Smipple - Social Code Snippets

[Ian Lewis]

Hi all,

I just wanted to let everyone know about a site I created for sharing code snippets in a social way. You can check it out at http://www.smipple.net/. Smipple allows you to save, organize, and share snippets with others easily. The best part though is that you can follow other people who have interesting snippets and see the snippets that users you are following in one place. You can also favorite any snippet that you find interesting so you can retrieve it easily later.

Smipple is implemented using Google Appengine, Django, and appengine-patch but that shouldn't stop anyone from contributing any kind of snippets that they want. We'd love it if Ruby, PHP, Java, JavaScript or Perl developers would use the site as well! What kind of social sharing site would it be if there were only certain types of developers using it after all!

Happy Coding,

Ian

[Amr Ellafi]

nice website !

[Nick Johnson (Google)]

Very nice! A few suggestions, if I may:

- It could use a tag cloud page.
- In FF2, the snippet page info box overlaps the code box on some
pages. I think this is due to unavoidable wrapping issues with <pre>
tags. Example: http://www.smipple.net/snippet/tmatsuo/LanguageChoiceFIeld%20for%20Kay
- The info box could use more emphasis on the difference between
headers and information. I quite like rietveld's approach, here.
- Versioning and the ability to fork someone else's snippet (and track
who's forked it) would really make my day, and cause me to switch from
using gist.github.com.
- The ability to add my own tags to other peoples' snippets, or
otherwise mark collections in a way that I can link someone to a
collection I've made would be great.
- Are you considering releasing the source code?


-Nick Johnson

--
Nick Johnson, App Engine Developer Programs Engineer
Google Ireland Ltd. :: Registered in Dublin, Ireland, Registration
Number: 368047

[Ian Lewis]

Nick,

Thanks for the suggestions. I really appreciate that you spent the time to write them out. I could track them better if you left them as feedback though. That's what the link is there for !!

Putting that aside I'll try to address your thoughts below:

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 11:59 PM, Nick Johnson (Google) <nick.j...@google.com> wrote:

Very nice! A few suggestions, if I may:

Thanks! You most certainly may.
 

- It could use a tag cloud page.

Couldn't we all. I have a tag cloud on each user's profile (the look of which undoubtably could be improved). What kind of cloud are you looking for?
 

- In FF2, the snippet page info box overlaps the code box on some
pages. I think this is due to unavoidable wrapping issues with <pre>
tags. Example: http://www.smipple.net/snippet/tmatsuo/LanguageChoiceFIeld%20for%20Kay

This will be the cause of many lost hairs. I'll do my best to fix the design or get the designer to fix them.
 

- The info box could use more emphasis on the difference between
headers and information. I quite like rietveld's approach, here.

By info box do you mean the yellowish box on the right side of user/snippet detail pages?
 

- Versioning and the ability to fork someone else's snippet (and track
who's forked it) would really make my day, and cause me to switch from
using gist.github.com.

There is already a piece of feedback about this.

http://smipple.uservoice.com/pages/21705-general/suggestions/239779-revision-history

Feel free to vote on it and add some comments. I don't think it specifically mentions forking.
 

- The ability to add my own tags to other peoples' snippets, or
otherwise mark collections in a way that I can link someone to a
collection I've made would be great.

Interesting. I'll consider it.
 

- Are you considering releasing the source code?

Yes. Probably in the next month or so. It's currently maintained on bitbucket.
 

-Nick Johnson

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 7:37 AM, Ian Lewis<ianm...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I just wanted to let everyone know about a site I created for sharing code
> snippets in a social way. You can check it out at http://www.smipple.net/.
> Smipple allows you to save, organize, and share snippets with others easily.
> The best part though is that you can follow other people who have
> interesting snippets and see the snippets that users you are following in
> one place. You can also favorite any snippet that you find interesting so
> you can retrieve it easily later.
>
> Smipple is implemented using Google Appengine, Django, and appengine-patch
> but that shouldn't stop anyone from contributing any kind of snippets that
> they want. We'd love it if Ruby, PHP, Java, JavaScript or Perl developers
> would use the site as well! What kind of social sharing site would it be if
> there were only certain types of developers using it after all!
>
> Happy Coding,
>
> Ian
>
> >
>

--
Nick Johnson, App Engine Developer Programs Engineer
Google Ireland Ltd. :: Registered in Dublin, Ireland, Registration
Number: 368047

--
=======================================
株式会社ビープラウド  イアン・ルイス
〒150-0012
東京都渋谷区広尾1-11-2アイオス広尾ビル604
email: ianm...@beproud.jp
TEL：03-5795-2707
FAX：03-5795-2708
http://www.beproud.jp/
=======================================

[Nick Johnson (Google)]

2009/6/29 Ian Lewis <ianm...@gmail.com>:

> Nick,
>
> Thanks for the suggestions. I really appreciate that you spent the time to
> write them out. I could track them better if you left them as feedback
> though. That's what the link is there for !!

Good point. :)

>
> Putting that aside I'll try to address your thoughts below:
>
> On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 11:59 PM, Nick Johnson (Google)
> <nick.j...@google.com> wrote:
>>
>> Very nice! A few suggestions, if I may:
>
> Thanks! You most certainly may.
>
>>
>> - It could use a tag cloud page.
>
> Couldn't we all. I have a tag cloud on each user's profile (the look of
> which undoubtably could be improved). What kind of cloud are you looking
> for?

