Would you like to be able to get quick answers from a developer?
There are now many platforms available to reduce the technical knowledge required to get a product or service off the ground. However, I imagine there are still times when input from someone with technical knowledge is invaluable and a time-saver.
Even as a developer, working solo, I sometimes wish I could speak to someone without having to post on some forum and hope that I get a response. I'm toying with an idea to give "lay people" more direct access to tech people, but trying to determine if there's a real need for it.
Am I way of base here?
Hi Nontrepreneur,
You set up the case for developers needing better access to developers pretty well and then jump to "lay people" - not getting what lay people have to do with anything.
Also forget developer working solo, even a developer not working solo has no access to a broader knowledge base. Take for instance
https://github.com/Uclusion/uclusion_sdk/commit/ccd115e2df3ca5fdf3db650792838c6aac0a868b
Yes we can ask about fetch wrappers on a forum once we hit issues with them but that's a very frustrating way to develop.
When a developer hits a problem that slows him down he should be able to post the problem and the solution in an organized way so that other developers don't hit the same pothole.
Well, the the core idea was giving non-technical people access to technical people (as the services I mention mean less-technical people can achieve more technical results through these platforms). But I also acknowledged that techies too need efficient access to other techies sometimes. Both these groups can be better served but was thinking more so about the former.
I don't think giving access to people makes sense. Doesn't scale. You should separate the problem statement, "Allow developers to help others development more." from your current solution statement, "Give access to technical people."
I agree with your problem statement - broadly defined but there are other solutions than your solution statement and forums. I'm thinking that developers could organize some sort of FAQ / frequently encountered problems for other developers instead of just answering questions piecemeal.
Could you explain why you think it doesn't scale?
Also, the problem statement was never (specifically) "allow developers to help other developers", I think that was more your interpretation. Perhaps it's a better/more manageable problem to solve. I'm trying to determine if the other aspect is a problem to solve too.
Sure it doesn't scale because people are very guarding of their synchronous time. Our product, Uclusion, was designed to make all access to their help asynchronous. The forums you mention already also work that way. Current trends in remote working are only increasing that limitation on unguarded access.
Or look just in terms of this conversation we are having - I don't mind spending time asynchronously answering your questions. It doesn't break the concentration I need while I am coding or get in the way of cooking dinner etc. Us talking live synchronously is a whole different matter.
Back to the problem statement. The problem I face as a developer is that most help I receive is reactive.
There are very few good sources of proactive help. The problems we hit using React are somewhat universal. I can write an NPM package to try to help the next guy but that's overkill or not a good fit for a lot of what we faced.
Thanks for explaining your perspective. Your comments have been very helpful!