Tradesman here… This is very nice. Good looking .pdf's, lots of templates…

I'm trying not to be negative, because this is a very nice platform… But, who is it for? The smaller shops will do most of this by hand, even still. The larger shops will have these features integrated into a management software ecosystem.

Tradesmen will take the path of least possible resistance to their objective. Unlike the IT/IS crowd… downloading (and/or integrating into our work-flow, in the case of an online service) yet another library/program/engine is usually one of the last solutions we'll go after.

Again, this is very nice software, but… I don't see too many of us using it.

Especially whereas one of the big selling points, is the library of templates… but, a plumber is never going to need an electrician's template… I say, don't bother going after tradesmen. Pimp this out to other software vendors. I don't know that ecosystem very well, at all, but I imagine that .pdf aaS will find a wider market with them as a plug-in of sorts, than with the operative crowd.

Just my two cents. Cool stuff, though.

edit: hurrdedurr…

Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to respond to each part.

- the ones who do this by hand - they need to keep track of individual files etc, fill them manually each time - i try to solve it for them.

- the larger shops - i am not targeting them and i don't think i compete with bigger platforms here, that's where my price comes into play - cheaper than anything else, without the extra features - it's a clear tool, usable anywhere.

When i decided to build something for tradespeople, i validated this in another market(another country, but a subset of these trades) where "people wanted to create PDFs for their services, and send it to customers". And it worked, it's somewhat successful (hundreds of paying users, almost all renewed their yearly, price is too small to matter as a yearly cost).

I think "no bullshit" tools for this market(0-5 employees) are missing, or are expesive/monthly/per user etc. I think they are wrong.

I also think that the selling point is not the big library - once you're in, you will have the option to only see stuff you actually use, but the clarity and ease of use(lessons learned from the other market) + the output that you care about, FAST.

I'm trying to validate and integrate feedback.

I hope i answered all your points.

Bogdan

edit: formatting

That's neat. Just like Cyber+ … I don't know that there's a big market for a discrete "language" here, though.

Have you considered releasing these as a library? There're some good reference implementations in here.

Not that you asked… But I would be happy with a junior position writing production C or ASM - but I assume that those sorts of positions are on the other end of the same boat. Who the hell has any use for an amateur dev. with an autistic fascination and _zero_ practical experience?

Someone here shared an article here, recently, espousing something along the lines of "home garden programming." I see software development moving in this direction, just like machining did: Either in a space-age shop, that looks more like a lab, with a fix-axis "machining center," or in the garage with Grandpappy's clapped out Atlas - and nothing in between.

Illuminati? That game was ripper. Good times…

Universities produce research, and students; Students produce industry, and the body politic; Industry and polity produce university funding.

A cycle I like to call, the "ring-bugger."

I'm not saying it's right, or acceptable, or particularly moral… But I agree that by obscuring the facts, we only serve to confound the decent and good-willed of our students.

Edit: derp.

As a non-member of the exalted-many who get to hack for a living-

I agree. The nature of the machine, is to crush the artisanry and joy from the task. However, you can't beat it, so…

I use the miserable things as "research accelerators." I have neither the time, nor the capacity to sustain the BAC necessary, to parse all of the sources and documentation of the various systems in which I'm liable to take interest. I very rarely ask them to "do ${task} for me," but rather: "What is the modern approach to ${task}? And, how do I avoid that and do ${task} in the spirit of Unix?” "Has anyone already done ${task} well?" "Are there any examples of people attempting ${task} and failing spectacularly?"

If you treat it like your boss, it'll act like your boss. If you treat it like your assistant, it'll act like your assistant.

Edit: derp.

Lurked for >10y here. Created an account just to say, "+1 well said."