[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What's a software project that made people's...
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Ask HN: What's a software project that made people's lives better?
What's a software project you've worked on that's had a positive
impact in people's lives, or made it better in some way?
Author : agomez314
Score : 11 points
Date : 2024-10-08 19:21 UTC (3 hours ago)
| JSDevOps wrote:
| My trading algorithms have been profitable, and I enjoy the
| freedom that money brings. I appreciate the things it allows me
| to buy and the experiences it unlocks. More importantly, it
| positively impacts the people around me
| Imanari wrote:
| Would you mind giving some insight to your approach?
| reducesuffering wrote:
| I've gotten early feedback that my project https://exoroad.com is
| helping people find US places that are a better match for them to
| move to.
| qup wrote:
| I did a re-write of a website for a highly-rated charity
| organization. They solicit monies to fund orphanages, build
| homes, and sponsor individual children in one specific country.
|
| They were changing processors and backend CRMs and it was a big
| project that I handled as the only dev in a small shop.
|
| The transition went well and I didn't disrupt the millions in
| donations the site takes in each year.
|
| My work was small compared to that of the volunteers in the
| organization, though. It's cool to see what you can do with code
| --really some powerful leverage we wield.
| qup wrote:
| I also recently volunteered to do a digital project for a
| volunteer group I'm part of. I built a feature for their
| website that shows local River levels in a color-coded manner
| to determine if it's a good time to float or not.
|
| The USGS data is hard to read, this makes it easier.
| pedalpete wrote:
| I've had 2 (so far)
|
| I was part of a team which built a very early telehealth
| platform. A bunch of the work was open-sourced as rtc.io (though
| I didn't have much to do with that). The resulting company and
| tech is used by a few million people a month (I think).
|
| I built an ML system used at a large drop-ship retailer which
| ingested huge excel spreadsheets of products from suppliers and
| added them to the retailers database in a consistent manner. This
| made a painstaking and horrible job for 12 people into a job that
| was done by 2 people 2 hours per week. Yes, we replaced people in
| their jobs, and I hope they all went on to get better jobs,
| because everyone hated that job, and most people only lasted a
| few months.
|
| I also was founder of Ayvri (3d mapping sports tech for
| paragliders) - I don't put this in the same category as the
| others, though it was the most lucrative for me, because though
| paragliders loved it, as did a few ultramarathoners, etc. I don't
| think it really had the level of impact.
|
| For the last 4 years the team I worked with in telehealth have
| returned to our health roots and are working on improving sleep
| with affectablesleep.com
| jventura wrote:
| > I also was founder of Ayvri (3d mapping sports tech for
| paragliders) - I don't put this in the same category as the
| others, though it was the most lucrative for me, because though
| paragliders loved it, as did a few ultramarathoners, etc. I
| don't think it really had the level of impact.
|
| I used to paraglide, and I remember it as Doarama. It was quite
| used by paragliders, especially in some videos. Personally I
| liked it in the beginning, but people started to abuse it, and
| sometimes the videos would consist mostly on the doarama scene
| (with a voice over). I would skip those parts of the video, or
| close the video after some time. It wasn't the same as watching
| a real video capture from the terrain, which I did prefer..
| LarryMade2 wrote:
| This was a software project for me, wanted something that lets me
| know what things to do in the area, where are shops, what are
| their hours, how to contact them, etc. Not only for businesses
| but for public spaces (say you wanted to rent the local park for
| an event-contact info is there), also event information, local
| notices, etc.) I've used it several times checking if some store
| in the town I'm headed is open (go to the local info page, then
| click on the facebook link and see if it is actually open) as
| well as a place to point others local resources (like where can
| we hold a wedding near town X).
|
| https://doplaces.com After ten years I've learned it's to get
| people to submit information (even if listings are free) also has
| been a challenge for this semi-introverted programmer to market
| it.
|
| Another project (for my employer) we have had a printed community
| resource directory for decades this helps people find local
| government/aid resources for families and has got recognition for
| its handyness in emergencies. I have created a web version - the
| notable part on this one is putting in a facility so those on
| mobile can (via cookies) select favorites and write notes
| associated on those for later reference.
| https://rr.trcac.org/resdir.htm I guess the other challenge in
| this area is we are rural and a good portion of the population is
| not all that well connected or tech savvy. The paper one still
| currently wins out over the on-line version.
| Clubber wrote:
| I rewrote a scheduling system used in hospitals. This was when
| hospitals switched to centralized scheduling. It was a rule based
| AI engine that made sure patients would get the earliest possible
| appointment given x resources of y types required. There were 30
| or so types of rules (it's been a few years now) and a great
| puzzle.
| mergisi wrote:
| I built AI2sql https://ai2sql.io/ , a tool that helps people
| generate SQL queries from natural language. It's been great to
| see how it simplifies working with databases, especially for
| those who find SQL syntax challenging or time-consuming. Users
| have told me it's made their workflow faster and allowed them to
| focus on building out their projects without getting bogged down
| in query writing. It's been really rewarding to see how it's made
| data handling more accessible for many!
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