Ask HN: Any way for everyday programmers to help solve important problems?

Re:Ask HN: Any way for everyday programmers to help solve im... by culopatin on Wednesday September 08, 2021 @10:02AM (#28457144)

Yes! My girlfriend is in cell biology and they desperately need help. All their apps require complicated setup which is only complicated because no one wrote the documentation, or it’s now outdated. These guys are passionate about algae and can handle Excel, but the terminal is not their friend. My gf started learning R but she has me in the house. Others are completely lost.

I started helping them out and I don’t even go to their school. I have a meeting with her PI tomorrow to work out the reqs of software project that caught my interest. It should help thousands of biologists if I figure it out.

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Re:Ask HN: Any way for everyday programmers to help solve im... by denvaar on Wednesday September 08, 2021 @11:03AM (#28458119)

That's cool. I realized the same thing when I was a student. I worked as a sys admin for the school's high performance computing cluster. One of the biggest parts of the job was helping researchers get their programs to compile and run. Though it was a student job, it was one of the most rewarding jobs I've had in my career.

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