happy non-engineers will slowly transition into sad underpaid engineers
happy non-engineers will slowly transition into sad underpaid engineers
cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/15545986
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I spoke to a friend the other day that wanted some help with his dev project. I was surprised since he isn't a dev and doesn't even have a job in a tech related field. He said he wanted to make a simple thing and was using AI prompts to just fuck about a bit till he had something working. But he ran into some issues and wanted me to give him some pointers to get on the right track.
My man wanted to create a "simple" kanban system. I almost fell of my chair as he explained what he was wanting to create. A non devver isn't going to create basically a Trello clone within a couple of hours and some AI prompts. He started with a frontend and got something hacked together which wasn't really working or a good base to work from. And hadn't even considered he would also need some kind of backend. He never heard of the difference between frontend and backend and just thought apps were apps that did it all.
I explained for what he wanted he would need a team of 15-20 to work for a couple of years to make something good. Not really a thing people do in their free time. I know your nephew created an "app" in a weekend in a hackaton, that doesn't mean the world of software development is suddenly different from how it's always been. He was bummed out, but was happy enough to just use Trello. And he could always keep fucking around with AI devving for fun, just don't expect anything useful to come out of it ever.
Peoples perspective on software development is so weird these days. Especially since AI has come along, people just expect magic.
My mother-in-law is a veterinarian and once she asked me to create an app that would tell people whether a particular animal hospital was a good place to take their pets or not. She thought it was just something I could write in an evening since the UI would be pretty simple. She had no conception of the need for, like, a database of pet hospitals and where that database would come from and how it would be maintained and updated.
Did she want some features that weren't part of Google/Apple maps / Yelp / etc?
If she's frustrated with user reviews being about nonsense I get it but that's a human problem, or at least not a system problem anyone's been able to solve yet.
Yeah, she didn't feel that online reviews were an accurate or reliable way to evaluate these places. She basically thought that every place but her own was a bucket of shit, so I probably could have actually given her what she wanted and just had the app give a thumbs down to everything except hers.
Why did you let him keep using Trello when there are so many FOSS alts?
This is not somebody who can self host anything or setup something for himself. I do not know of any FOSS kanban solutions that are available as a SaaS solution. The available Trello free functionality suits his needs. Is there something wrong with Trello? It's owned by Atlassian, which is an OK company I think?
If you have any good FOSS alternatives, I'd be happy to know about them and forward on the recommendation. But keep in mind most folk are not tech minded and won't get very far with just a Github page.
You can use issues and issue boards in the free tier of GitLab. Not sure if that counts.
Does the open source self hostable version have the kanban board feature? I need a kanban board with oauth support for my volunteer team, I can't afford any paid licenses that are usually priced for salaried employees. Git integration might also be a bonus as I am intending to manage my projects using git repositories
It does.
I mean I myself am not a dev, only did some programming in school but not like I would know how to program a backend or a frontend. 😅
I know even less about linux or networking but I setup an old laptop with LinuxMint and made a server out of it (I know LM isnt a good server OS but I am not good with the terminal, so thats the compronise I did). I now selfhost Jellyfin and some more stuff. I would probably be able to setup a trello like app in a afternoon, despite not being IT-trained
I would probably be able to setup a trello like app in a afternoon, despite not being IT-trained
😂
Wirh "set up" I mean selfhost, not develop. Thats not unreasonable, right? I installed jellyfin in a few with mounting drives and stuff, all with learning linux itself. So now selfhosting a further service is not that much of an effort. Of course it depends on the documentation and plug-and-play-readyness of the service
Are any of those FOSS alts actually as good as Trello?
That's a genuine question. I've been trying to find a trello replacement and so far I've had no real luck.
FocalBoard from MatterMost is pretty good. It doesn't have feature parity with Trello-- that's out of reach for almost everybody-- but it does pretty much everything I want. Plus it's FOSS, so you can extend it if you want (and are capable).
That’s terrifying.