing Ruby any more.

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LandoCalrissian
I really like the idea, but holy hell the site design needs some work. There
are a lot of areas that are overlapping, or rendered kind of funky. The mess
of purple icons should just probably go. Also when you finally select a
language, the list of projects is really hard to read.

Keep up the good work, it's a good idea, just need to push the design way
more.

~~~
robertfw
Absolutely - why o why do you have random purple icons taking up half the
screen, pushing your content below the fold? Ditch em!

edit: Having browsed the rest of the thread I see this may be a bug. If it
helps, I am using: Version 28.0.1500.71 Ubuntu 12.04
(28.0.1500.71-0ubuntu1.12.04.1)

~~~
tjmehta
Thank you Robert! We have now resolved this issue now, turns out some of our
servers didnt have the proper css file.

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barbchavez
I love this site! Like someone mentioned on TC, it's a Stack Overflow meets
JSFiddle, SqlFiddle, GitHub etc.

Would be interesting to see how they handle COMPLEX snippets / codebase like
Web APIs, Delegates, events etc.

~~~
ykumar6
Thanks your your feedback!

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fleitz
I like the idea kinda of wish it was more tongue in cheek.

"Copypasta, the Old Spaghetti Factory of code"

On a slightly more serious note, if they are the youtube of code, how are they
going to remove the xenophobia from the comments?

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NIL8
Direct link: [http://runnable.com/](http://runnable.com/)

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TylerE
Grr, no no no.

Whoever designed this is nuts...that black ajaxy loading screen crap on every
page load is incredibly rage inducing.

~~~
ykumar6
You mean the page loader? Sorry to hear about that :(

~~~
elwell
I like YouTube's page loading bar though.

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migusto
Works great but the site design needs some work. Am I supposed to see three
rows of big purple icons at the top of the home page? I tried multiple
browsers, looks a bit awkward and takes up half of my screen.

~~~
ykumar6
Hi, which browser are you using?

~~~
migusto
I've tried in Chrome and IE9, looks the same either way for me:

[http://i.imgur.com/EXI0kdY.png](http://i.imgur.com/EXI0kdY.png)

~~~
kungfooey
Seeing the same thing in Firefox 24.

[http://d.pr/i/6uwO](http://d.pr/i/6uwO)

~~~
tjmehta
Thank you kungfooey! We have now resolved this issue now, turns out some of
our servers didnt have the proper css file.

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ykumar6
Founder of Runnable here. We've got some reports that the site isn't loading
properly in some browsers. We're working to fix this now, and ask you to retry
in an hour :) \- Yash

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diziet
The way the terminal VM works is quite impressive, actually.

~~~
ykumar6
We're glad you liked it!

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pavs
I like the idea, but as quite a few people mentioned, the execution is really
below par, esp the UI and not loading properly on chrome at all.

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terabytest
Nice, but looking at the paperclip rails example I really didn't understand
where to look. The only file visible was the application controller, and the
application wouldn't run because the migrations hadn't been executed.

~~~
ykumar6
Thanks for reporting this. We'll take a look!

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siscia
Those guys are terrible IMHO:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6272093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6272093)

~~~
paulgb
Just because they didn't respond to your email? I don't follow.

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siscia
I don't think is the way to run any business, what I saw is just no respect
and exploitation and for what 100 bucks ? Seriously ?

~~~
gary__
I think you need to gain some perspective. They just didn't respond to your
email. It happens. Fwict, it was outside of the expected communication
channels for proposals anyway. It would have been more respectful if they
contacted you, I can understand your frustration waiting for the reply, but
you've completely overreacted. IMO what's most unprofessional about the
incident is you taking such a minor grievance to a public forum.

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hpagey
When I read "youtube of code" I was expecting video recordings of developers
coding sessions :P. But the current form works too.

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keenahn
I'm actually very excited about this as an education tool where you can
actually learn by coding.

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dedicated
Great way to get around the work of setting up the environment to get straight
into the API.

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avree
Congrats on the launch, guys!

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elwell
Top-left header logo is fuzzy because it is being stretched. \- Chrome, PC

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ianstormtaylor
TL;DR - Runnable only solves the small-picture problem. The best solution to
the bigger-picture problem would make Runnable obsolete, because it's an anti-
pattern to begin with.

\---

The small version of the problem is that it's hard to find these snippets
spread out across the internet, and then figure out if they work, and then
copy-paste them into your program. Runnable solves the finding problem.

But the bigger version of the problem is that you shouldn't be copy-pasting
these snippets into your codebase all the time, no matter how small they are.
If they are useful enough that you find yourself looking them up often, or
they are useful enough that they merited being posted on someone's blog, then
they are useful enough to make into a package and share them properly. The
node.js module system with npm gets extremely close to this goal. And for
client-side Javascript, component[1] does the same thing.

[1]:
[https://github.com/component/component](https://github.com/component/component)

This is one place where other client-side Javascript package managers
completely fall over. There are multiple different "types" of packages.

1\. There are the typical "big libraries"

    
    
      - jQuery
      - superagent
      - mocha
      - d3
      - backbone
      - underscore
      - angular.js
      - etc.
    

2\. Then there are "plugins", which are pretty big in scope themselves. They
have to be big enough to be "plugin-worthy", influenced mostly by how annoying
it has been to install plugins in the jQuery days, via copy and pasting them
into your /libs folder. These are things like:

    
    
      - backbone marionette
      - jQuery waypoints
      - underscore string
      - any jquery plugin
      - any angular plugin
      - etc.
    

Most package managers, with that kind of thinking in mind, stop there, at the
"big library" and "plugins" level. Bower has this shortcoming. It's great for
quickly grabbing a copy of jQuery and a few jQuery plugins, but it doesn't
actively encourage making smaller modules, which is critical to solving the
big-picture need Runnable is trying to solve.

3\. The third type of package are tiny modules that at first glance you are
tempted to just stick right into your /utils folder. These are so small that
in old-school package managers it would be more hassle just to make them into
packages. (This is why it's crucial for package managers to have as little
beaurocracy as possible by the way, to avoid that line of thinking.) These are
things like:

    
    
      - https://github.com/matthewmueller/uid
      - https://github.com/yields/has-transitions
      - https://github.com/pazguille/shuffle-array
      - https://github.com/ianstormtaylor/to-snake-case
      - https://github.com/jwerle/to-csv
      - https://github.com/segmentio/canonical
    

Those tiny modules are the kinds of things you find StackOverflow answers for
all the time. People keep having the same problems over and over again, and
eventually the answers get voted up. Things like, "how do I convert a camel
case string into a snake case string?".

As soon as you take those simple tasks and package them up in a way that
installing them is as easy as:

    
    
      $ component install ianstormtaylor/to-snake-case
    

Then you start to see crazy gains in productivity and quality of your code.
When you do that you aren't copy-pasting some shoddy StackOverflow answer into
your codebase, so that the onus is now on you to maintain it. Instead, you're
just dependning on an open-source component that is packaged along with tests
to make sure it continues to work. It's visible by tons of others, can be
improved when bugs crop up, and you don't need to maintain yourself if you
don't want to.

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mumbi
Good idea. Site needs definite polishing. Usability is an issue and it just
looks mediocre, no attention to detail.

~~~
tjmehta
Sorry for the design problems earlier mumbi! We have now resolved this issue
now, turns out some of our servers didn't have the proper css file.

~~~
mumbi
ah, that explains it. It looks great now. Keep up the good work!

