DEV Community: Shahriar Siraj Snigdho

3 weeks since I launched my Indie Project Management tool & already gained 165+ free users. Should I open-source it?

Shahriar Siraj Snigdho — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 00:42:37 +0000

Hey fellow developers,

It’s now been 3 weeks since I launched my mini Project Management SaaS tool for indie developers, which I originally built for myself: https://swiftboard.dev.

Over the years, I’ve built more than 10 different SaaS projects, but none of them have really made any money. So this time, I decided to build something around a real pain point I had.

Owning multiple projects made it increasingly difficult to manage them all—keeping track of where each one was hosted, where I bought the domains, their project repositories, API keys, and most importantly, their progress and tasks. I could’ve used Jira, Asana, Trello, or similar tools to manage tasks, but they all felt like overkill.

Most indie developers, myself included, typically spend 2-3 months (or even less) building a project, so I wanted something as simple as a note-taking app yet powerful enough to track my progress and oversee all project-related info in one place. That’s when I started building Swiftboard.dev.

Since launching, it has grown to 165+ free users, and while I introduced a paid plan at just $6/month, no one is converting. This makes me suspect that maintaining the project might become too costly in the long run.

A lot of developers have suggested making it open source so that others can contribute and help sustain it. I’m seriously considering it now, but I have some concerns:
• What are the best practices for open-sourcing a project like this?
• Is there a way to prevent people from simply copying the code, rebranding it, and launching their own version?
• Since it’s cloud-hosted, how do open-source projects typically handle ongoing maintenance costs if donations or sponsorships don’t cover them?

Would love to hear thoughts from anyone who has been through this!

Functional testing for web applications, what is it and why do you need it?

Shahriar Siraj Snigdho — Wed, 06 Sep 2023 18:29:46 +0000

Most of us have heard of Unit Testing or Integration testing or the PHPUnit framework if you're a PHP developer. But not so many people are well aware of Functional testing.

Functional testing for web applications is like checking if a website works as we expect it to do. It's about testing the different parts of a website, like buttons, links, forms, and more, to make sure they do what they're supposed to do.

Imagine you have a website for an online store. Functional testing would involve clicking on the Add to Cart button to see if it adds items to your shopping cart, filling out the shipping address form to ensure it saves the information, and clicking on links to different product pages to make sure they take you to the right places on the website. Functional testing helps find problems or "bugs" in a website so that they can be fixed before the website is used by real customers.

There are several tools and frameworks available for functional testing of web applications. Some popular ones include:

Selenium: Selenium is one of the most widely used frameworks for web application testing. It allows you to automate interactions with a website, like clicking buttons and filling out forms, and then check if the results are as expected.

Cypress: Cypress is a newer testing framework known for its ease of use and fast testing capabilities. It's particularly popular for testing modern web applications and single-page applications.

Puppeteer: Puppeteer is a Node.js library that provides a high-level API to control headless (invisible) versions of web browsers like Chrome. It's often used for tasks like web scraping and automated testing.

TestCafe: TestCafe is a cross-browser testing framework that doesn't require browser plugins. It's known for its simplicity and the ability to test web applications on different browsers and platforms.

Playwright: Playwright is a relatively new framework that supports testing web applications in multiple browsers (Chrome, Firefox, and WebKit) and is known for its speed and reliability.

Jest: While primarily known as a JavaScript testing framework, Jest can also be used for web application functional testing, especially when combined with libraries like Puppeteer or Playwright.

Additionally, there's a tool called TestAutomate.io, which enables users to create functional tests without any need for coding.

It follows a codeless approach, making it accessible to a broader range of users, including manual testers, QA engineers and business analysts. This can be advantageous for teams or individuals who want to automate their web application testing but may not have a background in programming.

TestAutomate.io also works as a website monitoring tool. It has a feature that lets you set a schedule for running tests automatically. If one of these tests fails, it will alert you by sending you an email right away.

This way you're notified if your website is down or if the checkout system has stopped working or if the latest deploy is breaking any previous changes.

Do you have another source of income other than the programming day job?

Shahriar Siraj Snigdho — Sun, 28 Mar 2021 21:01:35 +0000

Do you have another source of income other than the programming day job? Do you have any passive income? How do you make money from your side hussle?

Please share your experiences and suggestions on how to earn extra money as a programmer.

Speed up your Vanilla PHP coding test

Shahriar Siraj Snigdho — Tue, 22 Jan 2019 23:58:24 +0000

First of all, let me tell you a short story about myself. I'm a Full Stack developer living in Sweden who have been developing web applications using PHP, specially Laravel Framework for over 2 years. Lately, I was applying for web development jobs here in Sweden and for almost all applications, I got a coding test to be eligible for the next phase. And guess what? All the coding tests require to develop something simple but using raw (or vanilla) PHP without using any external libraries.

Sounds very simple, right? I also felt the same way and thought of finishing the coding test within a night. But since I was doing the development work using Laravel, when I actually started coding for the test, I realized that those simple things became really complicated. In Laravel, I didn't need to think about pretty urls, dynamic routes, sql injections, view & logic separations, etc etc. But with raw PHP, now I need to handle all of these and I cannot use any frameworks or packages.

So, I started writing codes keeping all of these in minds for each coding tests. After several tests, I realized that I, subconsciously, have created my own framework as I was using the same things again and again for the next tests. Then, I thought, why not create a repository that I can just clone and extend for future coding tests.

Here's the framework: https://github.com/ssnigdho/vanilla-php-framework

If you're in the same scenario as me and need to speed up your raw PHP development, feel free to use it.

You're most welcome if you find any bugs or want to contribute to it.

Good luck in your job hunting!

Are you all superhuman?

Shahriar Siraj Snigdho — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 02:25:21 +0000

Hello,

Recently I had couple of interviews on Web developer role. Though I've over 2 years of experience in PHP, unfortunately, I failed to answer some simple questions. I know that I could have answer them correctly if I could access my computer and write the code.

In my current or previous job, whenever I need to look up for some syntax, I just search it in Google and get the syntax or appropriate function done. But I never tried to memorized them all.

With the experiences of my previous interviews, it seems like I have to, now, memorize everything about PHP or any language that I want to work with.

Is it something I'm doing wrong? Or how do you memorize everything?

UPDATE:
I've recently got a call from the company where I was interviewed. And guess what? I got the job.. :-)

Is it that hard to get a job in Europe?

Shahriar Siraj Snigdho — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 11:30:26 +0000

Hey,
I'm mainly a web developer who came from a very small country named Bangladesh. I started my master's in Computer Science in Linköping University, Sweden this year.

Since then, I'm actively looking for a IT job. I've applied over 200 jobs and I was called for interview only once.

Why does it seem very hard to get a job in here?

Is it because I'm not a native Swedish?
Or is it because I don't have my masters degree yet?

Where to get a remote software engineer job?

Shahriar Siraj Snigdho — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 07:13:34 +0000

[Off Topic] Should a developer marry another developer? What are the chances?

Shahriar Siraj Snigdho — Fri, 04 May 2018 17:39:08 +0000

How to earn more as a Programmer

Shahriar Siraj Snigdho — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 20:55:42 +0000

Hello,

I'm a PHP web developer. I have been working full-time as a freelancer for a European company.

One thing on I always struggled is to earn some extra money beside working full-time. Please share your thoughts on how to earn money from coding beside from full-time job.

Thanks in advance.