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If you don't have coding skills, why don't you help foss software by making it more user friendly instead? (lemmy.giftedmc.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Disclaimer

Not trying to blame anyone here. I‘m just taking an idea I‘ve read and spinning it further:

Intro

A lot of people use free open source software (foss), Linux being one of them. But a lot less actually help make this software. If I ask them why, they always say „I don’t have the coding skills!“.

Maybe its worth pointing out that you don‘t need them. In a lot of cases it’s better to not have any so you can see stuff with a „consumer view“.

In that situation you can file issues on github and similar places. You can write descriptions that non technical people can understand. You can help translate and so on, all depending on your skills.

Other reasons?

I‘d really like to know so the foss community can talk about making it worthwile for non coders to participate.

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[–] chitak166 21 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I think a major deterrent from contributing things that aren't code is that whoever is implementing it might think their design is better just because it's theirs.

Try talking to the GNOME team, for example. You will never be able to get a suggestion past them because they're always right and you're always wrong.

Even when you prove them wrong and they backpedal, they are still correct and you are still wrong.

[–] LoKout 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I ran into basically this with home assistant. Commented on an issue about an integration to point out that it didn't work at all, and to support another user that had rewritten it in a way that fixed it. The approval dev jumped in to say that they only permit single changes to be approved. That's fine, I guess, but to fix the issue multiple changes were necessary. The user that had rewritten it then tried to limit the change to a single fix, but because that didn't resolve the issue they blocked the change. The integration still doesn't work and the user stopped trying to fix it.

[–] chitak166 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I totally believe you.

That kind of rigidity in software design leads me to believe more people need to read The Pragmatic Programmer.

I, of course, do not; because I am already a pragmatic programmer.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Gee if someone wants to fix an issue they can be my guest, that way I don't have to deal with it. It's not that people aren't pragmatic it's that they are little generals of their own world and they don't want to give that up even if it would make the world better.

I've met some absolute Napoleon's in my time programming. I don't know what it is that attracts them, perhaps it's that programmers historically tend not to have very good social skills in general? I don't know, but it's weird. You'd think they'd all be total nerds and be somewhat deferent, but nope.

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