I know you've gone and stated your purported age (presumably to increase engagement which I'm not going to fault you for), but that being said, I'm still going to treat you like an adult.
Vibe coding is not a substitute for basic testing.
Just a few seconds of trying this - and it seems to be riddled with issues.
Many times the part of speech doesn't show - giving an inscrutable number instead:
πεπόνθατε
Part of Speech: POS 17
Gloss: -
ἐμαυτοῦ
Part of Speech: POS 12
Gloss: -
Also the "Translation" is checked, but the Inspector doesn't seem to give gloss/translation for 90% of any of the words that I tried clicking on to highlight.
When used on smaller devices, the layout shifts result in many of the buttons being completely misaligned as well. Again this would have been easily caught with a cursory visual inspection.
For a free tool, it's pretty clearly pushing the AI subscription aspect. Given how LLMs tend to do better with overrepresented languages (Spanish, English, Chinese, etc.), I'm not sure I'd trust my studies of ancient languages like Greek and Latin to OpenAI.
Fair criticism. I should have tested more thoroughly before shipping! I've fixed the POS displa issues you flagged and am working on expanding the lexicon. I really appreciate you taking the time to report them!!
You're right that basic testing shouldn't be skipped regardless of how the code was written.
- The exercises in focus mode feel too short, maybe they could get longer over time?
- Disable text selection within the lesson container (using `user-select: none`). Not strictly necessary, but right now I can just Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V and hit 1000 WPM, which is pretty amusing.
- After completing an exercise, allow advancing to the next one via keyboard (Space or Enter). At the moment, the player has to take their hand off the keyboard, grab the mouse, and click "Next Exercise." For a game about focus, it kind of breaks the flow.
Out of all of them, the "Dig to the Core" game seems to have the most promise. You might consider incorporating some sort of "sand simulation" (cellular automata) to make it a bit more engaging so you could do things like simulating lava flows, cave-ins, etc.
Nice job. I think you'd get a little more engagement if you added a few simple song presets to help people get a feel for it! (even if they were just simple 4-bar loops)
Nothing says efficiency like a sorting algorithm where Big O is more influenced by the largest element's value rather than the number of elements in the array. /s
If you're interested in donating and being reasonably assured that your money isn't getting the Worldvision treatment, I highly recommend checking out "Giving What We Can" [1] and "GiveWell" [2].
Lots of us put weeks/months into our projects. As somebody who's definitely had their fair share of "Show HN"s be swallowed into the murky depths, take the "L" and just give it a few weeks before reposting again.
Now onto some feedback:
**** What I like ****
The article is well-written and I really appreciate the candid nature of the journey to see this project through to the finish line.
**** What I don't like ****
There's literally dozens of JLPT flashcard sets (online and physical).
It's a bit hard for me to understand the point of the physical card aspect of this kickstarter. It pushes SRS/Leitner/etc - but I can't even fathom anyone trying to organize and set this up with physical cards.
The "no silly mnemonics" feels like a solution in search of a problem. Most of the flashcards that I've used for Chinese and Japanese had no such thing on them.
**** Questions ****
Did you work with a native Japanese speaker to vet your cards?
How can I rely on your expertise as a non-native speaker? Did you major in Japanese? What level of the JLPT have you passed?
I see no mention of 部首, are you incorporating radicals into the learning process?
**** Constructive ****
If it were a work of art, such that I could display the cards decoratively then I think I might be more inclined to invest. For example, if you'd gotten a Japanese calligrapher to do the kanji.
Thanks vunderba, that's a good point about the time and that's a better comment than the parent one.
The mnemonics really were the main feature driving me away from existing resources and to make my own.
On the questions: I am not an expert, but I didn't make anything up. All data is picked from dictionaries like JMDict/jisho.org. The layout and choosing which information to display how I found best was according to my studies.
On 部首: They're highlighted for each Kanji (back side) and annotated on the bottom right in the full form, but there are no individual cards for radicals.
All in all, the deck features and what makes it different is better described by the guide that I link in the post (which, while interesting, is better suited for the audience which cares about Kanji).
The post itself focused on the building and business part which I think is well-suited for the HN crowd.
Np. Thanks for the details. And FWIW I might just not be the target demograph for the product, but it does seem like you have an audience for it because the Kickstarter is gaining support~~
I think the opposite would be just as likely, though.
During the mid-2000s ZIRP, the tech industry was flush with cash and hurling high six-figure salaries at anyone who could use a flexbox in CSS.
With the promise of all this money and high demand came a massive proliferation of coding bootcamps promising to land you one of these lucrative jobs.
That drew in lots of people with zero genuine interest in computer science.
Anecdotally, everyone in my graduating class majoring in compsci seemed to love the field, but this was back when software dev positions were a lot closer in salary to regular engineering (electrical and mechanical).
Vibe coding is not a substitute for basic testing.
Just a few seconds of trying this - and it seems to be riddled with issues.
https://the-lexicon-project.netlify.app/app#plato-apology/17...
Many times the part of speech doesn't show - giving an inscrutable number instead:
Also the "Translation" is checked, but the Inspector doesn't seem to give gloss/translation for 90% of any of the words that I tried clicking on to highlight.When used on smaller devices, the layout shifts result in many of the buttons being completely misaligned as well. Again this would have been easily caught with a cursory visual inspection.
For a free tool, it's pretty clearly pushing the AI subscription aspect. Given how LLMs tend to do better with overrepresented languages (Spanish, English, Chinese, etc.), I'm not sure I'd trust my studies of ancient languages like Greek and Latin to OpenAI.
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