
Apply HN: It's 2:30am; the baby's crying - mindset
Let&#x27;s keep it short:<p>There are apps for everything and everyone, but these rarely do exactly what you want. 
Some are more feature-rich (making them too heavy for the one task you need), or too targeted, missing some feature(s) you want.<p>The idea is to provide a cloud-based platform for personalized apps that do a small number of <i>exactly</i> the thing(s) a user might want.<p>But who’s gonna develop these exotic apps?
Let’s make it dead easy for developers to publish small, but smart apps: the platform provides processing, storage, scheduling and integration capabilities, allowing apps to respond to events (e.g., app might run by sending SMS or when a tweet is posted). 
The intent is to strip any overhead hindering developers from publishing pretty much any app they think of or commissioned to develop.<p>Use cases (and I mean actual apps currently used in the pilot stage):<p><pre><code>   1. SMS-based TODO app (enhances feature phone capabilities)

   2. Customized morning SMS weather notifications 
      * customizing info, units and formatting

   3. Tracking and notification of rare but important website updates

   4. Automatic code backup from GitHub to BitBucket 
      * a royal pain otherwise

   5. Apply HN leaderboard and highly-voted newcomers daily email

   6. Near real-time tracking of Wimbledon match results vs. betting odds
      
</code></pre>
I’d appreciate any feedback and elaborate on how the prototype works, share app code examples and answer any questions.<p>* Shameless plug, for someone else: Maciej Ceglowski (of Pinboard, currently apply HN leader) gave a brilliant talk titled ‘Barely succeed! It&#x27;s easier!’. Check it out at goo.gl&#x2F;j2SxTY
======
Piskvorrr
It's 3:30, the baby's still crying, and I'm all confused. Maybe it's the
exhaustion, maybe it's the wall of text.

What platform? Are you building it? Or are you building the apps? Or are you
just saying that it _ought to_ exist? The only link you're providing is some
talk on YT.

~~~
mindset
Yes, I'm building the platform, not the apps. Apps will be build by developers
independently, or after being commissioned by non-coding users. When the
service is in decent shape to post link, I'll happily do so here, or in the
show HN section

~~~
Piskvorrr
Aha, now it makes sense. Looking forward to that!

------
phillc73
Just a couple of comments on some of your use cases.

* I don't use Bitbucket specifically, but what's difficult about mirroring code between two different git instances? I do it between GitHub and GitLab.[0] Local git config just needs to be configured to push to both destinations. Or perhaps I haven't understood the specific "code backup" use case?

* The Wimbledon match results vs betting odds could be interesting, but I would think the betting odds should very quickly reflect the match results. At least this would be my experience on Betfair. What's the opportunity here? Is it arbitrage between bookmakers?

[0]
[https://github.com/phillc73/backblazer](https://github.com/phillc73/backblazer)
and
[https://gitlab.com/phillc73/backblazer](https://gitlab.com/phillc73/backblazer)

~~~
m-i-l
_I would think the betting odds should very quickly reflect the match
results._

In actual fact, the betting odds are sometimes updated before the broadcast
results, thanks to bookmakers employing courtsiders[0] to transmit scores
direct.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtsiding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtsiding)

~~~
mindset
Yes, much like the stock market responds to news, mostly faster than msnbc can
discuss these. The issue this app solves is the ephemeral nature of the
betting data. A simple scheduling feature allowed me to have historical data
easily. Otherwise, go deal with a server, scheduled jobs, etc. Not impossible,
just discouraging for many people that can develop, but don't want to deal
with the overhead for every little application.

------
bryanrasmussen
I guess I'm confused. Is the crying baby a problem that will be solved by one
of these small apps? If so, how? Because the tools that are provided do not
seem like any tools that would be especially useful to develop a crying baby
handling app? also - a link needed.

~~~
mindset
Nah, the title has little to do with the app, more with my failed attempt at
brevity. But an app that could stop a baby from crying would be awesome.

