Oddbean

Many of the client #devs would be better analysts/designers/testers/sysadmins than "devs", but clout on here only goes to devs, so we're ending up with a gazillion half-finished, buggy projects nobody uses, and that get quickly abandoned, and the better stuff doesn't get enough traffic because everyone who could provide actionable feedback is off tinkering. There's almost nobody to do the technical stuff that isn't as glamorous but is the difference between being permanently stuck in scriptkiddie hell or having production-ready systems. More appreciation for non-dev roles, please. For starters, stop asking people "... and what did you build?", like nobody has a right to speak on development topics unless they've hacked together some bullshit microblogger nobody will ever use. That isn't even proof that they could pass CompSci 101, ffs. /rant

This is a status question, primarily. Humans are naturally reluctant to do work that is unappreciated because their time and energy is limited. They have to choose and prioritize their efforts. Even if I think something is important, if I don't eventually see other people joining me in that important work, I start to think, "Am I wrong? Is this actually unimportant work and I just missed some memo?"

I've mostly stopped giving feedback on my experience as a user of various apps for the reasons you listed. I have experience working with directly with clients to build web applications and typically use that experience to tell devs what average people are likely to think about certain UX, bugs, etc (because I used to make money doing that). The problem for me has been that my feedback is usually taken personally and it gets fucking exhausting. I just don't care to do it anymore. My experience professionally had the benefit of economic incentives. Companies lost money from UX that didn't work. I figured out what the customers didn't like and fixed it. There was an economic feedback mechanism. Here, it's just "what have YOU done?" or some variation of being told to basically fuck off. It honestly feels like you don't matter unless you're specifically writing code on something (I have, just not for Nostr yet). The messaging has been super elitist in my experience. And I'm not getting paid (I actually send sats to devs), so it's pretty easy to fuck off. /rant

This is largely why the companies I worked at mostly kept the developers hidden from clients. Starting my own company forced me to actually interact with clients and users as a developer. It was really fucking hard, and I quickly learned why companies usually have a bridge between the two. It's a unique skill that seemingly isn't valued here.

I think some devs actually do appreciate it. At least, they manage to give me that impression. But the wider community is a bit antogonistic, IME. It's often seen as being disrespectful or meddling, or being a groupie or something. It's all very "Those who can, code. Those who can't, test." Especially galling, when someone spouts that crap whose own code is full of bugs and looks like it was written by a bad AI. Because it probably was. LOL

There was one who was really terrible about this. I told him that he has a bad attitude and wouldn't last long, and he responded by threatening me, but he's gone. https://media.tenor.com/kwow6JIOPw8AAAAC/perfect-prediction-again-right-prediction.gif

Yeah, but I really would like to see Nostr succeed. I hope the right people see this and care. Because frankly, most people aren't going to deal with the things that people like us are willing to. I ultimately just want to make it as clean as possible for the people who aren't as ideological or technical as me.

Yeah, occupying a different role brings a different viewpoint. I see it when I do code something and someone else tries it out and immediately points out stuff that I didn't notice, but that is obvious when they say it. Or I'll work on a build script and someone who does nothing but that all day will be like, "Have you tried..." Nope. Had no idea that was even a thing. 😅

We have the opposite problem of corporations, where there is one person coding and 100 people helping him. We have 100 people coding and 1 person helping them all. Like this meme, but the tester, sys-admin, back-end dev, designer, or marketer is in the pit. 😅 https://i.nostr.build/EjtFGwhik34HkMof.png

We need to expand the concept of "builders". Is the only builder the person who owns the repo, or does it include, in a wider sense, the people helping that person work more efficiently and effectively? Can we define project teams? Or are we destined to stay every-dev-for-himself? I mean, as nice as it is to be a dev, being the Product Owner and Senior Dev of a project team is probably even nicer. Just saying. Think about where you want your project to be next year or in 5 years. Will you get there alone?

I guess that's the difference. Public status, from users and funders and journalists, comes from being Ze Dev. Support roles tend to only have "project-internal status". I.e. only the people working on the project care about their effort. So devs who give people in support roles the feeling that they care about their work, and that they're part of a team, will get more work out of them. Everyone else will get less. I've been slowly distilling my focus down to helping a few particular devs, because they seem to value it, most. I think those are the devs with the longest-term potential because they know how to motivate staff. They're the people I can picture running a company.

Yeah, it isn't a perfect comparison, but some of the things corps do are done for a reason and work better. They don't necessarily focus on what the perfect answer is, but what AN answer is that gets the job done. I can tell you for sure that telling people like me to fuck off won't be good in the long run. Average people aren't going to install a specific keyboard from a GitHub repo to 'fix' editor bugs that have existed the entire time I've used Nostr (it's still there, on multiple devices and keyboards). This is a real interaction I had with a Dev. There are a lot of very basic issues that have taken the backseat to additional features and no one seems to care. I'm not installing a specific keyboard just to use a Nostr client and neither will most normies. It's like building a house on a half-finished foundation. I don't get it, especially when people are testing and telling them about issues for free. I just stop funding and using those apps and move on at this point. There isn't much else I can or will do for those projects.

I think building teams, is the answer. People think that's just something for larger projects, but projects tend to get large because they have a team. One person doesn't scale that well. I'm not sure how to help other devs find their team. It took me months of scouring the feeds, all day, to find those people, and I needed to find 20 in order to end up with a handful of solid ones. If you have lots of money on offer, you probably get more candidates, but most drift off, again, or are half-hearted. There are easier ways to make money.

Part of the personality of creative folks I'm afraid...I"ve seen so many unfishined projects--devs get excited with a new idea, do a proof of concept, prove to themselves it'll work (or run into a roadblock that they'll "get to later") and then...the next cool idea comes along. Not sure what it is, but it seems very common - and often a characteristic of many of the most creative devs. It's like they need a partner (or partners) to actually polish and finish their work when they move on to the next thing. One more indication that code is much more of an "art" than folks realize...

Ohh I did send that unfinished thought 😂 I think it's a general "problem" with open source software that most devs just do what they find interesting, what is fun or exciting and new. People often do this work for free and their spare time because they have fun doing it. Writing production ready software, optimizing UX, testing, fixing bugs and rolling out a solid product to a large audience is hard and tedious work. This is what developers usually don't like to do and what companies need to pay them for a substantial amount of money. This is also something where the support of a product team can help with motivation working towards are shared goal.