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Paul Graham on Replit's Growth

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Re: Paul Graham on Replit's Growth

#21

Post by eseymour »

gonehome wrote: post #6
skybrian wrote: post #2

Anyone know what their 30-day users looks like? It seems like a lot of people created accounts to try it, and this is growing, but it doesn't tell us anything about churn.

That's what I'd be curious about too. I made an account to check it out, but didn't use it after that. I also suspect if people are linking to it in tutorials as a way to get an immediate environment there might be a lot of new signups that don't stick around. Is anyone on HN using this consistently day-to-day for something?

I used to use it in college to program at the library. I haven't used it in at least 5 years though. I believe it was also useful to learn a new language in an environment where I couldn't install software.

Re: Paul Graham on Replit's Growth

#22

Post by thoughtsimple »

It seems very focused on Python (not that there is anything wrong with that.) I tried to see if I could run a very basic Java Servlet application and there doesn't seem to be a way to make it work. Again, nothing wrong with that but it isn't as flexible as having a working local development environment.

Re: Paul Graham on Replit's Growth

#23

Post by arnvald »

aladdinw wrote: post #8

just another product that will be killed by a vscode plugin

Maybe not by a vscode plugin, but possibly by vscode itself.

One thing I've noticed about web IDEs I've used in the past, be it Nitrous, Cloud9 or others is that they start with the idea of web IDE and then they make it a good IDE.

VScode was first a good editor that everyone enjoys using and then it started moving to web. If at some point vscode becomes a fully integrated web IDE like repl.it or cloud9 I think it will sweep competition just because it has a massive number of desktop users

Re: Paul Graham on Replit's Growth

#25

Post by medium_burrito »

arnvald wrote: post #23
aladdinw wrote: post #8

just another product that will be killed by a vscode plugin

Maybe not by a vscode plugin, but possibly by vscode itself. One thing I've noticed about web IDEs I've used in the past, be it Nitrous, Cloud9 or others is that they start with the idea of web IDE and then they make it a good IDE. VScode was first a good editor that everyone enjoys using and then it started moving to web. If at some point vscode becomes a fully integrated web IDE like repl.it or cloud9 I think it wi…

That would be my worry. VSCode for all its faults works well and is lightweight. Make VSCode tightly integrate with github, where you never even have the code locally, and can build and test via the IDE nicely... amazing, never even have to setup the environment or pull the code down.

I am temped to apply for their SRE role, but I have a fairly cushy role as is, so probably not.

Re: Paul Graham on Replit's Growth

#26

Post by chiyc »

krisdol wrote: post #15

I tried to spin up a repl.it session for the first time yesterday, with the intent to hack on clojure solutions to Advent of Code 2020. After a while I just got pretty frustrated battling the editor's default/only formatting settings. Maybe I missed something, but they seem badly mismatched to how clojure code (and I'd say lisp generally) is normally formatted, it felt like writing clojure in a javascript editor.

I used repl.it when first learning Scheme years ago and remember it being okay. But after using emacs or Cursive, I couldn't imagine writing in a Lisp without being able to slurp/barf at the very least.

Re: Paul Graham on Replit's Growth

#27

Post by toyg »

One thing that always perplexed me about repl.it is the actual domain. .IT is (was?) supposed to be reserved to businesses and individuals based in Italy, but Repl.it is definitely not (all their job ads are for SF). Did TLD rules in Italy change, or are they dodging them with some fictitious shell company?

Re: Paul Graham on Replit's Growth

#28

Post by adventured »

toyg wrote: post #27

One thing that always perplexed me about repl.it is the actual domain. .IT is (was?) supposed to be reserved to businesses and individuals based in Italy, but Repl.it is definitely not (all their job ads are for SF). Did TLD rules in Italy change, or are they dodging them with some fictitious shell company?

There are numerous options to resolve that and stay fully within the rules, including having an agent represent you and purchase the domain. It is not reserved for businesses in Italy.

This is from their FAQ:

"The registration of a domain name in the ccTLD .it is permitted only to persons who have citizenship, residence or a registered office in the countries of the European Economic Area (EEA), the Vatican, the Republic of San Marino, and Switzerland."

Re: Paul Graham on Replit's Growth

#29

Post by toyg »

adventured wrote: post #28
toyg wrote: post #27

One thing that always perplexed me about repl.it is the actual domain. .IT is (was?) supposed to be reserved to businesses and individuals based in Italy, but Repl.it is definitely not (all their job ads are for SF). Did TLD rules in Italy change, or are they dodging them with some fictitious shell company?

There are numerous options to resolve that and stay fully within the rules, including having an agent represent you and purchase the domain. It is not reserved for businesses in Italy. This is from their FAQ: "The registration of a domain name in the ccTLD .it is permitted only to persons who have citizenship, residence or a registered office in the countries of the European Economic Area (EEA), the Vatican, the Repu…

So uhm, dodging it is. That wording is somewhat more lax than I remember, last I checked it required actual residence or VAT registration in the country. Then again, I guess it’s a bit more money for local companies...
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