Comment by Tiberium | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Tiberium | Hacker News Reader

I understand that their responses were very minimal and not helpful, but it clearly says in the requirements to make a "terminal-inspired" email client. However, in the video you shared [1] I see a somewhat generic email web app, with nothing particularly "terminal-inspired". Considering the fact that they wanted either a real TUI or a webapp, I'm pretty sure that the web app should've also been "terminal-inspired". Am I missing something? I'm not trying to necessarily criticize you, perhaps I just misunderstood the requirements.

Edit: I've actually checked the full requirements page, and they explicitly say this in "Inspiration":

> Your implementation should take inspiration from existing terminal email tools like aerc, mutt, or even something like himalaya.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY1sVXMkP_o

Yeah, a clearer explanation in the rejection email would have been nice, or perhaps even a warning in response to the proposal (though it's not 100% clear from the proposal alone that OP would be going down a path that ignores that part of the assignment.) But the prompt explicitly lists other terminal clients as the inspiration.

Also, the prompt for a terminal client really changes what they're testing! Email web UIs have been a known quantity for years. But the UX of a terminal client is still something that's not "solved." I suspect the rubric for the question has large sections about how they decide to make a terminal client that OP's submission doesn't address at all

so, the hiring manager should spent more time on formulating the rejection than the candidate spent on reading the actual requirements?

Also they seem to put emphasis on Go programming, which takes < 20 lines to get a cli running so not sure why they chose a browser GUI, which is arguably much more work.

but now they want something "deployed"

"Email client can either be in the terminal (i.e. a TUI) or a web app"

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