Hacker News Reader

Comment by StevePerkins | Hacker News Reader

Given that the site is now slashdotted, can anyone please mention what it even is?

It's a Javascript version of artist mode in emacs - you can draw diagrams using ascii-art like you would in a vector design program.

I wish it was javascript!

It's a Google App Engine-based Java monster:

https://github.com/lewish/asciiflow

Ergo it being an app that now only displays:

  Over Quota  
  This application is temporarily over its serving quota.  
  Please try again later.

It is GWT, so it is transpiled to JS. I remember when I first saw this project years ago, I was impressed. Back then GWT was the best choice for statically-typed, large JS project development IMO.

We just chopped GWT out of our project a month or so ago; I'll fully admit that I didn't know much about it, but every step of the way I felt like I was battling it - it ended up being easier, faster and more testable to write our own JS for the front-end.

Can a GWT app be served statically? Do you need a backend? Can't you just compile it to JS+HTML and be done?

It absolutely can and I have done it many times back in the day. Granted I have moved on to alternatives these days.

sorry for my ignorance, but what is the practical use for this?

It's a clever tool for creating Ascii art. Not for everyone, but if you've ever tried to create boxes and lines in ascii, this is a tool that makes that so much easier .

This is something I might use in source code to describe / draw the relationship between elements.

I do a lot of geometry related programming and the ability to add some graphic illustrations directly into the source code comes in handy every now and then.

Also, everybody needs a small ascii graphic in the output from time to time.

EDIT: Language.

If you have ever written a standards draft, they are exclusively in plain text.

For examples, load up http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc821.html and start scrolling.

> artist mode in emacs

I'd rather see that on the front page.

Yes, like this: http://www.cinsk.org/emacs/emacs-artist.html

Reply on news.ycombinator.com