Development Direction of Connectatron

[connorjak]

As of the start of May 2022, there are a few key items that sum up the status of Connectatron's development:

1. The GitHub Actions build is broken, which breaks CI/CD Fix Actions build #24. This means any releases I make are copy pasted by hand, which is unsustainable. I need help fixing this.
2. The application is shaping up quite well, but as is probably necessary for any software project, a large refactor of core tech is probably necessary to better reflect the scope and status of the intended features. Quite a few of the open features require replacing functionality.
3. This type of application would benefit from web-integrated features, but that is way outside of scope for now. The most that would be doable would be a FTP client that downloads Connectatron-compatible files based on a given URL.
4. I am not a UI/UX expert, so a design pass by someone with more experience in this realm would likely greatly improve the application for inexperienced users.

Connectatron for the Average Techie

I want this application, or at least its core data structures, to be adopted by people like Linus Media Group's LTT Labs, and other systematic hardware review organizations (RTings, etc). It would be great if the average tech-minded user could find a Connectatron-compatible file alongside a review for a product they are considering, and be able to see if that product is compatible with their unique assortment of hardware built up over the years. This kind of software already exists for the internal desktop PC components market with apps like PCPartPicker and various system-integrator configurator tools, but as far as I can tell the only similar software to Connectatron on the internet now is Newegg's Cable Finder tool.

Connectatron for the Professional

I also want Connectatron to be useful for people doing professional or semi-professional tasks involving purpose-built and/or complex hardware designs. This would be projects like robotics, IoT networks, IT planning/administration, server farms, etc. Connectatron would be a resource where you can learn about the hundreds of existing standards and how they interact in a computer system. Ideally, Connectatron files could be a more interactive form of datasheet which allows better direct comparisons than reading PDFs or looking through part catalogs.

My motivations and intentions

I first made Connectatron in an attempt to fully document my exceedingly complicated desktop computer setup. My desktop computer setup is currently the test project file I'm using for development. I am very interested in the history and bleeding edge of computer connectors and protocols, which drove me to make what is probably the most complete database of those besides Wikipedia. I have been inspired to continue to work on this project by the gradual proliferation of computer hardware standards, and the general direction of the industry to consolidate dozens of protocols into single connectors like USB-C. There seems to be no publicly available software that does what Connectatron does, so I believe it's my duty to spend some of my free time making it available to the world. I considered making Connectatron paid software earlier on in its development, but I am way too busy with other things to do marketing or anything resembling customer support. I would rather foster an open-source community around what I see as an aggregator of public standards information. This is also a good project for my portfolio as a software engineer and hardware standards expert.