I wandered off and built an IDE • Hacker News Board

Re: I wandered off and built an IDE

#71

Post by escanda » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:19 PM UTC

anakic wrote: post #63

escanda wrote: post #19

I read the post and it's amazing you took the hard path. In regard to the product, first of all kudos, and second of all; you may want your users to be able to run analytical workflows. In which case embedding Firebird instead of SQLite might be cool. Just something I thought while reading the docs.

I've never used Firebird db so far. I have no idea how it differs. I will check it out, and possibly include it. QueryStorm already supports 6-7 different types of databases so one more won't be too difficult to add. Thanks for the tip!

Is it possible to run Window queries on SQLite? I think it's not! Firebird implements quite a few of these statements.

I integrated most commercial db vendors and we even ran queries on imported data in a HSQLDB database. Firebird is just way ahead of HSQLDB, and HSQLDB is similar to SQLite feature-wise.

I don't mean it would be cool to be able to export to Firebird. I mean that you might want to use Firebird as your underlying engine :)

Re: I wandered off and built an IDE

#72

Post by foobarchu » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:19 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #5

anakic wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I do get that comment every now and then. It was originally called ThingieQuery, but then I got people saying that they liked it but couldn't ask a manager to buy something called ThingieQuery. I didn't consciously steal the JetBrains naming, but the first time someone pointed it out my reaction was d'oh...

What about "ExcQL" ?

Oof. Just imagine trying to telling someone about it. "It's pronounced this way but you spell it this way" rarely ends up well, and often ends up un-searchable.

Re: I wandered off and built an IDE

#73

Post by billconan » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:19 PM UTC

I also had to help my ex-girlfriend (preschool director) make google drive scripts to generate tables. I found small businesses have great need for this type of things. I explored this as a startup idea.

Re: I wandered off and built an IDE

#74

Post by levimaes » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

thisisandyok wrote: post #55

the-dude wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See the Dropbox HN argument. Polish.

Infamous Dropbox comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Holy hell, that's Drew Houston!

Re: I wandered off and built an IDE

#75

Post by foobarchu » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:24 PM UTC

anakic wrote: post #58

kelvin0 wrote: post #33

I really like this guy's tenacity and clever use of excel. But from my experience you can use excel files as an ODBC database source (Windows). https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15844633/using-excel-as-... Once you create your ODBC source from the excel files, you can run queries and use the language of your choice (Python,C# ....). I am pretty sure you can also insert/update rows and columns too. Wondering how thi…

Primarily, it's a lot more convenient. There's no setup involved, you just click and and the data is available through SQL or C#. There's no need to clean the data around the tables, it works on live data (file does not need to be saved), no connection strings to set up or boilerplate code to write. There's more, e.g. the SQLite engine can interact with Excel and fiddle with formatting, but I think the major thing is…

Are you ever worried about Microsoft a feature that acts similar in a future version of Excel? It's a problem that has bit others before (Firebug, Growl, tabbed-browsing extensions for IE).

Re: I wandered off and built an IDE

#76

Post by Cthulhu_ » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

xyproto wrote: post #17

@anakic That was an enjoyable read! I have also tried qutting my job as a developer, tried making money by working for myself (and focusing on developing features instead of actually making money, same as you), then returning to a "proper job" as an engineer. There were many recognizable moments in the blog post. I once took a course in entrepreneurship, as a distraction from computer science, and the bottom line is…

There's been a few startups that forked off from my employer, but none of them started off as "here's a bag of money, go and make something" - they always started from one of our customers having a need, and being willing to invest and be a pilot / first user.

Ten years later, that first startup scored a 100M funding round.

Re: I wandered off and built an IDE

#77

Post by anakic » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:27 PM UTC

xyproto wrote: post #61

dhimes wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, as a developer, it's soul-wrenching and just feels wrong to try to sell something before something proper has even been made. This has been my biggest struggle.

Yeah, I think most developers struggle with this one. I have a friend that is like he's born for being in sales. He loves money and have almost no moral qualms when it comes to selling (but paradoxically have a heart of gold when it comes to charity and being nice to people). Some people actually enjoy making lofty promises for money. I guess that's part of why being in a team is a good idea.

This. Absolutely agree with both points. Going it alone is hard, and developers have issues with self promotion. Sales seems like dirty word to us. The thing is, when I'm the customer, I don't mind being sold to. As long as it's not a flat out lie, I actually find I appreciate the stuff I buy more if the sales person made me feel good about it.

Re: I wandered off and built an IDE

#78

Post by ratsimihah » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:27 PM UTC

I like your humour, I like the joke about the mansion, I like how you casually assume that choosing the project over Anna was obvious as you move on. Nice article!

You should do an interview with IndieHackers!

Re: I wandered off and built an IDE

#79

Post by fiatjaf » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:32 PM UTC

billconan wrote: post #73

I also had to help my ex-girlfriend (preschool director) make google drive scripts to generate tables. I found small businesses have great need for this type of things. I explored this as a startup idea.

And was it successful?

Re: I wandered off and built an IDE

#80

Post by anakic » Fri, Apr 06, 2018, 1:32 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #76

xyproto wrote: post #17

@anakic That was an enjoyable read! I have also tried qutting my job as a developer, tried making money by working for myself (and focusing on developing features instead of actually making money, same as you), then returning to a "proper job" as an engineer. There were many recognizable moments in the blog post. I once took a course in entrepreneurship, as a distraction from computer science, and the bottom line is…

There's been a few startups that forked off from my employer, but none of them started off as "here's a bag of money, go and make something" - they always started from one of our customers having a need, and being willing to invest and be a pilot / first user. Ten years later, that first startup scored a 100M funding round.

Yeah, it's quite difficult to sell and quite easy to start wondering if what you're doing is valuable to anyone. If the need and the willingness to pay are already there, that's a perfect opportunity. Good on them!