Top all-time · #6581
Instawork Engineering
Company blog · engineering.instawork.comprogrammingweb
Instawork Engineering is the company blog at engineering.instawork.com, writing about programming and web. Since 2018, 12 different Hacker News readers have linked it 18 times, most often “Iterating with Simplicity: Evolving a Django App with Intercooler.js”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link the Instawork engineering posts on server-driven interactivity with Django and intercooler.js/htmx, including infinite scroll, and on when XML beats JSON for list versus tree data.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Iterating with Simplicity: Evolving a Django App with Intercooler.js5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-10-25
- When XML Beats JSON: UI Layouts3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-01-16
- Tackling the Monolith/Microservices Dilemma at Instawork2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-01-08
What Hacker News says?
Hey, I think Django has some of the best documentation of any project I know (both reference and tutorials/guides): https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ There is some material on using Django with intercooler.js: https://www.reddit.com/r/django/comments/5nj242/psa_intercoo... https://engineering.instawork.com/iterating-with-simplicity-... but in the end I did something slightly different: for actions I just have i…
Comment linking /iterating-with-simplicity-evolving-a-django-app-with-intercooler-js-8ed8e69d8a52
on “Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?”Submitted When XML Beats JSON: UI Layouts as a story · 261 points
HN discussionhtmx [1] (formerly intercooler) is sort of similar, although the server instead returns html fragments. Here's an example [2] of using it for infinite scroll (instead of pagination). I'm pretty excited to try out django-sockpuppet from an adjacent comment! [1]: https://htmx.org/ [2]: https://engineering.instawork.com/iterating-with-simplicity-...
Comment linking /iterating-with-simplicity-evolving-a-django-app-with-intercooler-js-8ed8e69d8a52
on “StimulusReflex, or LiveView for Rails”Submitted Real-Time Web Apps with Zero Lines of JavaScript as a story · 33 points
HN discussionTo weigh in on the XML vs JSON debate, this article https://engineering.instawork.com/when-xml-beats-json-ui-lay... has been posted before and shows JSON and XML's strengths with different kinds of data, i.e. lists vs trees.
Comment linking /when-xml-beats-json-ui-layouts-53c7f1d3fdb7
on “Better Than JSON?”Submitted Hyperview: Instawork's (YC15) server-driven mobile app framework as a story · 6 points
HN discussionThanks for the mention! We continue to invest in Hyperview to solve many of the problems presented in the article. One big difference: instead of JSON, we use XML to represent the UI. XML is a hypermedia format with built-in extensibility, which makes it a good fit for server-driven UIs. We wrote about this decision here: https://engineering.instawork.com/when-xml-beats-json-ui-lay...
Comment linking /when-xml-beats-json-ui-layouts-53c7f1d3fdb7
on “What Is Server-Driven UI?”Submitted Tackling the Monolith/Microservices Dilemma at Instawork as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Tackling the Monolith/Microservices Dilemma at Instawork as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Iterating with Simplicity: Evolving a Django App with Intercooler.js as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Refactoring a Python Codebase with LibCST as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Refactoring a Python Codebase with LibCST as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Iterating with Simplicity: Evolving a Django App with Intercooler.js (2018) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted When XML Beats JSON: UI Layouts as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Elegant database migrations on ECS as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Refactoring a Python Codebase with LibCST as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Evolving a Django App with Intercooler.js as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Engineering a content style guide as a story · 1 points
HN discussion