
Show HN: Twatter – Find the best available Twitter handle - elliottinvent
https://github.com/elliottinvent/twatter
======
elliottinvent
TLDR; It's a ruby script you can run locally to find an available Twitter
handle. You need a Twitter Developer Account. I was surprised by how many
handles are suspended.

Hi HN,

I'm new here, I was inspired by the "What has HN given you?"[1] post so
thought I'd share something I put together late last year after a frustrating
few hours trying to find a Twitter handle. It's a Ruby script you can run
locally to find a new Twitter handle if you're a new user (can't be many of
those on HN) or just want a better handle. I found it quite difficult to find
an available handle I was happy with, even using this tool – over 50% of
handles I checked were suspended [2].

I'm currently re-skilling after doing quite a bit of basic development work
using Classic ASP in early 2000s. That business did ok so I ended up spending
all my time on management and sales and regret not keeping up with
developments in programming – crikey you guys have been busy! The learning
curve has been steep.

I'd really welcome any feedback on how I could have structured the code
better. I don't plan to offer this as a service because it would just get
obliterated by bots but hopefully it comes in useful for someone.

Thanks,

Elliott

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16409768](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16409768)
2\. [https://medium.com/@ElliottInvent/becoming-a-new-twitter-
use...](https://medium.com/@ElliottInvent/becoming-a-new-twitter-user-is-not-
easy-3e08eb18d7fe)

