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I consider this whenever I see someone saying that “such and such” text editor needs to “be more like vscode”. Trying to out do Microsoft’s paid development tea

I consider this whenever I see someone saying that “such and such” text editor needs to “be more like vscode”. Trying to out do Microsoft’s paid development team is a losing game. You will always be a second place player. And no one wants a crappy vscode clone. But as the article says, you don’t have to focus on the lowest common denominator, but can instead build an incredible experience for the small set of people who want it.

pixl97 5y ago
Which small set of users do you choose to optimise for?
- legobmw99 5y ago
  My guess is the answer is something like “the group most similar to yourself”
- void_mint 5y ago
  Some intersection of "The users that gave the most interesting or thoughtful feedback" and "The users who are closest to the original intent of the tool."
- krisoft 5y ago
  It is your free time, you build it to whoever you want it to. Most often this will be you and people similar to you. Less often you build it for a friend and people like them, or an organization you care about and organizations like them.
- Scarblac 5y ago
  You.
- Torwald 5y ago
  Depends who do you want to serve. Here is an historic example: the GIMP. AFAIK the original purpose the software was intended to serve was to create merchandise, I think post cards, from fotos to sell at a stand. Compare that to Photoshop whose original intend was to make images ready for print production, you see two very different set of users. Photoshop filters got their name from studio lightning filters, a technical term completely logical to it's intended audience. Everybody who did movies/fotos in the pre-digital era new what a filter was. This naming made the Photoshop menu and concept intuitive, thus raising it's usability.
- jlokier 5y ago
  I think that's a tough question. The replies that suggest just yourself, people like you, friends etc don't provide satisfaction to those people who gain the most satisfaction from building things large numbers of other people want to use and ideally enjoy using. I'm happy to write/build little things for myself, friends and other small groups up to a point. But the motivation is limited. I don't see myself putting in 1000 hours polishing something like that, as it feels like a waste of limited lifespan. It's just not fun. Whereas I'll happily put in 5000 hours to a project that I feel is, or could be, making a noticable, useful and liked difference to the lives of millions of people. It some level of psychology that's satisfying, a kind of deeper fun. Don't ask me why it makes a difference how many people are affected. I don't have a good answer. I know there are many people who don't feel this way, because they say so. But it seems to be how some people are wired. But there's that pesky scaling problem. So which people and which projects to focus on? I think it's a dilemma that a lot of people struggle with in times of creative freedom who are wired that way, and I have yet to recognise any really good articles or guidance on resolving it.
osbzvyzaa 5y ago
I dont contribute to open source these days cause of the amount of drama. But what I do is fork and add stuff that I find useful or want. Eventually someone or the other finds it and if they care enough pulls it in. I find this much better than convincing open source gatekeepers, who already have their brains overloaded, to accept pull requests.
- chii 5y ago
  > fork and add stuff that I find useful or want this is the whole premise of open-source originally. If the "fork" is good, either the up-stream takes the changes, or the fork becomes the official one. This will be determined by the users of the program.
  - kiba 5y ago
    I feel free and open source software's promises is still yet unrealized since I don't do these sort of things, and probably neither do most programmers. I know that Free software is about freedom first and foremost not whether we take advantage of these freedoms, and that it has many ancillary effects on our privacy right and keeping old hardware running and all...
- tomxor 5y ago
  > I dont contribute to open source these days cause of the amount of drama. I've seen the drama (from a distance) in some large FOSS projects, but there is a sea of small one-person or small group projects which are usually a pleasure to contribute to - they usually entail nice simple, small scale, person-to-person interactions, not massive discussions and red taping - it's fun :)

pixl97 5y ago

Which small set of users do you choose to optimise for?

legobmw99 5y ago
My guess is the answer is something like “the group most similar to yourself”
void_mint 5y ago
Some intersection of "The users that gave the most interesting or thoughtful feedback" and "The users who are closest to the original intent of the tool."
krisoft 5y ago
It is your free time, you build it to whoever you want it to. Most often this will be you and people similar to you. Less often you build it for a friend and people like them, or an organization you care about and organizations like them.
Scarblac 5y ago
You.
Torwald 5y ago
Depends who do you want to serve. Here is an historic example: the GIMP. AFAIK the original purpose the software was intended to serve was to create merchandise, I think post cards, from fotos to sell at a stand. Compare that to Photoshop whose original intend was to make images ready for print production, you see two very different set of users. Photoshop filters got their name from studio lightning filters, a technical term completely logical to it's intended audience. Everybody who did movies/fotos in the pre-digital era new what a filter was. This naming made the Photoshop menu and concept intuitive, thus raising it's usability.
jlokier 5y ago
I think that's a tough question. The replies that suggest just yourself, people like you, friends etc don't provide satisfaction to those people who gain the most satisfaction from building things large numbers of other people want to use and ideally enjoy using. I'm happy to write/build little things for myself, friends and other small groups up to a point. But the motivation is limited. I don't see myself putting in 1000 hours polishing something like that, as it feels like a waste of limited lifespan. It's just not fun. Whereas I'll happily put in 5000 hours to a project that I feel is, or could be, making a noticable, useful and liked difference to the lives of millions of people. It some level of psychology that's satisfying, a kind of deeper fun. Don't ask me why it makes a difference how many people are affected. I don't have a good answer. I know there are many people who don't feel this way, because they say so. But it seems to be how some people are wired. But there's that pesky scaling problem. So which people and which projects to focus on? I think it's a dilemma that a lot of people struggle with in times of creative freedom who are wired that way, and I have yet to recognise any really good articles or guidance on resolving it.

osbzvyzaa 5y ago

I dont contribute to open source these days cause of the amount of drama. But what I do is fork and add stuff that I find useful or want. Eventually someone or the other finds it and if they care enough pulls it in. I find this much better than convincing open source gatekeepers, who already have their brains overloaded, to accept pull requests.

chii 5y ago
> fork and add stuff that I find useful or want this is the whole premise of open-source originally. If the "fork" is good, either the up-stream takes the changes, or the fork becomes the official one. This will be determined by the users of the program.
- kiba 5y ago
  I feel free and open source software's promises is still yet unrealized since I don't do these sort of things, and probably neither do most programmers. I know that Free software is about freedom first and foremost not whether we take advantage of these freedoms, and that it has many ancillary effects on our privacy right and keeping old hardware running and all...
tomxor 5y ago
> I dont contribute to open source these days cause of the amount of drama. I've seen the drama (from a distance) in some large FOSS projects, but there is a sea of small one-person or small group projects which are usually a pleasure to contribute to - they usually entail nice simple, small scale, person-to-person interactions, not massive discussions and red taping - it's fun :)