July 10, 2024 - Code with semantics, not text

Product Hunt Dev

👋 Hey there and welcome back to Product Hunt Dev (formerly WeirdWideWeb).

TOP LAUNCH

An on-device assistant — without the privacy issues

Not too long ago, Microsoft had an Icarus moment when everyone found out its new Recall AI feature worked by taking screenshots of your laptop, raising a bunch of questions about security and privacy and leading the company to backtrack on parts of the feature. 

Well, if you were excited by the idea of an AI that remembers the things you do across your device, especially one built for devs, read on as I tell you about Pieces Copilot+, an on-device AI coding assistant. 

The team behind Pieces understands that devs work across a ton of tools, so they built a horizontal product (launched last year) that understands context across all the places you’re working to improve your workflow. That means you can do everything from extracting code from screenshots of a YouTube video (which you can then ask the AI to adjust for you) to referencing code from a repository you connected to ask for specific, tailored help on an issue. 

Now with its latest launch, Pieces is introducing its Workstream Pattern Engine — i.e. new AI that’s temporally grounded, letting you capture and process your work in real time. The Live Context feature lets you use prompts like “Summarize the comments on my pull request and how I can fix them” or “How can I resolve this issue I just came across?”

As for the privacy and security element that Microsoft fumbled, Pieces Copilot+ is run on-device and is air-gapped. Some users have reported slow down on their devices because of new live tools, but it’s worth noting that the Workstream Pattern Engine can be turned off at any time. And, of course, Pieces is constantly working to reduce the load.

By the way, the Pieces Copilot+ launch comes with the announcement that the team also just raised a $13.5M Series A.

You want those enterprise customers, but are you ready for them?

The building blocks to become Enterprise Ready are already here, through WorkOS. It's a modern identity platform built for B2B SaaS companies, with flexible and easy-to-use APIs to meet the needs of enterprise customers faster.

WorkOS brings a modular approach to B2B auth, with enterprise features like SSO, SCIM, and User Management. The APIs are designed to provide an effortless experience from your first user through to your largest customer.

It's free for up to 1 million MAUs and hundreds of high-growth scale-ups like Vercel, Webflow, and Loom are already using WorkOS.

PRODUCT HIGHLIGHT

A new way to write code

The nature of writing code has remained relatively the same ever since the first would-be developers decided to write it. 

You boot up a code editor and get to work, slinging code like it’s nobody’s business. As you do, you’re probably subconsciously thinking “What’s my next keystroke?” but what if there was a tool that made you think of coding on a higher level? 

The Semel Editor is a C++ editor that allows you to edit semels (A "semel" is a "semantic element") instead. Don't ask, "What is my next keystroke?" instead, ask, "What is my next goal?"

The goal is to encourage developers to think in terms of goals or outcomes, aligning more closely with modern programming methodologies like agile and outcome-oriented development.

An easy way to think about it is in terms of Chess. Robert Schwartz, the founder of the Semel Editor, put it this way: 

“Imagine you're playing chess with a computer. It displays the board. It lists all of your legal moves. You choose one. It moves. Lather, rinse, repeat. You are not guaranteed to win, but you are guaranteed that the game will be a legal valid game. The Semel Editor lists one of the semels in your program. It lists all of your legal moves (i.e. modifications). You choose one. Lather, rinse, repeat. You are not guaranteed to write a bug-free program, but you are guaranteed that the program will be a legal valid program.”

COMMUNITY LEARNING

Many founders will tell you that it’s not about overnight success. It’s about getting back up after failure and trying again. Calvin Chen, the founder of YC company Fetcher, knows this all too well and wrote this essay on how to turn your suffering into growth.

WOAH

🎈It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a giant inflatable in the sky. That’s what Sierra Space is making to replace the ISS when it retires after 2030. LIFE (“Large Integrated Flexible Environment”) rides into space on rocket and inflates once in orbit to house labs and vegetable garden. See it here.

CAT NIPS

AI

  • BuilderKit has pre-built AI tools, landing pages, and a NextJS boilerplate to ship your AI products fast.

Front-end

  • Webtrotion is a highly configurable and easy-to-install website builder, crafted with the Astro framework and Notion.

  • AstroWP is a headless WordPress starter kit.

  • Parallel DOM parallelizes heavy DOM operations so JavaScript or React components run as separate CPU threads.

Back-end and Server-side

  • Crawlee is an open-source library for building web scraping and browser automation in Python.

  • CustomJS enables the integration of custom JavaScript logic into any software application.

  • Audioscribe is an open-source AI for turning voice into structured notes. Duplicate the agent to build your own ideas.

DevOps and Productivity

  • Bashnode lets you build custom CLIs without coding.

  • VueJS Touris a lightweight component for Vue.js apps for guided tours with customizable steps.

  • VSCode Links lets you create your own content-aware file/http links within VSCode.

  • CatSync centralizes your data and repositories in a single application.

  • Mouseless is a software to to perform all mouse actions using keyboard shortcuts.

  • SnippetEase lets you generate beautiful embeddable code snippets for your blog, for free.

  • Translized simplifies software localization with seamless integrations, automations, and AI translations.

Until next week

Written by Aaron O’Leary and Sarah Wright.

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