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    Code Cartoons

    code-cartoons.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2015

    Lin Clark draws illustrated explainers of web technologies such as Redux, Flux, Relay and WebRender.

    Visit blogHN submissions
    Web DevelopmentDesign & UXProgramming
    What HN says

    Commenters admire her illustrated technical explanations and hold them up as the human-made alternative to AI-generated illustration.

    Stats for nerds
    26HN people shared it
    19linked in comments
    134story points
    Jun 2026last shared
    2015people per year2026

    Top posts on HN

    1. 1
      A Cartoon Guide to Flux
      6 people · 70 points · first shared 2015 · 19 comments on HN
    2. 2
      A Cartoon Intro to Redux
      7 people · 32 points · first shared 2015 · 1 comments on HN
    3. 3
      A cartoon guide to Facebook’s Relay, part 1
      5 people · 20 points · first shared 2016 · 1 comments on HN
    4. 4
      Code Cartoons
      11 people · 10 points · first shared 2015 · 2 comments on HN
    5. 5
      A cartoon intro to Facebook’s Relay, part 2
      1 person · 2 points · first shared 2016 · Discussion on HN
    6. 6
      @linclark
      1 person · first shared 2017

    What HN people wrote when they linked it

    • DangerangerMar 2017

      This trend of using illustration to explain complex topics is really wonderful. I know that people may criticize it as childish, but I find it helpful and enlightening.

      The illustrations that I've found most amazing and well done are created by people like:

      Lin Clark (https://code-cartoons.com/)

      Julia Evans (http://jvns.ca/zines/)

      Linda Liukas (http://www.helloruby.com/)

      Amy Wibowo (https://shop.bubblesort.io/)

      You may notice a trend with the gender of the authors above. I personally believe that women have a better sense for simplifying complex ideas, and greater empathy and patience for teaching those ideas once they've been made simple.

    • JaRailMar 2018

      Redux is appropriate for that, yes. You'll need to write the code to communicate with the server. So whatever fetch/update APIs you write there. Then interpret the response, and push the data into Redux.

      Your server is your main single-source of truth. But on the client, redux is that source of truth that your UX and application code reference.

      Lin Clark is amazing at explaining concepts in the React and Mozilla worlds. Here's her intro to Redux concepts: https://code-cartoons.com/a-cartoon-intro-to-redux-3afb775501a6

    • nasso_devJun 2026

      stopped reading when i saw the AI illustration. wholly unnecessary, and it feels insulting to be fed slop like this...

      if you really want a fun drawing get a human artist to do it. it doesn't need to be complicated, for example https://www.code-cartoons.com/ is mostly just stick figures and does an excellent job

      but you don't even need any of that, a mermaid diagram would have worked perfectly fine too. instead you chose to use a technology that is known to be harmful

    • humblebeeMar 2019

      The author, Lin Clark[0], is the person behind Code Cartoons[1]. She does absolutely amazing work. Unfortunately, there isn't really a single place to find everything she has done. She has done quite a few conference talks[2] as well.

      [0] https://twitter.com/linclark

      [1] https://code-cartoons.com/

      [1] https://hacks.mozilla.org/category/code-cartoons/

      [1] https://twitter.com/codecartoons

      [2] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIIHcC8epcPqhBrQ1dRmILg5e5okOVnER

    • bikenagaFeb 2021

      I think she's using the LaTeX package for Edward Tufte's style:

      https://edwardtufte.github.io/

      (If you like the design, you'd like Tufte's books.) Anyway, her paper is fun to read and one of the most beautiful papers I've read in terms of layout and design - I like the contrast between the hand-drawn illustrations and the abstract content. It reminds me of Lin Clark's Code Cartoons (https://code-cartoons.com/) .

    • acemarkeApr 2017

      Absolutely. She's also responsible for a slew of other "Code Cartoons" writeups ( https://code-cartoons.com/ ) including Flux, Redux, Hot Reloading, and Relay, and she also wrote an incredibly good 6-part dive into WebAssembly ( https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/02/a-cartoon-intro-to-webassembly/ ).

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