Transformy

Productivity

text transformation

SHOW HN2015

764points
144comments
#7of 2,565 in 2015
Top 1%of 2015 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

17 positive, 46 neutral or asking, 4 mixed, 31 critical, out of 98 comments about the project. Thread score -0.17.

Execution: 1 for, 20 againstIdea: 13 for, 8 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 1 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Useful for quick cleanup without learning sed or regex

    From 3 comments
    • Great use for quickly cleaning up stuff without looking into the `sed` options.
      habi on HN
    • The last example with JSON replace is really nice, I do this regularly with regular expression find-replace with groups, on larger datasets. I guess i can forget about regular…
      flipp3r on HN
    • You know, for people that don't know Awk or aren't comfortable with a scripting language, this is a really nice idea. Thinking back to grad school, which was in a non-computer…
      jnbiche on HN
  • Good concept that saves time for non-technical people

    From 3 comments
    • You know, for people that don't know Awk or aren't comfortable with a scripting language, this is a really nice idea. Thinking back to grad school, which was in a non-computer…
      jnbiche on HN
    • This! I wanted this feature to be in every text editor for years :)). Like http://nimbletext.com but show and tell instead of expressions :). Thanks!!!
      tomaskafka on HN
    • Really great. Manipulating lists is the hardest thing in the world for common people, while for any programmer it is really easy. This should even the things a little.
      fiatjaf on HN

Objections

  • Fails on multi-word fields and inconsistent delimiters

    From 4 comments
    • I was expecting that as the output but got: 35, ROBERTO/CARLOS, Michael, Jordan See other response as it works on word by word. Here is (hopefully) a better example: Input: ```…
      thehoff on HN
    • There is a bug with multiword data points: ``` Input: Bogdan, "Yucca" Josy, "Orange County" Bill, "San Diego" Example: Bogdan lives in Yucca Output: Bogdan lives in Yucca Josy…
      x0054 on HN
    • Buggy, all I did is add Dean middle name to third line ``` In: 3, Roberto Carlos, soccer, Brazil 35, Michael Jordan, baseball, USA 6, James Dean Lebron, basketball, USA 10,…
      bikamonki on HN
    • This is really neat! Any chance this will be a cli tool or module/library? It doesn't seem to play will with something like this as an input: ``` 3, Roberto/Carlos, soccer,…
      thehoff on HN
  • Misreads dates, codes and special characters

    From 4 comments
    • For some reason it won't handle certain characters... ``` Input: Feature: 37, threshold: 4386, + Feature: 11, threshold: 1, + Feature: 10, threshold: 13, + Feature: 0, threshold:…
      j2kun on HN
    • Nice tool and concept dude. But it doesn't seems to look properly at the meaning of content though. I mean, I think it just finds the first presence of what the given pattern is…
      pravj on HN
    • Not sure that this is doing what it's supposed to. This series: 11/1/2008, 12/1/2008, 6/1/2009 transformed to this: November 1, 2008, November 1, 2008, November 1, 2009
      sulam on HN
    • I tried a list of unicode characters and their codepoint numbers, but it doesn't seem to recognize the unicode characters probably. Perhaps a normalization issue?
      KenoFischer on HN
  • Closed source with no terms, so data privacy is unclear

    From 1 comment
    • This is a very cool tool. I wouldn't trust it with any sensitive info though. The lack of terms, https, and the fact that it's closed source means I have no idea of what could…
      ben010783 on HN

Requests

  • Support multiple examples

    From 1 comment
    • Amazing tool. Feature requests: allow for more than one example. ``` Input: {"class": "101", "students": 101} {"class": "201", "students": 80} {"class": "202", "students": 50}…
      BoppreH on HN
  • Offer a CLI, library, or API

    From 4 comments
    • This is really neat! Any chance this will be a cli tool or module/library? It doesn't seem to play will with something like this as an input: ``` 3, Roberto/Carlos, soccer,…
      thehoff on HN
    • Any command-line version of this? API? ) PS: A very nice tool!
      anton_tarasenko on HN
    • I'd love to see an embeddable version of this, or an API. It'd be awesome to embed this into our CMS.
      morgante on HN
    • This would be useful as npm module.
      hugozap on HN
  • Output reusable code such as regex or scripts

    From 2 comments
    • Feature request: Output javascript/python/regex/whatever that performs the transformation between the two lists.
      fragsworth on HN
    • Can I make a script out of the learned transform operation? Ideally it will be a function that I can paste into some script, and call map on each row.
      bluishgreen on HN

Questions

  • Is it open source?

    From 1 comment
    • Great tool, but too bad it can't handle code very well. An example (converting C++ to C): ``` Input: void FileStream::write(char* , int); void VirtualMachine::cycle(int);…
      theunamedguy on HN
  • How is it implemented and does it use machine learning?

    From 1 comment
    • How is this done ? Do you need to use some fancy AI or machine learning algorithm ? Looks pretty mind blowing. Mad respect.
      throwaway43 on HN
  • What is the monetization strategy?

    From 1 comment

Alternatives named

  • Excel Flash Fill

    From 1 comment
    • As mentioned by others, this is implemented in Excel 2013 as Flash Fill feature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UccfqwwOCoY
      kyberias on HN
  • sed and awk

    From 2 comments
    • I thought that a cli version might be useful too. The closest thing I have right now is sed/awk. Sed can do this kind of stuff but you have to specify a Regular Expression…
      jschwartzi on HN
    • AWK is the best! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWK
      cjgk on HN
  • Sublime Text multiple cursors

    From 1 comment
    • One can achieve the same in sublime text using the multiple cursors and edit feature. This is great for non tech people. For those of you who are wondering what sublime text can…
      h43k3r on HN
  • Warp query-by-example tool

    From 1 comment
    • This is essentially the idea behind Warp, which can do it on large data sets and databases (https://pixelspark.nl/2015/warp-a-query-by-example-analysis-tool-for-big-data)
      misterdata on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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