I’m not complaining, but I didn’t realize how much work it was. It makes me really respect the people who do it on a regular basis.

For example:

  • You know how to use your software, but other people don’t. So you need to write documentation.
  • You can just modify the source files, but it’s impractical for everyone to do that. So you need to add a config file.
  • You can just drag the output files into place, but that’s impractical for everyone to do. So you need to package it.
  • You trust yourself, but distro maintainers rightfully don’t. So you need to package your source code and configure the package to compile it.
  • You will abide by your idea of how the software should be used, but other people might not. So you need to pick a license.

Sometimes I think there must be an easier way, but I can’t think of any. I guess it probably gets easier with experience.

  • Zeth0s@lemmy.world
    36·
    2 years ago

    That’s why engineers are, on average, paid more than researchers… And why research is such a nicer job.

    Create robust and easy-to-use stuff is tough and you don’t get much reward

    • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
      13·
      2 years ago

      But if anything goes wrong or doesn’t work right, suddenly the users remember who deserves recognition

      • Zeth0s@lemmy.world
        11·
        2 years ago

        Not really, they’ll complain, open an incident and tell engineers they “are amateur, my grandmother could do better”

    • pexavc@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 years ago

      I’ve been attempting to build systems to make this “robustness” redundant across all my works, but I always feel there’s something more that I missed. I can’t tell if this task is simply never-ending or I just lack the knowledge of covering all the dots from the get-go or both.

      • DetectiveSanity@lemmy.world
        1·
        11 months ago

        Those are signs of an ever evolving/improving mind! You continue to perfect your craft and as such your older self is less efficient, perfect and organised.

  • svetlyak40wt@lemmy.ml
    21·
    2 years ago

    I’ve seen a chart where software development complexity grows 3 times on each of these steps. For example:

    • implement a business logic: 1 day
    • cover with tests: 1 * 3 = 3 days
    • write documentation: 1 * 3 * 3 = 9 days
    • make it installable by other users: 1 * 3 * 3 * 3 = 27 days
  • fafff@lemmy.ml
    13·
    2 years ago

    Documentation is very useful today (to clarify our thoughts on what is useful and what is not, what is in scope and what is not), and for our future selves.

    Writing small bits of software made me appreciative of the work teams put on large pieces of infrastructure!

    • thirdBreakfast@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      2 years ago

      Hard agree on helping out your future self. I routinely drop a commands.md file in every project now, and dump any commands in there for creating the dev environment, the build step, any thoughts that might help when I come back in five years.

  • Caboose12000@lemmy.world
    8·
    2 years ago

    I’ve never worked on an open source project before but what you’re describing are all my favorite parts of working on my personal projects so far. lol maybe if I get an actually useful project idea I’ll finally become an open source dev

    • notabot@lemm.ee
      5·
      2 years ago

      If you enjoy writing documentation, creating tests or handling packaging there is any number of open source projects out there that would love your help. If you see a project that interests you at all, get stuck in!

  • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
    5·
    2 years ago

    I write config files for my own stuff I use FWIW but yeah you’re right lol open-source software is much more work. Still it’s rewarding though to be able to share your cool software with the world.

  • shiroininja@lemmy.world
    5·
    2 years ago

    Yeah, when I released the alpha of my first open source app, boy I had a lot of work to do when I started getting feedback