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Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

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Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#211

Post by wood_spirit »

bwb wrote: post #37
skizm wrote: post #30

I always wonder, how do sites like this get their list of books and book metadata? Do publishers have an API? What about Amazon?

It is so bad!!! I use Nielsen's API, but the data is pretty rough, and you have to spend a lot of time cleaning it. Plus, the archaic industry standards around genre are hard to translate to what readers use - https://www.bisg.org/complete-bisac-subject-headings-list . Ingrams and Bowker are the other big metadata providers. Ingram's is good but expensive, but the data faces the same issues.

Do any of the sites use collaborative filtering for “uses who like x also like y” for a nice filter bubble?

I imagine it complements or my even supersede tags.

(Admit I haven’t looked at all the sites people are mentioning in the comments yet- lots of good leads!)

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#212

Post by jahnu »

alternatex wrote: post #126
jahnu wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon don’t even properly maintain their Prime Video app for TVs. It’s so bad on my good LG TV that I gave up waiting three seconds for button presses to register while trying to start watching their billion dollar show they kept urging me to watch.

Wait till you try HBO's Max app. I used to plan my watches half an hour ahead. LG TVs do have quite the shoddy hardware though. Every penny goes to the panel.

Netflix and Apple seem to have no problem making a good client. We won’t have HBO here until 2026. The Austrian national broadcaster have a decent if not brilliant player.

Even the built in dnla player works great.

Amazon are ridiculous and should be ashamed of such crappy software.

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#213

Post by phildenhoff »

phildenhoff wrote: post #147

StoryGraph is an excellent tool and I continue to use it daily. I’ve also found Hardcover.app, which I quite like. It has an API and a slightly more refined UI, but it’s clearly more than one person working on it. Of course, if your focus is book clubs, Fable is likely the app for you

Solidifying my dislike of Goodreads, I got my “year in books” email from them today and the first thing that loaded, at the top of the email, is an ad. For pillow cases.

Folks, don’t do that

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#214

Post by phildenhoff »

northrup wrote: post #206
ryangs wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excited to hear about Hardcover! I like StoryGraph but the lack of API frustrates me - I want to be able to sync back to my general notes store (Obsidian). Hopefully Hardcover works better with that.

Which is funny, StoryGraph is a Ruby on Rails app, exposing an API is a doable thing, which leads me to believe it is not a priority or a purposeful design decision.

Yeah Hardcover seems to have a GraphQL API they use for their UI, which they expose. There’s not a lot of extra polish for third party devs — it feels like “this is the API we use, use it or not, things may break”. On the other hand, StoryGraph does server-side rendering and so it doesn’t have an API already. So adding one would be a decent amount of work

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#215

Post by devjab »

wink wrote: post #124
devjab wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood commenting out code when you have version control. I get why people do it, I’ve done it myself and then two days later been confused which of the 3 commented out function was actually the most recent. It’s infinitely more clear from the version control since the history is there for you to zoom through.

You would find it if you knew it was there. I only leave it commented out because it has a reason (they all say that, right?). I suppose the best way would be to provide a meaningful comment "This is the place where 15 lines of coded finally found their resting place, deleted after the bug they solved was eliminated elsewhere". But in reality, I've never seen a single of the "we could find it it in git" ever actually…

Well yes, but you’re not leaving commented out code for anyone other than you. A “sane” git structure will automatically decline your pull request if it contains commented out code.

I say “sane” because I know a lot of places probably allow you to do it. You really don’t want to pollute a code base like that though.

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#216

Post by devjab »

swiftcoder wrote: post #165
devjab wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood commenting out code when you have version control. I get why people do it, I’ve done it myself and then two days later been confused which of the 3 commented out function was actually the most recent. It’s infinitely more clear from the version control since the history is there for you to zoom through.

> It’s infinitely more clear from the version control since the history is there for you to zoom through Only if you already know it is there. There is like... zero history discoverability built in the git. and git's historical search story is pretty bad too.

Well, who other than you would need to know about your commented out code? I’m not suggesting you keep the commented out code as part of your git history, that would never be allowed through a pull request. The changes will be there in the history though, I doubt you’ll need to go back for them, but you could.

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#217

Post by burkaman »

northrup wrote: post #206
ryangs wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excited to hear about Hardcover! I like StoryGraph but the lack of API frustrates me - I want to be able to sync back to my general notes store (Obsidian). Hopefully Hardcover works better with that.

Which is funny, StoryGraph is a Ruby on Rails app, exposing an API is a doable thing, which leads me to believe it is not a priority or a purposeful design decision.

It is on the long-term roadmap https://roadmap.thestorygraph.com/features/posts/an-api

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#219

Post by graypegg »

schneems wrote: post #26

Nadia is an amazing speaker. Look up her other talks. You won’t regret it. She blends technical info with an interesting story/mystery in a very thoughtful and well delivered package. Here’s a recent one https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pOW4vepSX8g&pp=ygUOTmFkaWEgT2R...

Her skills with story telling really show there, that was really engaging but stayed technical and information dense! Thanks so much for the link!

Re: Getting to 2M users as a one woman dev team [video]

#220

Post by jamiek88 »

compootr wrote: post #122
bwb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is so bad!!! I use Nielsen's API, but the data is pretty rough, and you have to spend a lot of time cleaning it. Plus, the archaic industry standards around genre are hard to translate to what readers use - https://www.bisg.org/complete-bisac-subject-headings-list . Ingrams and Bowker are the other big metadata providers. Ingram's is good but expensive, but the data faces the same issues.

I forgot if Anna's archive contains metadata but that'd be my free-ish solution

I thought Anna’s was dead?
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