

Show HN: Write and deploy your first web app in 5 minutes, no setup needed - jmtame
http://www.trybloc.com/

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DanielN
Nice site. One thing I came across:

Your code validation checks for necessity without checking for sufficiency. In
other words while

    
    
        "hello world"
    

will be accepted. So will something like

    
    
        "hello world""
    

Also, when I attempted to deploy some 'malicious' code it didn't deploy
(great), but it would be nice to get some message as to why my deploy failed.

Small things but something worth accounting for since the goal of the site
seems to be making taking that first step as pain free as possible.

~~~
choxi
you should try out the URL Shortener course, it tests your input at a higher
level so you don't bump into things like that

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jaysonelliot
I'm not a programmer, yet I'm having a ton of fun going through the steps on
this site.

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shawndrost
If this is going to end up in an awesome website that I can show my friends,
how about you show me that up front? That sounds pretty motivating!

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darwindeeds
Great idea but the design is very similar to <http://www.codecademy.com/> you
guys should make some UI changes to avoid being tagged copy-cat.

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rexf
Nice, the prior HN post for DojoApp redirects here. I knew the UI looked
familiar.

Check the first sentence for spelling: "The box below is an interactie Ruby
console."

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ppk
I'm on Ubuntu 11.10 x64, firefox 1 billion, and neither of the buttons seem to
do anything... if I have to login to try it, you should say so on the page.

Edit: I refreshed a few times and it seems to be working now, before, it just
showed a "next" button and a "grade it" button, and a text box that said "ruby
console".

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teja1990
Nice work guys , it was fun learning like this. But when I had to go back
after finishing the course , the share window , i mean the option to tweet and
deploy still follow me in all my previous windows. It would be great if you
can provide a close button :)

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JakeOnRails
I just get an interactive ruby and it wants me to move through a bunch of
steps... Just visiting the page I have no idea where I am going and why I
should invest my time. It looks like a site to teach absolutely new
programmers how to code Ruby.

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djbender
I feel like it's worth mentioning that if you like learning through an
application interface similar to this, I really recommend
<http://codeschool.com>.

(I'm completely unaffiliated.)

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lucian1900
Interesting, I've yet to see such a nicely streamlined code-to-deploy process,
in a browser. Cloud9 + github + heroku comes close (and is more powerful), but
the initial cost of getting hello world working is much higher than bloc.

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blrgeek
Once I click 'next' focus is not on the console window. FF8/MacOS. Very
distracting.

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ziyadb
While I don't have any constructive comments to offer with regard to the
product itself, I feel obliged to convey my encouragement and appreciation.
You're doing great work. Keep getting better.

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brandnewlow
Backspace sent me back to this post and I lost my progress.

~~~
jmtame
sorry, we'll get this fixed. the browser window is gaining focus after
clicking the next button and we should refocus it back on the console

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wesleyzhao
Not sure if this is on purpose or legacy code, but the Tweet button and Like
button (both of which I clicked :]) both link and speak of
"DojoApp"/dojoapp.com

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dlf
i feel like i've seen this before... name change?

~~~
jmtame
yeah, there was some confusion between us and the javascript framework.

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djbender
Should probably do some more careful code checking, or actually run a
validator on the code.

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k3dz
open your app gives me

Application Error An error occurred in the application and your page could not
be served. Please try again in a few moments. If you are the application
owner, check your logs for details.

~~~
jmtame
can you email us your application URL? we're founders at trybloc.com

~~~
k3dz
it was due to a typo..is there a way to see the error logs? url -
<http://young-forest-975.herokuapp.com/>

~~~
jmtame
did you try to sign up? you can save your progress and edit your code on any
repo by signing up.

~~~
k3dz
yup.. i signed up and fixed it.. thanks!

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abrown28
console doesn't work to well with the xoom keyboard. Looks like the focus goes
away and comes back with every key press. I suspect android tablet wasnt a
target for the demo :-)

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czzarr
it's taking super long to grade the creating random numbers step of the URL
shortener (1min and counting)

~~~
czzarr
34min now...

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johnnyjustice
So is this site like a TryRuby deal?

~~~
choxi
yeah except it also teaches you how to build apps and then lets you deploy
them

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colinm
FYI: Editor doesn't work in IE9

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samdjohnson
Baller

