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Comment by maelstrom | Hacker News Reader

This is seriously news? I could write this app in 10 lines of code, or am I missing something important?

I think you meant that you can reproduce a fraction of this app's functionality, and present it in an unattractive way with really bad useability, in ten lines of code. And even then you'd be exaggerating.

Yes, perhaps you are. First, watch the video: http://vimeo.com/6238577

Second, realize that this was developed from start to finish in 48 hours, by some not untalented people... they seem to have put a lot of thought into it, and the details really show.

Third, saying you could do anything nontrivial in "10 lines of code" reminds me of this guy http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=678501

Sorry, making an http request and showing the response in headers qualifies as trivial in most modern programming languages.

First, watch the video?

Doesn't that seem to emphasize the guy's point? It seems like a neat if simplistic little tool and if you have to watch a video to tell how it's something more...

Yeah, it does.

Sounds like we should change this:

  Hurl makes HTTP requests.
  Enter a URL, set some headers, then view the response.
  Perfect for APIs.

To something like this:

  Hurl makes HTTP requests.
  Enter a URL, set some headers, get a response, then share it with others.
  Perfect for demoing and debugging APIs.

Less then 250 lines of code: http://api.drupal.org/api/function/drupal_http_request/7

the ability to link to the responses / output seems like it might be useful for debugging and helping others

Reply on news.ycombinator.com