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Commits.io – Create a poster from your code

175 points| robgering | 11 years ago |commits.io | reply

61 comments

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[+] ortuna|11 years ago|reply
We will be adding private repo support soon, it's just the mechanics are very clunky (ssh keys and such). You could however generate a temporary token (until you have purchased the poster, at which time you can delete it). You can enter the repo address on the home page as such: https://<auth-code>:[email protected]/user/repo.git
[+] michaelmior|11 years ago|reply
Doesn't doing it this way mean that there will be a publicly accessible URL containing your code? This would be a good caveat to mention.
[+] ortuna|11 years ago|reply
Just to hijack my own thread. The servers should be back up and snappy.
[+] apunic|11 years ago|reply
Nice idea but not sure about the execution, the generated poster looks just like minified code. Something is missing...
[+] Untit1ed|11 years ago|reply
My initial reaction was "oh is that all". I mean don't get me wrong, the way the site works is nice, but I was really expecting it to move the code around such that the whitespace formed a picture, or have all the lines of code in random text sizes, or allow you to prioritise different sections so that some were highlighted or something like that.

As it stands it's not really something I want on my wall.

[+] apunic|11 years ago|reply
Really like the idea and just had this thought: why not just present the code in color, normally indented (so not like minified) and in your favorite theme (such as Solarized Dark) in a long portrait format poster, then put some glossy finish on it and I'd buy instantly.
[+] arocks|11 years ago|reply
Pretty cool! Was wondering how it would transform a whitespace sensitive language like Python. The service seems to be slow. But it looks like it would strip out all the indentation leaving it rather meaningless.
[+] tjic|11 years ago|reply
This is great.

I recently shut down two small firms that I've run for years and years - the opportunity cost of not doing contract work or something else that paid decently was too much to keep at it.

...but I loved the code base, as clunky as it was. It had warts, scars, and stretch marks that documented its path through the years. I don't miss running the firms, but I do miss the code.

I'll be buying posters to hang on the wall and remind me of the good times.

[+] ortuna|11 years ago|reply
Thanks! It was a fun and rewarding moment when it generated a poster from its own code this morning.
[+] mijoharas|11 years ago|reply
Looks nice but seems to crash upon clicking the "Do Magic" button. I'm guessing it might be getting stressed by the traffic from HN.
[+] ortuna|11 years ago|reply
Server is getting a lot of hits unfortunately. And generations take a lot of resources. Sorry :(
[+] thoughtpalette|11 years ago|reply
Took me about 4 tries before anything went through.
[+] mgkimsal|11 years ago|reply
How many passwords will soon be hanging on the walls of various cubes and conference rooms?
[+] dcole2929|11 years ago|reply
Is there some type of estimate of how many character you need to fill up one of these posters? I wouldn't mind getting one of a particularly tricky module I wrote as a POC for my presentation at the SAM conference last year but it's probably only 300 LOC total.
[+] euphemize|11 years ago|reply
If anyone wants the linux kernel on their wall : https://commits.io/builds/88548595a3c (or at least a chunk of it)

I find this service a bit expensive for something that can be made in 10 minutes with illustrator - maybe if I get fantastic glossy paper, but it doesn't seem to mention much about the paper specs.

[+] lucb1e|11 years ago|reply
> 10 minutes

Basically what it does is grab some files from the repository, removes newlines and prints it.

    cat $(find -type f | shuf -n 1) | tr -d '\n' | print
That didn't take me 10 minutes to come up with, let alone run.
[+] asyncwords|11 years ago|reply
As somebody that rarely uses illustrator or other graphical software, spending $30 or $50 for something neat like turning my code into a poster that I can hang on the wall is easily worth it — despite how little time it might take someone else to fire up illustrator or bang out some script.
[+] TranquilMarmot|11 years ago|reply
I'm curious about the paper quality as well- it seems like it would be way cheaper for me to do this myself and get it printed locally.
[+] nucleardog|11 years ago|reply
Costco will print arbitrary images up to 36x24 (their largest size here) for under $10.

$40 for running a shell script and sending the file to the printer seems a bit excessive.

[+] orph4nus|11 years ago|reply
Awesome idea. Is there are also a similar service in a do-it-yourself way, without having to put your code into the open as that's a no-go for companies with private code bases.

For example I work for a game development studio and this seems like a cool idea to make some posters of our games, but giving our code base to a company like commit would never be allowed by management.

[+] groby_b|11 years ago|reply
I think you should let people know you plan on cloning the entire repo. You are currently cloning chromium.git, sorry :)
[+] s_dev|11 years ago|reply
Server is being hugged to death. Can't seem to do anything at the moment. The idea is very cool though I would definitely use this, I'd perhaps even pay for it. Most Devs are fond of their code because they put work in to it. It's a cool idea for a bedroom or living room talking piece.
[+] ortuna|11 years ago|reply
Yeah, went to Product Hunt front page and HN front page in the same hour. I don't think I can do much.
[+] cranium|11 years ago|reply
It looks nice, without a doubt. But I'd be more inclined to buy a poster that I can look at and remember that particular piece of code that was a pain to write/debug[#].

The poster can be a good thing to get after shipping a milestone!

[#] maybe displayed as a big "snake" with all the code put together

[+] ortuna|11 years ago|reply
Good insight. Will be working on some of the features people have suggested. First milestone was the original use case I had. I shy away from changing the code too much.
[+] sippeangelo|11 years ago|reply
Would be nice if it would exclude comments. My poster seems to be mostly made out of GPL ramble.
[+] amadeusw|11 years ago|reply
It looks like you can exclude certain files, did you try excluding the licenses?
[+] fat0wl|11 years ago|reply
Do the repo owners get a cut? :)

I tried it on Clojure then imagined how guilty I'd feel buying it knowing Rich Hickey wouldn't get any money but the printers would get lots, hah.

[+] weitzj|11 years ago|reply
It would be nice if you could add Support for IPad. I cannot copy/paste the url. As soon as I tap on the url field, I toggle the info text box.