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This post made me look through the pages of Goodnight Moon, and I noticed that on top of the bookshelf on the left side of the room is a book titled The Runaway Bunny. All of the other books on the shelf have scribbled lines on their covers.

Another somewhat interesting find is that on the nightstand next to the bed sits another book with a discernible title: Goodnight Moon.

Thanks. Played the hell out of JK2 when I was 12-13ish. Loved the old zone.com multi-player matchmaking. Sabers only, no force, of course. There was a site (cannot remember name) that JK2 players used as a ladder. I got up to around 10-15 ish at one point. The old clans[0] were an awesome experience. I remember thinking the guys in Atomic, Iron Knights, Digital Heroes, Eagles of Space were so cool. So nostalgic. This game introduced me to internet gaming culture, and probably played a big hand in setting me on a path to be using computers for a long time.

[0] http://www.jkdf2.net/JKBot/JKArchive/JKDF2/JKDF2/Multiplayer...

Ha, this post provided around 620 unique visitors yesterday. I had 1 visitor (who was probably me) the day before, so that's a nice bump from HN :)

It will be interesting to see how traffic dies/tails off in the coming days.

I simply highlight/mention it in a cover letter when I apply to a job.

To your point though, the 30-40% number is pure gut-feeling, I've certainly done no proper study to arrive at that. But there is definitely a marked increase in response rate.

Steal away, but the credit goes to https://github.com/AWEEKJ/Kiko-plus as I am just using his Jekyll theme.

Yes, this is it. It's very early-stages/preview-mode as I haven't quite nailed down the exact architecture I want for the client but it has helped a lot as far as job searching goes!

Even if you aren't using it to become attractive for recruiters, this will probably happen. I went from rarely (like, extremely) getting callbacks for remote gigs to getting around 30%-40% callbacks. The difference was that I started a blog about writing a web application with modern technologies and included it in my applications. It's a pretty bland blog, but just the fact that I wrote about stuff I'm interested in and has relevancy with the jobs I'm applying for has really paid off.

I definitely feel like an imposter, and I have no readers, but it definitely sharpens my abilities and has really forced me to really understand why I build something a certain way and to evaluate alternatives.

Do it.

kristopolous' console script is a godsend. But, sometimes I like to just search for keywords without filtering others out. Ctrl+f does the job but has issues such as losing my place after scrolling a bit, or not showing the searched terms anymore if I hit back after clicking a link, or not allowing for multiple keywords.

The following script simply highlights the word to make it a bit easier to find. Also works well when combined with kristopolous'. The output is the number of posts matching each input string.

  // usage:  highlight('react', 'node', 'graphql', '$')
  // output: [57, 29, 4, 19]
  function highlight(/* args */) {
    return Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments).map(function(keyword) {
      var matches = 0;
    
      Array.prototype.forEach.call(document.querySelectorAll('tr.athing.comtr div.comment'), function(e) {
        if (e.innerText.search(new RegExp(keyword === '$' ? '\\$' : keyword, 'i')) === -1) return;
        ++matches;
        e.innerHTML = e.innerHTML.replace(new RegExp(keyword === '$' ? '\\$' : keyword, 'ig'), '<span style="background-color:#0095ff;color:#fff;">' + keyword.toUpperCase() + '</span>')
      });
      return matches;
    })
  }

Thanks man, really appreciate your thoughts. I've put it on a Show HN before, but as it's tough to get off the New page, got discouraged and kinda gave up on getting it traction. :)

I'll do another ShowHN and the like, and make it clear I'm available for work on the readmes, etc.

Ha, cool. I am actually in the process of writing up a blogpost on building an SPA w/ React/Redux/Node/Postgres/GraphQL front-to-back in hopes of getting some traction. :)

The networking makes sense, I don't have a big one and not a lot of remote stuff within it. I'll have to begin to remedy that. Thanks for the advice.

Wow. This thread is blowing my mind. I'm a js fullstacker who is moving to Europe within two weeks and and I'm having trouble even getting replies to job postings when I offer a rate of $60/hr (I'm wondering now if that's too "cheap"?)! I feel like I'm missing something big on my resume, my approach, something (if curious, github is on my profile)...

How did you all find your jobs? My blindly applying online doesn't seem to be working out well.

Nope, it does not work for me anymore. So I was inspired by it and made another that does mostly the same. It also removes nonmatching posts and highlights matching terms.

https://github.com/joelgardner/hnfilter

hn_filter(['rem-ote'], ['re-act', 'javas-cript'], true) will remove posts that don't contain 'rem-ote' and one of 're-act'|'javas-cript' (remove the dashes obviously)

Yep, mine never made it to the front of ApplyHN either. It seemed like unless it got at least one or two immediate upvotes, it disappeared into the abyss, thus making it even less likely to get traffic.

Seconded. Additionally, I'd love to see a distribution of comments/upvotes by date of submission (such data I think could be gleaned from HN search). My eyeballs tell me posts submitted within the first 2 or 3 days of Apply HN got much more traffic/discussion. Certainly it is possible that those first posts warranted such discussion and subsequent posts did not. Or maybe I'm completely wrong in my observation, which is why I'd like to see such data.

Also, after ApplyHN became randomized (around midway thru the experiment) it seemed like discussion dramatically fell again, but it was definitely tough to tell since refreshing showed new applications every time.

Fun experiment though and I'm excited to see what types of projects the community picks.

Exactly. There was a time when I didn't want to do point-and-click at all because it is very limited, like you say. But, it might be the spark needed to get someone to try it initially.

Maybe a "Record Automation" button, that when clicked will record the user's actions and output a basic Flytrap script that enters values / clicks page items.

From there, they can manually edit the generated script to perform more elaborate automations.

