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Ask HN: Is There a DoorDash for Developers?

2 points by kbrannigan ↗ HN
Imagine a platform where you get a stream of Micro development tasks. Like:

- Fix server log : $30 - Fix this bug: $15 - Convert css files to scss: $17 - Write these tests: 50$

Once finished, you'd get another task. No crazy commitments, just familiarity with the domain, tooling or languages.

Once the tasks is completed, you submit a PR and it's either accepted or revised.

Then you get paid.

6 comments

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scombridae
This belies a complete misunderstanding of how software is built and maintained.
oblib
Well, yeah, but it's only a brief description of a service concept and they did that well enough.
soueuls
Financially not worth it, the amount of time it takes to just figure out how to build/run the project + the time it takes to figure out the general architectures / file arborescence is too big.

But if someone marketed it as "a way to practice programming and move from high beginner to low intermediate skill on real world projects" it could work.

oblib
I had a student ask me if he could work with me for free so I gave him a few tasks to do. He did great work on them.

When he graduated he asked me for a letter of recommendation and I gladly wrote one for him. He used it to apply for a job at a big corporation and they put him to work fixing Y2k issues in their very old software.

I've long since lost touch with him but have no doubt he's done well.

oblib
I used to run a website called "Perlhelp.com" and would do that.

I got some work from it, but I also lost my ass a few times because I didn't charge up front and there was one particular guy who'd tell me after I sent them a solution "I've already got this done".

Since I couldn't review his code I couldn't know if he used my code, but I do suspect he did screw me at least a few times and I had to decline his requests for help after a few too many times of that.

There was also getting up to speed on the real cause of the issue they were having. That can require some time regardless of your proficiency with a particular language.

I think concept is good, but I'm not sure a fixed rate to "Fix this issue" can work out well for both parties all the time.

Nocerg
Wouldn't this introduce a vast amount of security challenges for both parties? Additionally, what if the code you produce also has an unintended bug?

Obviously there's a lot of outstanding questions!

I love the idea in isolation. Perhaps I'm missing something but this seems difficult to accomplish.