A site-wide one is what I was thinking of, though to be honest they're
more for entertainment than to be helpful. If you haven't already,
though, tag suggestions when submitting a new snippet are essential
for reducing the number of variations of a single tag exist. See how
stackoverflow does it, for example.

>
>>
>> - In FF2, the snippet page info box overlaps the code box on some
>> pages. I think this is due to unavoidable wrapping issues with <pre>
>> tags. Example:
>> http://www.smipple.net/snippet/tmatsuo/LanguageChoiceFIeld%20for%20Kay
>
> This will be the cause of many lost hairs. I'll do my best to fix the design
> or get the designer to fix them.

As far as I know, no modern browsers handle this very well. Putting it
to the left may be the better option.

>
>>
>> - The info box could use more emphasis on the difference between
>> headers and information. I quite like rietveld's approach, here.
>
> By info box do you mean the yellowish box on the right side of user/snippet
> detail pages?

Yup.

>
>>
>> - Versioning and the ability to fork someone else's snippet (and track
>> who's forked it) would really make my day, and cause me to switch from
>> using gist.github.com.
>
> There is already a piece of feedback about this.
>
> http://smipple.uservoice.com/pages/21705-general/suggestions/239779-revision-history
>
> Feel free to vote on it and add some comments. I don't think it specifically
> mentions forking.
>
>>
>> - The ability to add my own tags to other peoples' snippets, or
>> otherwise mark collections in a way that I can link someone to a
>> collection I've made would be great.
>
> Interesting. I'll consider it.

My use-case here is a desire to accumulate a collection of useful
datastore property classes I can link people to, even if I didn't
write them all myself.

[Ian Lewis]

2009/6/30 Nick Johnson (Google) <nick.j...@google.com>

2009/6/29 Ian Lewis <ianm...@gmail.com>:

> Nick,
>
> Thanks for the suggestions. I really appreciate that you spent the time to
> write them out. I could track them better if you left them as feedback
> though. That's what the link is there for !!

Good point. :)

>> - It could use a tag cloud page.
>
> Couldn't we all. I have a tag cloud on each user's profile (the look of
> which undoubtably could be improved). What kind of cloud are you looking
> for?

A site-wide one is what I was thinking of, though to be honest they're
more for entertainment than to be helpful. If you haven't already,
though, tag suggestions when submitting a new snippet are essential
for reducing the number of variations of a single tag exist. See how
stackoverflow does it, for example.

Will do.
 

>> - In FF2, the snippet page info box overlaps the code box on some

>> pages. I think this is due to unavoidable wrapping issues with <pre>
>> tags. Example:
>> http://www.smipple.net/snippet/tmatsuo/LanguageChoiceFIeld%20for%20Kay
>
> This will be the cause of many lost hairs. I'll do my best to fix the design
> or get the designer to fix them.

As far as I know, no modern browsers handle this very well. Putting it
to the left may be the better option.

I'll figure something out.
 

>> - The info box could use more emphasis on the difference between

>> headers and information. I quite like rietveld's approach, here.
>
> By info box do you mean the yellowish box on the right side of user/snippet
> detail pages?

Yup.

By how rietveld's approach do you mean putting it at the top like here?
http://codereview.appspot.com/87067/patch/1/4

or on the left like here?:
http://codereview.appspot.com/87067/show
 

>> - Versioning and the ability to fork someone else's snippet (and track
>> who's forked it) would really make my day, and cause me to switch from
>> using gist.github.com.
>
> There is already a piece of feedback about this.
>
> http://smipple.uservoice.com/pages/21705-general/suggestions/239779-revision-history
>
> Feel free to vote on it and add some comments. I don't think it specifically
> mentions forking.
>
>>
>> - The ability to add my own tags to other peoples' snippets, or
>> otherwise mark collections in a way that I can link someone to a
>> collection I've made would be great.
>
> Interesting. I'll consider it.

My use-case here is a desire to accumulate a collection of useful
datastore property classes I can link people to, even if I didn't
write them all myself.

Something like a user tag feature would be interesting. It would kind of make favorites obsolete as favorites are only a kind of user tag.

[Nick Johnson (Google)]

The latter - I was using it as an example of how it visually
distinguishes the heading from the text.

>
>>
>> >> - Versioning and the ability to fork someone else's snippet (and track
>> >> who's forked it) would really make my day, and cause me to switch from
>> >> using gist.github.com.
>> >
>> > There is already a piece of feedback about this.
>> >
>> >
>> > http://smipple.uservoice.com/pages/21705-general/suggestions/239779-revision-history
>> >
>> > Feel free to vote on it and add some comments. I don't think it
>> > specifically
>> > mentions forking.
>> >
>> >>
>> >> - The ability to add my own tags to other peoples' snippets, or
>> >> otherwise mark collections in a way that I can link someone to a
>> >> collection I've made would be great.
>> >
>> > Interesting. I'll consider it.
>>
>> My use-case here is a desire to accumulate a collection of useful
>> datastore property classes I can link people to, even if I didn't
>> write them all myself.
>
> Something like a user tag feature would be interesting. It would kind of
> make favorites obsolete as favorites are only a kind of user tag.
>
> >
>