

Ask HN: What do you need help with? - mrduncan

There have been a lot of awesome Offer HN threads recently.  Since I'm sure there are a lot of people on HN who wouldn't mind helping someone out, I want to try something a little backwards.<p>What <i>one</i> thing do you need help with?  Please be as specific as possible.<p>Let's also try to keep it somewhat hacker related (please don't ask for relationship advice or things like that).  I'll do my best to help out as many people as I can.
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swanson
How do I take my web app from running locally to being able to serve data to
users? Basically the server admin type stuff to serve my Rails/Django/Sintra
app. How do things like memcached and Varnish fit into the picture and when is
it an appropriate time to start worrying about it?

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mrduncan
_How do I take my web app from running locally to being able to serve data to
users? Basically the server admin type stuff to serve my Rails/Django/Sintra
app._

For a Rails app, check out Heroku, they make admin stuff insanely simple
(although they cost a little more, it's well worth the benefits). I'll let
others chime in on Sinatra and Django.

 _How do things like memcached and Varnish fit into the picture and when is it
an appropriate time to start worrying about it?_

I'll take the easy part of this one (when to start worrying about it): In most
cases, don't worry about it yet. You can get by just fine without either of
them (especially Varnish) until you get a decent amount of users. Once you
start seeing slowdowns, then start looking at how Memcached can help you cache
data so you're not hitting your DB (or disk) as often.

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dbingham
Really I just need pure feedback on each iteration. Need help coming up with a
todo list of what to work on next. I've got big features in mind, but I want
to nail the little stuff before I start on the next big feature. Don't think
it really fits the Offer HN thing though.

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mrduncan
Care to post your project?

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dbingham
Sure: <http://www.fridgetofood.com>

I've posted it as a link before and got some good feedback. Not sure what the
rules are on reposting after an update are.

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rezrovs
I'm a big fan of good recipe sites and this one looks like a great idea with
the ability to vote and especially to view recipes by foodie.

Some comments

* I'm not sure if the word 'foodie' is well known

* I agree with the comment of the default fridge item - it's too busy

* There are not enough recipies / foodies per page because the icons are so big. On a big screen they are a little overwhelming.

* The grey / black main colour on the interface doesn't seem appetizing. Might be worthwhile experimenting with a few colours?

* I love the layout of the ingredients - very easy to read.

* I get question mark characters instead of the degree symbol.

* I see on the Homemade Chocolate Goodness Part 1 that there is a comment (which I assume is you) to allow ingredients to be listed in sections - I think this is a very important feature because it makes complicated recipes easier to read

* You have some escaping going on for user with profile 38 in the panel opposite the picture. See "At the end of the day"

* Perhaps give foodies the ability to not show the preparation column in the ingredients list as not very many of them use it - or else if there are no entries then don't render that column.

* The tags (main tag list) are difficult to read because they are alphabetical horizontally and not vertically

* Would be great to be able to search recipes by preparation time

I really like this site - definitely going to sign up and browse further! If I
find anything else I'll comment again :)

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dbingham
* At least in the initial target community - Food Bloggers - the word Foodie does seem to be well known. Also, is it import to have the word be known? I think we can use it and even if some users don't know it, they will adopt it and come to associate it with the site. Which would be a good thing.

* Yeah, you're not the first to comment about that. I've experimented with some others, but haven't found one that I like yet. I'll keep experimenting. Any ideas in that regard would be welcome -- I'm a programmer not a graphic designer.

* Hmm... I see your point. But I picked the size very intentionally. I wanted them to be larger so I had room to include all the information I needed while still allowing users to get a good solid look at the picture. I can certainly include more per page, and I can experiment with allowing more visible on the screen. But I don't want to shrink the image size. 300px x 300px is exactly where I wanted it. Of course, I'm always open to being convinced if it's an issue for lots of people. And I'll certainly keep it in mind an experiment with it.

* Yeah, I've done lots of experimenting with colors. But so far, the white on grey (Black at .8 opacity actually) works best. I'll keep experimenting. Again, I'm a programmer, not a designer :/

* Thanks! That's actually a recent update in response to feedback, so I can't really take credit for that one. But I'll pass it on ;)

* Yeah, not sure what's up with that. Might have something to do with improper escaping somewhere. I'll go hunting for it.

* Sections have already been implemented in the add and edit form. Just haven't gotten around to editing the recipes that were added before sections were implemented to use them.

* Yeah, that's not the only one. I haven't given the admin privileges to edit user profiles yet. I need to do that so I can fix it. The escaping is an artifact of a bug that's been fixed. I'll make a note to fix that profile, thanks!

* The ones that don't use it have preparation in the "amount" column - most of them. Because the preparation column wasn't available when they were added. Again, some editing will fix that.

* Completely agree on this one. Will work on it.

* Hmm... advanced search is in the works. Will include that. But a lot of recipes are lacking prep-time, so I don't know that it will be that effective. Maybe I can make prep time wiki-editable so that if the initial poster doesn't include, future users can.

Thanks for the comments and feedback! I really appreciate it. I'll keep all of
it in mind.

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malabar
I need help modifying a python script. I no absolutely zero programming, and
the few things I have tried to learn, simply break the script.

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RiderOfGiraffes
How big is it? Put it online somewhere and tell us where.

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malabar
I will try and setup a place online to post it. Basically it just renames
files in a folder or directory. by default, it starts the first one with
0000.txt then 0001.txt. I would like to make it ASK for a prefix THEN add the
numeric sequence.

I will get it online and update you all.

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RiderOfGiraffes
The core is probably only 10 lines or so - why not post it here? Then post a
change you made, and ask why it doesn't work.

Just a thought.

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absconditus
I need help getting new HN users to use Stack Overflow for help instead of HN.

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nickl
I need help marketing and testing Foldertrack. www.foldertrack.com

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phlux
I am a little wary of the offer HN: to a certain degree;

I took up one of the offers for some proofing etc... and upon sending some
info to the HN anon -- was informed that they could not help on my project as
they are building something very similar.

So, if you have information/ideas that might be the slightest bit sensitive --
I would recommend you think about it closely before sending your information
to random anons.

