TwilioQuest – A RPG game to help learn JavaScript | Hacker News Reader

TwilioQuest – A RPG game to help learn JavaScript

twilio.com

56 pointssaranshk20 comments

TwilioQuest isn't about learning JavaScript; it's about learning Twilio.

https://www.twilio.com/blog/2017/10/twilioquest-fastest-way-...

I think this sort of thing is the outcome of “engineer stockpiling” where companies insatiably hire engineers beyond what they need.

The company becomes a “a collector of fine engineers” like a gallery or museum or stable. And since such engineers get bored working on logging systems or whatever they do something more fun.

TwilioQuest was built by the developer evangelism team (which is in the marketing org), not by regular development teams (who probably helped a little here and there, of course). Our development teams are more than 100% busy on product work, don't worry.

(Source: I've worked there for nearly 9 years.)

Hi!

Please add google authenticator as 2fa. SMS is horribly broken as 2fa.

The keyword you're looking for is TOTP/one-time token.

Google Authenticator itself is basically the worst thing your users could be using since it has no key export and users are going to lose/buy new phones. Least replace it with Authy if you're going to bring this up any time a Twilio employee rears their head.

Google Authenticator needs to die, not be conflated with one-time token 2fa.

One last thing, since it seems to be a mission for you. 2fa, especially via unbackupable one-time tokens (Google Authenticator) may introduce more security vulns. It's not free. And not something a company should probably implement if they didn't give it any thought until an HN comment got them to make a ticket for it.

Someone has gotten into both my bank account (BOA) and my Amazon with the ol "lol lost my phone with 2fa enabled" customer support channel and customer support just went "ah no prob, here you go."

> Google Authenticator ... has no key export and users are going to ... buy new phones

Actually, it does (finally!). Not as great as Authy, though.

Is it live? I tried it on my old iPhone and I didn’t see how in the interface. I think that feature is Android only for now.[1]

What you can do is save the QR code or equivalent data at time of two-factor creation and then re-add it to any device at any time.

[1] https://security.googleblog.com/2020/05/introducing-portabil...

It was just recently released for Android. The iPhone app hasn't been updated in over a year.

And Google could deprecate their authenticator app at any time. Authy is much more likely to stick around.

They are also built especially for developers and this lets more developers know more about their platform. I'm guessing this goes a long way to improving relationships in the community and just good PR for twilio as well.

Twilio was one of the first places that I used starter code added my credentials and ran it without any bugs, And actually they embedded the test credentials in the starter code for me so that was even easier.

I think such “stockpiling” will first create mediocre reimplementations of DBs & web frameworks before fixing all issues by sticking a redis up front. I don’t think Twillio is that kind.

In this case though, this looks like a genuine external facing effort

That sounds fantastic. We should all be so lucky to get paid to do something interesting and creative instead of updating the CRM fields or whatever.

This implies that marketing isn’t a “need,” which couldn’t be farther from the truth — great product is easier and easier to build so great marketing becomes more valuable and more essential every year. Most SaaS startups succeed or fail on the back of their marketing org. Engineering can generally build what’s asked of them.

It may be fun for the company's engineers but it's also incredibly effective developer envagelism / marketing for a company like Twilio that targets a developer audience. Microsoft has always done a good job of this on their developer side, which is pretty impressive based on their size and long life.

Who the hell wants to play a 2d rpg to figure out a product’s docs?

What a silly world we live in.

FYI there are 12y kids out there wanting to implement some rad sms feature for his classmates. Twilio quest is Fun and well made and inviting.

If you want the proper do c, you can search for that also.

You know that Twilio also has... documentation... right?

It is the infantilization of the population. Same way you see now guys in their 20s-30s whose main cultural references are the Harry Potter books and the Star Wars movies.

Think of this as a marketing expense rather than just bored engineers doing something random. Whether it’s effective marketing can be debated, but it’s still marketing.

Why don’t you guys work with local schools or colleges or bootcamps and send this to them?

I think that would be great.

Me personally, I’m too old for this kind of presentation.

Great for K-12 kids though.

Small lesson for those seeking lessons - Always know your audience.

My patronizing response to your patronizing conduit.

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