Software Is About Promises
a year ago
- #case-study
- #software-development
- #user-promises
- Software is about making promises to users, balancing abstract possibilities with real-world constraints.
- Software's dual nature as both abstract and real allows for infinite possibilities but is limited by developer resources.
- Good or bad software can scale quickly, but creativity and development cannot be effectively parallelized.
- A software's promise must be clear and testable to avoid overpromising and underdelivering.
- Case Study: Your Commonbase (YCB) is personal library science software focusing on store, search, synthesize, and share functions.
- YCB Beta's store promise includes capturing text, images, and URLs from iOS, Chrome, or Companion, with features like Vision model captions.
- Search in YCB Beta allows semantic search and scrolling, using Meilisearch and vector embeddings for efficient retrieval.
- Synthesis in YCB enables users to add commentary and link ideas, though it currently lacks audio/video support.
- Share functionality in YCB is limited but includes sharing screenshots and direct URLs, with future expansions planned.
- Promises in software protect developers, users, and the software's integrity, guiding resource allocation and future development.