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Comment by jeswin | Hacker News Reader

> While IFTTT’s dream is for all companies to play nicely together via its open platform...

A closed-source integration service is not an open platform, and this is especially relevant when it is an integration platform. I am betting (and building something towards the same ends) on more people embracing and promoting open alternatives than at any time before. IFTTT's market is huge. There are millions of programmers around the world who'll never write any code outside work, and they vastly outnumber the rest of us. The next step in open and free software will be making coding, forking and deploying apps as easy as editing Wikipedia.

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> There are millions of programmers around the world who'll never write any code outside work, and they vastly outnumber the rest of us.

You mean the programmers with healthy work-life balance that have better things to do than waste their free time staring at a text editor? The implication that these "other programmers" are inferior in some way and require IFTTT to integrate services is quite offensive to me.

"Inferior" is a strong word, but coders who are not given time at work to improve their skills (this is usually the case) and who never code/read about coding outside of work stagnate. I've interviewed many people like this - decades of experience, impressive sounding resume - who couldn't do fizzBuzz.

I would prefer to hire someone who has work/life balance and codes for fun on their own time over someone who's strictly a 9-5 developer.

I'm guessing you're exaggerating here but I'm curious - how could someone with decades of experience not do FizzBuzz? I can't wrap my head around it.

> waste their free time staring at their text editor

Is this how you see programming?

Something tells me you wouldn't be a very good programmer.

"Why would a sculptor waste their free time hammering rocks?"

Programming is really fun and cool. But there are other fun and cool things that are not programming. I'm sure sculptors also take brakes from hammering rocks.

> The next step in open and free software will be making coding, forking and deploying apps as easy as editing Wikipedia.

Github?

Even better: Github + Heroku Button (or similar but more open)

https://blog.heroku.com/archives/2014/8/7/heroku-button

Dokku?

> A closed-source integration service is not an open platform.

I believe that Github is exactly what the OP is complaining about.

I've been waiting for this for literally a decade! Before that, it used to be true on desktop platforms like Windows and Linux - not so on the web and for apps.

There have been many attempts. Things like http://sandstorm.io/ are the latest attempts to try and change this.

> The next step in open and free software will be making coding, forking and deploying apps as easy as editing Wikipedia.

I've been working on something along these lines for quite a while now. I've temporarily taken down the landing page while I get all the ducks in a row and put up the new one, but if you send an email to contact@loggur.com, I'll make sure to contact you when Loggur launches.

We should launch within the next week or two!

Maybe we should use the dns servers for different services? I guess something like a mail record but with PICTURES instead of mail to point to you picture server

I'm really excited about huginn as an open alternative.

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