Support
-This page is still under construction. Feedback is always - welcome.
-For Support: unixtime.app@v01.io. -
-How I developed my own unix timestamp conversion tool to improve - API developer workflows.
-Hi, Iam Klaus Breyer. And I am the author of unixtime.app: An - API - developers - tool for bulk timestamp conversion.
-- Here I want to tell the story of how I scratched my own itch and - how - this turned - into a product.
- -If you did not already: you can try it out before - downloading it.
-Context: IIotT (Industrial Internet of Things)
-- The idea's genesis happened during my current stint as Tech Lead - for - a - front-end-heavy product in an IIoT microservice context. - - As you might assume, data in the IIoT environment has a lot of - timestamps. In - the ecosystem I currently work for, the dates were unfortunately - not - encoded as - ISO but as Unix timestamps in milliseconds.
-- At one point, a completely new microservice was written - we - were - supposed to be - the first customers and could help with requirements.
-- So far, so good - but then, at some point, the time came when my - team and I - needed to test and implement the new service. - - And then the fun began: I looked at API responses for hours and - days, wondering - whether the API was doing something wrong or our own code. So, - nothing unusual. - A typical step during development in systems with high real-time - requirements.
-Personal Workflow - before
-I am a heavy user of Postman. I usually create or import all the - API - endpoints a - product consumes. - - To verify that the new service is working, I triggered the - requests - and looked - at the responses to check them. Sometimes, I copied browser - requests - as curl and - pasted them into Postman to debug them there.
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- In both cases, I had to painstakingly select the timestamp - with - the mouse - cursor each time, ensuring I didn't forget a digit. - -
- Next up: I googled "Unix Timestamp Conversion" (or - something - similar). There - are a lot of pages from the seemingly early 2000s that serve - this - request. They - were either terribly confusing and terrible to use. - -
- And when I got the result, I had to re-contextualize the - API - call - I was - debugging. -
- Those steps I repeated - a lot, basically, for each API - response. - - This is incredibly annoying when you only have to check for - sortings - and compare - whether one timestamp comes before or after another!
-- I often ended up with multiple pages to convert multiple - timestamps - in parallel.
-- This is a super error-prone workflow. Trying to mark timestamps - precisely with a - mouse cursor is not just tiring; errors are inevitable when - comparing multiple - values.
-- I also looked in the Mac App Store for solutions to have a - pretty - and - easy-to-use tool installed as an application. But, the Apps in - the - Mac App Store - were obviously not developed by developers who optimize their - workflow for API - development.
-- In my despair, for very complicated cases where I had to process - whole arrays of - objects with timestamps, I wrote a small individual script that - iterated over - them and made comparisons where necessary.
-Personal Workflow - after
-- - Now, I do not select an individual attribute value in Postman - anymore. - - Instead, I copy & paste the complete API request into my handy - unixtime.app. - Here I can see the converted timestamp in the corresponding - context - of the API - call.
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- - So I know precisely which timestamp belongs to which ID as they - are - highlighted, - and I can continue debugging without losing context.
-A new collaborative workflow
-- As a nice side-effect, I can use screenshots of the conversions - for - collaboration. Because in most cases, however, it wasn't my code - that was the - problem (of course!!). - - So I now take screenshots from the unixtime.app and then share - them - in Slack - #support channels or JIRA tickets.
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- - For creating support cases now, I do not need to copy, paste, - format, and - shorten the API responses. - - I also saved myself the burden of copying and pasting precisely - which timestamp - was wrong in what context because this is obvious through the - image. -
-Prototyping Progress
-- As a fellow developer, you probably guessed that what this tool - does - is no - rocket science. -
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- The first version I built in 1h of my free time as a quick - proof - of concept - was just a single HTML file - sharable with my team. - -
- Next, I moved it to a domain that is easy to remember. - -
- At some point, I decided to add syntax highlighting for - JSON - because I guessed - this is what most of the payload would be. - -
- After everything was proven to work, I decided to release - the - product as a - proper application for Mac and Windows. -
Mission Statement
-I wanted to offer an application that lives in the - "Applications" - folder to be used in parallel with a browser, editor, and - Postman, offering an instantaneous - conversion of unlimited timestamps.-
Now it is up to you. You can try unixtime.app directly on the - homepage. And if my little tool helped you a little bit, I would - be happy if - you would support - development by downloading the full version from the App Stores. -
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-If you found this interesting and want to be informed when - something major is happening - here, please subscribe to the Mailing List of my main website v01.io
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