Show HN: Write and deploy your first web app in 5 minutes, no setup needed

http://www.trybloc.com/

by jmtame • 15 years ago

86 31 15 years ago

trybloc.com

johnnyjustice• 15 years ago

So is this site like a TryRuby deal?

choxi2• 15 years ago

yeah except it also teaches you how to build apps and then lets you deploy them

rexf• 15 years ago

Nice, the prior HN post for DojoApp redirects here. I knew the UI looked familiar.

Check the first sentence for spelling: "The box below is an interactie Ruby console."

JakeOnRails• 15 years ago

I just get an interactive ruby and it wants me to move through a bunch of steps... Just visiting the page I have no idea where I am going and why I should invest my time. It looks like a site to teach absolutely new programmers how to code Ruby.

dlf• 15 years ago

i feel like i've seen this before... name change?

jmtame4• 15 years ago

yeah, there was some confusion between us and the javascript framework.

samdjohnson• 15 years ago

Baller

blrgeek• 15 years ago

Once I click 'next' focus is not on the console window. FF8/MacOS. Very distracting.

shawndrost• 15 years ago

If this is going to end up in an awesome website that I can show my friends, how about you show me that up front? That sounds pretty motivating!

jaysonelliot• 15 years ago

I'm not a programmer, yet I'm having a ton of fun going through the steps on this site.

brandnewlow• 15 years ago

Backspace sent me back to this post and I lost my progress.

jmtame4• 15 years ago

sorry, we'll get this fixed. the browser window is gaining focus after clicking the next button and we should refocus it back on the console

ppk• 15 years ago

I'm on Ubuntu 11.10 x64, firefox 1 billion, and neither of the buttons seem to do anything... if I have to login to try it, you should say so on the page.

Edit: I refreshed a few times and it seems to be working now, before, it just showed a "next" button and a "grade it" button, and a text box that said "ruby console".

k3dz3• 15 years ago

open your app gives me

Application Error An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a few moments. If you are the application owner, check your logs for details.

jmtame4• 15 years ago

can you email us your application URL? we're founders at trybloc.com

k3dz3• 15 years ago

it was due to a typo..is there a way to see the error logs? url - http://young-forest-975.herokuapp.com/

abrown28• 15 years ago

console doesn't work to well with the xoom keyboard. Looks like the focus goes away and comes back with every key press. I suspect android tablet wasnt a target for the demo :-)

DanielN• 15 years ago

Nice site. One thing I came across:

Your code validation checks for necessity without checking for sufficiency. In other words while

    "hello world"

will be accepted. So will something like

    "hello world""

Also, when I attempted to deploy some 'malicious' code it didn't deploy (great), but it would be nice to get some message as to why my deploy failed.

Small things but something worth accounting for since the goal of the site seems to be making taking that first step as pain free as possible.

choxi2• 15 years ago

you should try out the URL Shortener course, it tests your input at a higher level so you don't bump into things like that

teja1990• 15 years ago

Nice work guys , it was fun learning like this. But when I had to go back after finishing the course , the share window , i mean the option to tweet and deploy still follow me in all my previous windows. It would be great if you can provide a close button :)

czzarr2• 15 years ago

it's taking super long to grade the creating random numbers step of the URL shortener (1min and counting)

czzarr2• 15 years ago

34min now...

colinm• 15 years ago

FYI: Editor doesn't work in IE9

djbender2• 15 years ago

Should probably do some more careful code checking, or actually run a validator on the code.

djbender2• 15 years ago

I feel like it's worth mentioning that if you like learning through an application interface similar to this, I really recommend http://codeschool.com.

(I'm completely unaffiliated.)

wesleyzhao• 15 years ago

Not sure if this is on purpose or legacy code, but the Tweet button and Like button (both of which I clicked :]) both link and speak of "DojoApp"/dojoapp.com

lucian1900• 15 years ago

Interesting, I've yet to see such a nicely streamlined code-to-deploy process, in a browser. Cloud9 + github + heroku comes close (and is more powerful), but the initial cost of getting hello world working is much higher than bloc.

darwindeeds• 15 years ago

Great idea but the design is very similar to http://www.codecademy.com/ you guys should make some UI changes to avoid being tagged copy-cat.

ziyadb• 15 years ago

While I don't have any constructive comments to offer with regard to the product itself, I feel obliged to convey my encouragement and appreciation. You're doing great work. Keep getting better.

Show HN: Write and deploy your first web app in 5 minutes, no setup needed

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