Show HN: I'm tired of sharing code using PasteBin and Slack, so I made this

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> I think we're tired of copying and pasting our codes and sharing links using PasteBin, GithubGist, or Slack.

I think I normally just encourage my coworkers to push the branch (to Github, Gitlab, etc.) to share larger snippets. Smaller stuff, `/snippet` works alright.

But I think the bigger issue with any tool is that corporate isn't going to want company IP uploaded or put into a random website. (This is already the case for a "PasteBin", too; the companies I've worked at wouldn't want me using that, either.) That said, I see this rule violated … a lot. More nowadays with the litany of LLM stuff out there. So, that "self hosted" feature would almost certainly be a requirement, but hosting small tools like this is a high barrier to adoption vs. a process like Slack or Github that has some small friction, but otherwise works.

> Pain points in your current code-sharing process?

Honestly I think the biggest pain point I have with sharing in Slack is that other people don't seem to know how to use Slack. You'll get a code snippet not in a `/snippet`, not even in a code block, just variable-width normal paragraph text.

(The other pain point is that Slack corrupts code-block contents in some cases. ("a known bug here […] currently being investigated by our engineering team […] don't have a timeline for a fix just yet" … the bug has been around for years, so yeah…))

moeen-mahmud · a year ago

Thank you for your detailed comment and for mentioning the Application Error. Did you land on my page, or was the error blocking it? Please tell me so I can fix that.

You address your thoughts. The snippet folder just works fine, but I was thinking something about real-time, like chatting. I was thinking of making it self-host as an alternative to PasteBin and GithubGist, not only for extensions. But your insight is good. The problem with Slack or Microsoft Teams is the same. People don't even bother to format it; maybe they don't have time to do it. That was the actual pain point for me as well.

Could you tell me more about how I can improve it? Most importantly if it can bring up a better solution compared to Slack, PasteBin, and in-repository "/snippet" folder, would you use it?

Seems the email isn't actually necessary, the extension is here for people who wanna try it: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=turbo-gi...

Personally, I use pastebin/GitHub Gist because I know it'll be around for a long time compared to all the new ones appearing and I really hate broken links, so my biggest question when coming across this would be "How do they ensure they'll remain online for as long as possible?"

grogenaut · a year ago

A big CO I work for makes them last only 90 days so you put them somewhere more permanent. There's a gap for the people who can code but don't know how to use the real version control system.

moeen-mahmud · a year ago

Could you tell me more about the workflow where you worked? Like, how do you guys share code among the team members?

moeen-mahmud · a year ago

Your observation is correct. However, I wanted to have a group of users as beta users to get better engagement. What about you get storage with lifetime access, and the "shared code" will be there as long as you don't delete it?

diggan · a year ago

> What about you get storage with lifetime access, and the "shared code" will be there as long as you don't delete it?

The "lifetime" access is referring to my life, or the life of the service? ;)

Obviously the latter, which in that case, doesn't mean much, unfortunately. I guess I'm at a point where stability is more important than it used to be.

Unless you can find a way of making sure the URLs will continue to work, it'll be a really hard sell until you got a couple years of running the service under the belt.

Or, let people use Gist/Pastebin as the actual backend :)

jonahx · a year ago

I would suggest trimming the 15m intro video down to 1 minute or less.

bagels · a year ago

Please write a script, and put the demo in the first few seconds. I don't know what this tool actually does.

I'll do that ASAP

You're right. The first video was about 5 mins but then I thought I'd add a long video with a good explanation. But initially, I should've done a short demo video to show only the value-added things.

mrozbarry · a year ago

I wonder if you could just have some sort of looping animation showing a vs code window, with live typing, and a view beside it of the turbogist ui.

I came here to say just this. When the word "turbo" and phrase "zero distractions" are present, but the demo is a number of minutes long, it feels like something is wrong.

conductr · a year ago

Yep. I jumped off the elevator before the pitch began

This is so stupid of me :)

harel · a year ago

I second that. Emphasis on the "or less". Go straight to the point. No fluff.

deathanatos · a year ago

herpdyderp · a year ago

Is this a common feeling? These all work fine for me, what's the issue?

That's what I wanted to learn. Maybe I should start with "I" instead of "We"

unsnap_biceps · a year ago

I see from your demo that it appears that this is less about just sharing code and more about rapid feedback. Before I watched the video I was wondering how this was different from JetBrains' "Code With Me" or VS Code's "Co-Edit". Might be worth clarifying that it's more than just sharing a snippet in the landing copy.

Absolutely, I should've shown how it differs from the existing solution. I'll focus on these from the next.

akshayKMR · a year ago

It'd be better to link the vscode extension and a quick demo.

I skimmed through the website, and the only interaction is to join the beta, view a video which is 15mins (too long).

WesleyJohnson · a year ago

I agree. For something so "simple", with a name like turbo, I expected a 30 to 60 second video that quickly demos the value-add. I quite like the premise, but you're trying to pitch to users who want low-friction solutions, and then hitting them with a 15 minute video to see the sauce.

Apreche · a year ago

Came here to say the same thing. I saw the video was 15 minutes and didn’t even bother. If it takes 15 minutes to demonstrate sharing code, how can it be an improvement over Slack and Pastebin? In the time it takes to watch the video I could have shared so much code on Slack very easily.

Retr0id · a year ago

vscode itself can run in the browser (https://vscode.dev/), and presumably so could the extension - so a full live-demo ought to be possible.

That's a good idea. I'll try to add something similar as well.

sliken · a year ago

Assuming it works from a terminal session, maybe try: https://asciinema.org/

It can be self hosted if you want.

I'll check it out. But I couldn't find a better demo video-capturing tool for vscode. Do you know something like this?

tonymet · a year ago

I use gist remotes a lot by creating a gist and adding it as a remote to a local git directory.

If i were using your tool, it would be nice to have a single "turbogist" repo for all of the gists. That way i could send gists into it with git push

you could do something clever like this by having turbogist server manage the prefixes , so a git push from any repo would automatically consolidate all of the various prefixes into the turbogist account

Amazing idea!! It starts making me think differently. Thank you so much for sharing this. Could you tell me more about storing and sharing the "gist/pastes" for later use? For example the link validity, or share only with a certain group of people?

I use them to share the entire experiment with other developers , so they can clone the gist and have the exact copy of what I have

e.g. https://gist.github.com/tonymet/d5df33b6a5003e1281c458a2d58d...

gist's "clone with ..." feature is very powerful. It's a unique and (from what I can tell) permanent remote that you can push to. it has some restrictions on naming and file content.

but i would love to see your product run with "clone with..." but make it work for all your experiments

I just wrote up a guide on doing something similar with subtree and a large "experiments" repo .

https://dev.to/tonymet/how-to-put-everything-in-git-2b3d

Aeolun · a year ago

I share code by pushing it to Github and using the “Copy permalink” functionality from my editor. Then I get a link directly to that commit/line number.

Yeah, this is a good approach. However, I was thinking about real-time.