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----- February 23rd, 2017 -----

fredguth [5:27 AM] 
@jan I guess this is more of a marketing thing... is there a discussion on what should be Hoodie's positioning?  

In your RFC you talk about having a clearer message above the fold and mentions PouchDB site.  

PouchDB is *The database that Syncs!*

[5:27]  
What is Hoodie?

jan [5:28 AM] 
@fredguth excellent question

[5:28]  
our current (two year old) rendition of this is “Hoodie enables you to express yourself through technology by making web app development very fast, easy and accessible.”

[5:28]  
but it is not very easy to understand (edited)

fredguth [6:07 AM] 
I guess, @jan, it is too abstract.

I understand the intention, but I remember :thinking_face:  when I first saw it.

jan [6:08 AM] 
yup

fredguth [6:12 AM] 
I think one way to find a good message is by learning what hooked people that are already involved in the community. What is hoodie for each one?  No ideas on how to do this, though :grin:

jan [6:14 AM] 
we’ve spent many many hours on this already :)

[6:15]  
saying it isn’t easy, but any new ideas are welcome

[6:15]  
my current favourite one-liner is “the backend for your frontend apps”

[6:15]  
but that very technical

fredguth [6:19 AM] 
Maybe... I like it more than the current only because it is less abstract, but it is not very aspirational.  Finding the right tone is hard.  Got it.

jan [6:20 AM] 
I’M always happy to chat about this :)

fredguth [6:31 AM] 
For me, the main advantage of using Hoodie is that it makes easier to build an offline first app.

[6:31]  
So, maybe something like : "A magical backend for offline first apps"

jan [6:32 AM] 
the fundamental problem we have is this:

[6:32]  
1. Hoodie’s eventual goal is making it easy for everyone to build apps

[6:32]  
(but we are not there yet)

[6:32]  
2. We think Offline First is the way to build apps, but it is kind of an accident.

[6:32]  
(but a very compelling one)

[6:33]  
3. For experts, Hoodie is a rapid prototyping tool.

[6:33]  
all of these pull Hoodie and a possible message in a different direction

gregor [6:40 AM] 
I had the exact same discussion with two other people recently. It’s time we figure this out :slightly_smiling_face: Thanks for your help @fredguth

fredguth [8:05 AM] 
1. Is not here yet. Agreed. But what hoodie has and won't change is the pursue of dream code. Hoodie sim simplicity.
2. Couch db sync is almost magical. And hoodie architecture opened my eyes for the possibilities. I guess it is not so clear for people who haven't been involved that this client -db-server way is more powerful than client -server-db.  Maybe this is something that was obvious for more experienced developers. Wasn't for me.

gregor [8:14 AM] 
What is hard for Hoodie is to find reference points that we can relate to when explaining what it is. For Offline folks I say "Hoodie is a Backend for offline-first web applications".
For frontend / app developers I say Hoodie is an extendable Open Source alternative to Parse, Kinvey or Firebase

[8:15]  
Technically, Hoodie is no longer that much of a `client-db-server` architecture. We still mostly proxy data/replication requests to CouchDB, but we now have a fully custom JSON API for accounts, for example

fredguth [8:29 AM] 
@gregor besides firebase, parse, I would also include Horizon.io which is open source as well.

[8:30]  
Btw, I think horizon message is very clear above the fold. (edited)

gregor [8:33 AM] 
agree

jan [11:17 PM] 
We could be "the offline first JavaScript backend"

gregor [8:32 AM] 
I really like JavaScript backend for where Hoodie is today. In future we might go beyond just JavaScript with native clients for Swift / Java etc, but for now the term is great. Gotta check out Horizon more.

fredguth [10:16 AM] 
@jan ... or something like "The JavaScript backend that syncs"

[10:17]  
I like "the offline first JavaScript backend"