I created a front page Show HN project CodingFont.com with low code

https://retool.com/blog/how-i-created-a-coding-font-game-with-low-code/

by wentin • 5 years ago

46 21 5 years ago

drcongo2• 5 years ago

Didn't actually work for most of the people in the Show HN though.

Worked fine for me when I tried it yesterday. Revisiting the thread it looks like they were making changes to it based on feedback and that unknowingly to them they broke it before going to bed.

Personally I appreciate the fact that they made an effort to implement some of the suggested changes. And I think that in such situations, when making changes and even maybe being tired when doing it, it can easily happen that something breaks, regardless of whether you are developing with code or low-code or no-code.

For example, when I tried the tool/game, I did not yet see a way of hiding the font names and I was thinking about exactly the fact that I may be biased towards preferring the JetBrains font because I use it in CLion where I write most of my code, and that as a result I may be ranking it higher than I would if the name of it was not displayed to me.

wentin6• 5 years ago

Thanks for your kind words! Yeah, yesterday was such a roller coaster! The comment section is like a gold mine of good features to implement. We took the easy one to implement first, and will continue to add more complex ones!

drcongo2• 5 years ago

Thanks, hadn't checked it again since it was broken that first time. I'll give it another go.

spyke1122• 5 years ago

So it was a marketing stunt?

wentin6• 5 years ago

No, it is not a marketing stunt, I just genuinely want to share how i built it. I am a designer turned coder, so sharing and teaching how to adopt new skills (by others) is what got me here, so I tried to do the same.

I am not affiliated or paid by the tools I used. I start writing about them on my newsletter when I found it useful, and then that leads to this guest post on their blog.

spyke1122• 5 years ago

Thank you for clarifying. I feel it needed to be said.

xupybd2• 5 years ago

What's the learning curve on a tool like this. I find I invest so much in learning things that are supposed to speed me up. Then find out they're too niche to use in my day to day.

wentin6• 5 years ago

I know the feeling. I dropped React because of the learning curve is too steep for me, eventually adopted vue.js because it is friendlier (from my perspective and learning path, I am stronger in HTML/CSS coming from my design background).

Knowing vue.js, it took me about one or two days to get my first app running and I felt learned after the first app. After that, getting project off the ground is not a hurtle anymore and i can develop new ideas and learn along the way.

I think knowing vue.js (probably React too since I know they are similar) will contribute to flattening the learning curve for Retool. Mostly it is learning 1) set up the data source 2) find places to plug in the data using {{}} syntax

knowing these two things can get one very far.

xupybd2• 5 years ago

I don't mind tools like React. There is a big learning curve but there are a few related things in the space that open up when you understand one of them. Low code tools seem to be very specific. So the time you invest is only applicable to that tool.

lasercat• 5 years ago

I would be interested in hearing more about which fonts win the most tournaments.

wentin6• 5 years ago

Yes! we think alike. I am planning to implement a database to store this info. I think it would be super interesting to see the result! From an extremely limited data set (Twitter), I see many people are reporting Inconsolata being their winner.

nobrains• 5 years ago

Final 2 were JetBrains Mono and Fira Mono for me. I chose to hide the names until the last 2. The winner was Jetbrains Mono.

dugmartin• 5 years ago

Same for me but I think showing the font names biased me - I just switched from Fira Code to JetBrains Mono three months ago.

warent• 5 years ago

How to get on HN front page unlimited times:

1. Make a Show HN intersecting coding with something uncommon

2. Write an article about how you got on front page with Show HN

3. Write an article about how you got on the front page twice

4. Write an article about how you got on the front page n+1 times

variablen• 5 years ago

nice work, I thoroughly enjoyed this yesterday. how many hours did it take to create it?

wentin6• 5 years ago

I think maybe a solid 2 days of work in total, but done in small portions, so maybe 16 hours in total roughly. The hardest part is to figure out how to do the recursive stuff (recursively generate a pair of fonts until fonts run out) that took me at least 3 hours to draw the logic on paper to help me think. Recursive stuff always trip me up.

skrtskrt• 5 years ago

Add the Hack font to this, the winning font I got (Courier Prime) I like less than half as much as I like Hack

wentin6• 5 years ago

adding more fonts including hack is definitely something we plan for the next release! stay tuned!

contingencies• 5 years ago

Alternatively, see https://www.programmingfonts.org/

Missing B612 Mono (I prefer it to Jetbrains): B612 is an highly legible open source font family designed and tested to be used on aircraft cockpit screens.

In 2010, Airbus initiated a research collaboration with ENAC and Université de Toulouse III on a prospective study to define and validate an “Aeronautical Font”: the challenge was to improve the display of information on the cockpit screens, in particular in terms of legibility and comfort of reading, and to optimize the overall homogeneity of the cockpit. https://github.com/polarsys/b612

Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18946601

re: Site presentation, I think having sample prose as well as sample code is important. Spacey code blocks are largely non-representative when it comes to typography in context. Particularly when working on the console with high density information (SQL, stringy datasets, etc.)

dang• 5 years ago

Related from yesterday:

Show HN: Coding Font – A game to find your favorite coding font - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29010443 - Oct 2021 (215 comments)

I created a front page Show HN project CodingFont.com with low code

Related Stories