Ask HN: Please review my StartUp

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4179975

by reiz • 14 years ago

21 23 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Please review my Start-Up VersionEye: https://www.versioneye.com/. I would like to know what you think about the idea. How do you like the landing page? Any ideas for improvements? Your feedback is appreciated.

StavrosK4• 14 years ago

I found out about what it did by sheer luck, because I scrolled down enough to see the description. Also, what's the graph on the front page? It doesn't change no matter what I do.

reiz11• 14 years ago

Thank you for your feedback. Was the search field not clear enough? The graph is the dependency graph for Ruby on Rails. It's standing below the the graph. You can click on the nodes. But if that wasn't clear to you, I have to change the landing page.

StavrosK4• 14 years ago

Well, I saw the graph and expected that I could plot dependencies for arbitrary packages, but looking a bit more revealed that it's a site for staying up to date on new packages. I don't know how I can plot the dependencies of other papackages, or how that ties into the app...

StavrosK4• 14 years ago

Also, for actual usage feedback, it sounds useful but I'm not sure if I'd use it, as I generally just install packages at the start of a project and leave them at that version unless I feel like upgrading or y have bugs.

yashchandra2• 14 years ago

clickable http://www.versioneye.com

yashchandra2• 14 years ago

I am honestly lost and do not understand what your startup does.

reiz11• 14 years ago

OK. It's a search engine for Software Developers. You can find Libraries and additional information. And you can follow your Libraries to get notified about new versions. How would you design the landing page for that?

StavrosK4• 14 years ago

I would put the description higher up. It's pretty clear, just hidden.

franze• 14 years ago

you are not google (yet) - explain what you do, what you offer - in one or two catchy sentences above the fold.

other than that: cool & interesting idea - still a few bugs in there (i.e.: https://www.versioneye.com/search?lang=&q=coffeescript, select boxes on the search box don't remember their setting)

reiz11• 14 years ago

You are right. I am not google. I thought that the search field and the language icons would be clear. But if not I will add some description. Thank you for you feedback.

yesimahuman• 14 years ago

I like what I think you do, but I agree with the other people here, add some more concrete explanations of what it is VersionEye does.

1) I searched for "zlib" which is something I needed recently for Python. zlib comes built in to Python, but I think you could include it in your results anyways since it's kind of a toss up what comes prepackaged and what doesn't.

2) I tried to filter and the filters cleared and showed me the old results again.

Good luck, I think it's a really great idea. I search for different packages like this all the time, and it's a PAIN.

reiz11• 14 years ago

I put zlib on my ToDo list. I just saw that the language filter is broken. Sorry for that. Tomorrow it will be fixed. Up to them. You can just add "lang=Python" to the URL, to make it work. I will write a RSpec for that.

I know that it is pain to search for packages on Google. Because there is just to much noise on Google.

Many Thanks for your Feedback. I will continue to improve it.

ThomPete• 14 years ago

VersionEye allows you to follow software libraries and talk shop with other developers.

This should be up there in the top, slightly re-formated to something like:

"Follow software libraries and discuss their progress with other developers"

Ditch the whole "it's like this and this for that"

Never lock yourself into other peoples definitions and never assume people know what yelp or twitter is (unless your product is an extension of those services)

reiz11• 14 years ago

Ok. That is helpful. I will refactor the landing page a little bit.

x3c• 14 years ago

Hey,

I'm getting application error. You must be making some changes.

BTW why are you linking https for the landing page? It'd work just as well on http.

reiz11• 14 years ago

I am sorry for that. I didn't changed anything on the page. I guess the reason for the error is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4180543 Amazon was down again.

It is not much slower with https, but the configuration is easier. GitHub is doing the same. By default https.

AlaisterL• 14 years ago

application error?

reiz11• 14 years ago

Sorry for that. I didn't change the app. But Amazon AWS was down again: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4180543 I am considering to move away from Amazon.

ojr• 14 years ago

incoporate twitter bootstrap or jquery ui, front end tools are getting better don't get left behindd

reiz11• 14 years ago

Yes. The twitter bootstrap framework looks pretty awesome. Right now I am using the blueprint css framework. But I think I will switch to bootstrap.

Ask HN: Please review my StartUp

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