Show HN: Reddit clone built in no-code in two weeks • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Reddit clone built in no-code in two weeks

#71

Post by ramblerman » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:05 PM UTC

_omnf wrote: post #43

I love no code! Wait. Wait. Hear me out... Building software is easy. Changing people's minds is damned near impossible. As an engineer: - I'm constantly handed shitty (or a complete lack thereof) requirements from non-technical people. No code lets people figure out that they haven't thought something out nearly as much as they think they have. I no longer am the bearer of bad news. - I constantly see business peopl…

Great point! It's scary how little thought people give to this.

My all time favourite was when I made a news portal for a trader who wanted to create a hub around the commodity he was trading.

It was mostly customized drupal with a few tweaks he desired, and roles for writing/reviewing/members.

Come demo time he was upset there were no news articles in his "news portal". At first I thought he wanted more lorem ipsum content to see what it would look like. But no, he really expected that I would also have written the initial news articles for his website.

Re: Show HN: Reddit clone built in no-code in two weeks

#72

Post by Shiku » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

doodlebugging wrote: post #70

Nice! Pretty easy to compose a new post. Video, photos, text links just like Reddit. It was a bit slow but getting things loaded but choosing to log in as a test user I was able to load things to desktop and post a great video. Kinda took me back a few years. Very nostalgic. I like it. Reddit is like your sink drain sometimes, clogged with all the hairy goo that no one wants to see or deal with. This feels like a new…

Thank you! I appreciate the positive feedback :)

Re: Show HN: Reddit clone built in no-code in two weeks

#73

Post by Shiku » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

tbran wrote: post #53

Shiku wrote: post #40

Hey HN: Thanks for everyone who has tried to visit the site. The surge in traffic was unexpected, and I realize that it slowed down the load time, so I've added a 'boost' to the site. Besides that, I should also clarify that this site was built to be 'web first'. It currently does not work on mobile (I didn't design it to work on mobile since I was only working on it for 2 weeks). Hope the site loads better now. Will…

Very cool that you built this in such a short time! It makes me wonder if there will be a new segment of programmers that specialize in superfast no-code app creation.

I really hope so.

Also, I think there are a lot of opportunities for coders/programmer to to improve the space and come up with ways to support non-technical folks like myself.

I think those folks will do pretty well.

Re: Show HN: Reddit clone built in no-code in two weeks

#74

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:10 PM UTC

codegeek wrote: post #63

devortel wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on the list of problems with no-code? Of course I'm not denying there are problems with no-code, I'd like to learn about other developers' issues, particularly with larger, longer-term projects.

Ultimately no code will require "code" for a real robust production app.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Reddit clone built in no-code in two weeks

#75

Post by kibwen » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:13 PM UTC

throw_m239339 wrote: post #24

capableweb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, it seems this clone does a great job of cloning the performance of reddit, at least when I tried it (bunch of unnecessary requests that takes multiple seconds each, sometimes just returning errors)

Just use old reddit. It's fast. On mobile https://www.reddit.com/.compact (with a dot before compact) still works.

On mobile web, you can also select an option from the hamburger menu to tell it to give you the desktop interface (which persists until you clear your cookies), and in your user settings you can set your default desktop interface as old reddit. Call me crazy for using the desktop site on mobile, but I find it far more usable to pinch and zoom than to navigate the redesign.

Re: Show HN: Reddit clone built in no-code in two weeks

#76

Post by Shiku » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

the-dude wrote: post #2

Slow as hell, to the point it does not load. Isn't this the typical application you don't want to run as nocode? High loads, viral growth.

It was working rather well until the traffic surge from HN. Added a capacity boost to the site so it loads now, but you're right it's rather slow. So you may have a point.

As far as an experiment though, it's good to know what the current limitations of no-code are. This was never meant to be anything serious. Just a learning opportunity.

Re: Show HN: Reddit clone built in no-code in two weeks

#77

Post by skywal_l » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:19 PM UTC

tbran wrote: post #53

Shiku wrote: post #40

Hey HN: Thanks for everyone who has tried to visit the site. The surge in traffic was unexpected, and I realize that it slowed down the load time, so I've added a 'boost' to the site. Besides that, I should also clarify that this site was built to be 'web first'. It currently does not work on mobile (I didn't design it to work on mobile since I was only working on it for 2 weeks). Hope the site loads better now. Will…

Very cool that you built this in such a short time! It makes me wonder if there will be a new segment of programmers that specialize in superfast no-code app creation.

Would they be programmers? Shouldn't we call them no-programmers?

Re: Show HN: Reddit clone built in no-code in two weeks

#78

Post by blacktriangle » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

codegeek wrote: post #63

devortel wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on the list of problems with no-code? Of course I'm not denying there are problems with no-code, I'd like to learn about other developers' issues, particularly with larger, longer-term projects.

Ultimately no code will require "code" for a real robust production app.

And at that point all of that no-code turns from an accelerator into a giant pile of legacy crap outside of your control which will cause you to hit a wall of ability to evolve the software far sooner than later.

Re: Show HN: Reddit clone built in no-code in two weeks

#79

Post by Graffur » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

Reddit is not exactly a hard to build site. Any experienced React developer could do this in less than 2 weeks.

I'm not sure how to draw comparisons between the two.

Re: Show HN: Reddit clone built in no-code in two weeks

#80

Post by TekMol » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

Timeout.

I think this shows one problem of no-code. The underlying code and data structures are probably horribly bad.

Every $5/month box should handle HN traffic easily for a reddit style application.

With the right indexes on the DB tables, an out of the box Debian LAMP stack is insanely fast for this type of use case.