Journal Together

@stopachka Thanks for a new organizing tool!

Hey PH! I wanted to share Journal Together, an app I made recently to play with clojure and scratch an itch. I started a company with my best friend, and we decided to share a journal with each other. We started off using Paper, but I thought it would more convenient if was over email: we already use email, and it would be handy if we were reminded. I made a barebones version for us. We soon decided to add a few of our close friends: many of them live in different cities, and we thought it would be a good way to keep in touch. It's turned out to be a blast so far. Here's how it works: 1. You sign up, and invite your friends 2. At the end of every day, you receive an email, asking about your day 3. The next day, you receive a group email with your friends, with what everyone wrote. It's free to use : ) -- Some technical notes: Clojure has been a pure joy. Some reflections on building it: * The REPL made working with webhooks _much_ a breeze * I could capture requests and replay them over and over. * Clojure interop + JVM is a superpower * Lib ecosystem def saves the day: java.time may be the best time library I've used. It was great to use Stripe's lib too. * B/c I could use threads, I could avoid introducing out-of- process queues for scheduling. For the db, I tried to stretch firebase: * Firebase's client side abstractions are best in class * Their database on the client abstraction masks a bunch of complexity: from optimistic updates to offline mode. * They _are_ extensible: i.e with custom auth * The downsides were painful: * Rule engine is weak: as soon as you start writing more serious rules it gets out of hand. I almost created my own DSL * Query engine is weak: Many to many relationships can't be managed without de-normalizing the data. * There's room for a startup here ^ -- It's still pretty rough, but I hope you enjoy it!

Nice! The google share for personal life

For those of us around 40 years old we deeply miss the days of LiveJournal. This product is making us all very happy to be able to connect in the ways that we used to!

Love this! It's been a great way to stay in touch with friends during quarantine :)

Been a great tool for sending EOD updates to the team!

Such a cool concept! Can't wait to try it out!