It may get the user to dip their toes in the water without the commitment of having to learn a language just to test a product out.

Really appreciate your thoughts.

Point-and-click is definitely THE next technical milestone. And I think it's essential, because right now I have a bit of a conflicting message to QA analysts: stop fumbling with writing automation scripts and come into my environment and ... write automation scripts!

I think such a feature would go a long way in eliminating that initial "so I have to write the automation?" hurdle, and I agree it provides a clearer and shorter path to extracting value from the product.

I appreciate the feedback!

Thank you! By standing up, I simply mean getting to a place where your team is taking full advantage of web automation scripting. "Implementing" is probably the better word there.

And right now, "implementing" web UI automation usually means downloading and installing Selenium drivers and their language bindings... and writing Selenium scripts in a major programming language (C#/Java/Ruby/JS etc). Then coordinating teammates' machines... then sharing tests with each other, so we'll create a git repo... ARGH I'm a QA analyst, not a developer!

But that is the crux of the issue: QA people usually do not have the necessary programming/technical experience to get that to a place where the rest of the team can use it AND not have it result in a heaping mess of abandoned scripts a year later.

However, show any QA person an automation of a tedious workflow of theirs and their eyes light up as they think of the time that can be saved.

Flytrap aims to make the automation barrier-to-entry insignificant by providing simple commands that map directly to things people can do on a website. Click this, set this value. But it's also extremely powerful and can perform very elaborate workflows by utilizing a few simple programming constructs (loops, variables, etc).

Right now, Flytrap only works in DOM environments, so "just" the browser. But that's not to say that it couldn't be extended for mobile apps (and it actually works like a charm for a mobile web app!). As long as the "things" in a UI can be referenced via text, then theoretically, Flytrap would work in any environment!

I'm focusing on web for now though because that seems to be where most shops struggle with automation and it seems to be where a JS library and have the biggest impact.

I really appreciate the comment and would love to expand on any other questions.

Definitely agree on the "tests in the repo" critique. That is a tough one, and a kink I've experienced as well. Some ideas I've had are webhooks to pull tests from a repo, but that's pretty janky and I'm not sure many devs/CTOs would be OK with that.

The extension actually has a crude way of uploading tests into your TestBeacon account, but that behavior is disabled/hidden for now since it is not quite production ready. This is convenient but doesn't strike at the heart of the repo issue.

I can definitely understand your general sentiment. The workflow is clunky right now, and making it not-so-clunky will be key for getting developers onboard.

I've thought about webscraping, but I feel a solution using these tools wouldn't stack up well with things like Mozenda. But I've done no research around that, so I'm running blind there. Maybe some simple machinery that goes to a URL, runs a Flytrap script, and then executes some sort of text extraction based on user's prefs.

Thank you again for your awesome feedback.

Hey HN, I built TestBeacon, a platform for writing web UI automations (think Selenium/iMacros) without ever leaving the browser. No native drivers or extensions to install (although we do have an extension for quick writing/testing of scripts! https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/testbeacon/ibonccc...). I wanted to be able to easily access and share automations so each one has a unique URL and can be ran at the click of a button.

TestBeacon can also run your tests in the background (via PhantomJS) and notify you of the results via email, with screenshots, console logs, etc. We run them on your schedule on a weekly basis.

TestBeacon runs on top of Flytrap.js (http://docs.flytrap.io), the programming language used to build and drive automations. It’s just a javascript library and interprets and runs scripts written in Flytrap. Just embed a single JS file into your web app, and you’ll be able to automate the mindless clicking around during feature development. The automation can then double as a safety-net for testing & QA, and used to spot-check problematic areas post-deployment.

Let me know what you think!

An attempt at clickable links:

https://testbeacon.com

https://app.testbeacon.com

http://docs.flytrap.io

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/testbeacon/ibonccc...

Yep, a good idea and I'm currently looking at ad rates for the product. Just initial users who can give me some product feedback is my main goal for now. Thanks!

Thanks! That's exactly what I'm shooting for. It is meant to be a substitute for Selenium while making it easier to create and share them! I appreciate the reply and would love to hear your coworkers's feedback, good or bad!

Just one: me. I've been in stealth mode and I basically "finished" building the website within the last week and have done no advertising (in fact this is the first time I've talked about it online). That leads to the obvious question of how to acquire more customers for a Saas product (which ties to my accelerator question). I'm hoping to gain some insight on the product's broad viability from this post and maybe a ShowHN. People who I talk to in person love the idea and are enthusiastic but none are really in a position to buy it. Thanks for the reply!

Hi Michael and Aaron,

I built Supertask (http://supertask.co/) to make web automation easier and more accessible. Supertask allows users to write shareable, composable automations that make testing webapps and repeating complicated workflows a breeze.

Automation scripts are written in a new intuitive language called Flytrap, and are interpreted by a library called Flytrap.js (https://docs.flytrap.io/). Each automation has its own secure url and can be referenced by other scripts, allowing for code re-use.

I'm curious as to your initial thoughts on the product and whether or not my pricing model aligns with what you might expect. Pricing is hard!

Additionally, at this point I wonder about the opportunity cost of putting effort into applying to/going through an accelerator (assuming I could even get into one) since the product is basically built, and the most important thing is gaining initial traction. I lean towards plowing ahead with trying to gain customers. But obviously, it's a daunting road especially as a solo founder with a 9-5.

I am in beta so no one is actually being charged right now.

Thanks for checking it out!

[email protected] @supertaskco

Would you mind if I emailed you a few questions about some of the things you've outlined? I'm working on something that could help with some of the issues you mention (it's not a competitor w/ this product). Feel free to shoot me a line at [email protected].