I really like it for building backends but I haven't found the frontend story as compelling. Currently I use F# for my API and then use a standalone frontend (currently SvelteKit) to try and get the best tool for backend / frontend.
Q: How's your experience been with F# frontends? I'm assuming you're using Fable?
It's been amazing. Yeah I'm using fable. I think there is an early Svelte version.
The strength is shared code between the back end and front end. The same types and validation logic.
I like Elmish but I'm still prone to create a bit of a mess. It takes some thinking in how to build modules up. The bundle size is a little large as well.
My bug count is way down. I love strong typing in the front end.
I've been building MVPs for the past yearish with this stack. Some of these choices are newish / smallish but it's the simplest, most enjoyable stack I've tried so far.
I find .NET to be great for backends though maybe not as great for frontends (there's just better stuff out there). So I use the best tool for the job and that typically means using something else for frontend.
- Solopreneur / Indie Hacker / Tiny SaaS scene. This is more an implementation strategy of my dreams of Financial Independence but I find these communities have large overlap. Building small, sustainable solutions to real-world problems to make a decent living. Not glamorous, but lots of freedom. Communities: IndieHackers and lots of people on Twitter.
- Simple Code. I think most system architectures / frameworks / languages are suboptimal - either being hard to reason about or a pain to code in, etc. So this bucket is about trying to find technologies that actually best support their usecases, regardless of what their adoption looks like. This led me to two scenes: Svelte / SvelteKit for frontend and F# for backend / general purpose programming and is now how I build pretty much all my apps (see: https://cloudseed.xyz). The subreddits for both these communities are good.
- Creative Coding / Technology - I used to be more involved here but now am more of an observer. Basically trying to use the power of computing to create cool things - mostly artistic. This comes in a range of forms but typically procedural / generative art is at the core. Subreddits r/generative and r/creativecoding are pretty active
This is cool! Great to see you've had some success here!
I've built something similar for my favorite tech stack but haven't had any sales yet. I find it useful in my own projects and I've seen other similar projects make some money (like JumpStart Pro for Rails) so thinking it's something around my positioning / offerings rather than full lack of a need.
Some things I think you're doing really well:
* Great sales copy and documentation
* Great aesthetics -> adds to "trust"
* Message bot for feedback
Qs:
* Q1: Did you do any customer research to help determine what features to build?
* Q2: What did you find (if anything) is the biggest reason people choose to use boilerplate rather than rolling their own?
For those interested -> CloudSeeed - SaaS boilerplate for Sveltekit + .NET + Postgres - https://cloudseed.xyz/
Working on some creative coding projects that I've been putting off for the last few years. Latest one I've released is https://coronation.xyz/ - a visualization of the spread of coronavirus around the world, which I built with threejs
Not a storefront per se, but I think Blizzard's Launcher that includes most of their newer games (as well as Destiny 2!) is a good example of one that's gone from nothing to pretty-darn-good while the Steam client has been relatively stagnant.
Activision is starting to move all of their big multiplayer games to Battle.net. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will be the first PC release of a Call of Duty game on Battle.net after it being a Steam only game for 11 years. For big publishers and tentpole titles it makes sense to completely control the platform, because people will install a custom launcher and make a new account to play a big title, and there is no reason for publishers to give away 30% of revenue to Valve. The same trend is happening in video streaming with Netflix and Netflix isn't hurting.
That said I think the Valve hating in this thread is... overblown? DOTA2 and CS:GO are some of the most played games period outside of Fortnite, LOL and PUBG. HN has been complaining about Valve not releasing a new game for years but why release a new game when you have multiple, popular, heavily played titles? All the complaints seem strange coming from a site where many of the users work for SaaS companies that don't follow a business model that requires releasing an entirely new product every year or two.
GOG is trying to alleviate some of this with their Steam Connect stuff, where you can connect your Steam account and gain access to some of those games on GOG, but it'll never be 100%.
Right, there are clients/stores from some of the very big players for their products and some stores for more niche products (e.g. GoG) but I can't think of anything else on PCs with the scale and money-printing power of Steam.
I really like it for building backends but I haven't found the frontend story as compelling. Currently I use F# for my API and then use a standalone frontend (currently SvelteKit) to try and get the best tool for backend / frontend.
Q: How's your experience been with F# frontends? I'm assuming you're using Fable?