IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

A terminal weather app with ASCII animations driven by real-time weather data

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

Three prevailing themes

# Theme Supporting quotes
1 Positive reception of the project “Lovely project.” – dbacar
“Very cool project!” – tehlike
2 Rust’s rising popularity “is it me or rust is becoming the next nodejs?” – dbacar
3 Future expansion ideas “One day i will make an app you can connect with telnet or ssh so that you can do pricetracker.wtf on cli.” – tehlike
“That reminds me of curl wttr.in/94110.” – piinbinary

These comments collectively highlight enthusiasm for the project, a perception of Rust as an emerging mainstream language, and a vision for extending its functionality via CLI or network interfaces.

🚀 Project Ideas

Generating project ideas…

PriceTracker CLI Service

Summary

  • A self‑hosted, telnet/ssh‑accessible service that lets users query and receive price alerts for products or crypto directly from the terminal.
  • Core value: eliminates the need for a web UI or manual API calls, giving instant, scriptable price monitoring.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers, traders, and power users who prefer CLI workflows.
Core Feature Interactive command shell over telnet/ssh; commands like price <symbol>, watch <symbol>, alerts add <symbol> <threshold>.
Tech Stack Rust (for performance), Tokio for async networking, SQLite for persistence, OpenSSH server wrapper.
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue‑ready: subscription tiers (free, pro, enterprise).

Notes

  • HN commenters want a “telnet or ssh” interface for pricetracker.wtf; this directly addresses that.
  • Practical utility: can be scripted in cron jobs or integrated into existing terminal workflows.

API Query CLI Tool

Summary

  • A universal command‑line tool that fetches any REST API endpoint, parses JSON, and formats output with customizable templates.
  • Core value: replaces repetitive curl | jq pipelines with a single, reusable command.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers, sysadmins, data analysts who frequently consume APIs.
Core Feature api <url> [--template <file>] with built‑in caching, authentication helpers, and notification hooks.
Tech Stack Go (static binaries), Cobra for CLI, Viper for config, SQLite for cache.
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Users like curl wttr.in/94110; this tool would let them do api wttr.in/94110 --template weather.tmpl with richer formatting.
  • Sparks discussion on best practices for API consumption in scripts.

Telnet Weather Service

Summary

  • A lightweight, telnet/ssh‑enabled weather server that returns formatted forecasts, alerts, and multi‑location support.
  • Core value: provides a richer, interactive weather experience than curl wttr.in, accessible from any terminal.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Terminal users, system admins, hobbyists needing quick weather info.
Core Feature Interactive shell with commands like weather <city>, forecast <city>, alerts add <city>.
Tech Stack Node.js (Express), OpenWeatherMap API, Docker for easy deployment, SSH server wrapper.
Difficulty Low
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Directly responds to the mention of curl wttr.in/94110; adds features like alerts and multi‑city queries.
  • Useful for quick checks without leaving the terminal, encouraging adoption among HN users.

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