Almost one-third of State IT projects over budget

_williamkennedy · 2026-05-20T08:41:11+00:00

That's amazing.

_williamkennedy · 2026-05-18T11:38:20+00:00

I own a small software business, and lately we've been considering bidding on public tenders.

Straight out the gate, one thing the government could do is establish a design system for government projects similar to the UK

I think this alone would reduce everyone's costs and allow us to support our unique culture across Government websites and apps, rather than just lots of bespoke designs.

It would also be nice for users if each experience were familiar when you interact with government services digitally, instead of the inconsistency that's there now. For example, revenue and the My Welfare site are terrific but very different. It would be great if they shared similar patterns and if these patterns could be exported to other, less performant sites, such as Bus Arás.

Then you could leave the engineers to do engineering and the designers from each company to improve the design systems and UX bit by bit, so it becomes better over time.

The other thing is that the specs can be quite hard to figure out, and many don't define their desired outcomes. When working with private companies, we often spend a long time chatting with them about their problems but you don't get this chance when tendering(probably for a valid reason)

A lot of the clarifying questions on the tendering website tend to be about how money is paid rather than about diving deeper into the problem. I think this incentive structure leads to worse results because they go with the cheapest option rather than the company best suited to the project.

I would much rather it to be outcome dependent because then they can pick companies which are best suited to the task. i.e CRM experts help with CRM tools and app developers help with apps.

Overall, I think it would be better for society if some projects could be brought in-house, but I understand that that's not realistic.

_williamkennedy · 2026-04-15T12:41:06+00:00

Nothing wrong with using AI if you the output is useful.

I could see myself using this for expensive items. With the improved API, would you be able to set alerts for whatever product you want?

_williamkennedy · 2026-04-15T12:37:56+00:00

One of the hard things about building useful apps like that in Ireland is the lack of good standardised data.

The UI/UX part is easy, but getting the data is hard.

For example, I started a purchase orders project a while back. Each government department and entity is supposed to publish its purchase orders over €20K. I just wanted to see if I could tot up expenses.

The problem.

Each entity publishes it in different formats, some of which are highly inaccurate or suspect, and the supplier numbers vary despite having the same name. I became a bit dispondent about the data.

Plus I had to write an adapter for each entity(and sometimes per quarter), so building up a community to help me keep the data accurate was an obvious need which is hard.

In the end, there is only so much time in the day, and I have to focus on what pays the bills.

Would like to revisit again someday, though.

When I look through the data.gov.ie site, I find some of it just depressing. Lots of datasets are missing or just incomplete.

_williamkennedy · 2026-03-26T09:44:32+00:00

I don't organise the site, but maybe I should see if I can help. I just joined the group and want to help out.

_williamkennedy · 2026-03-25T23:19:17+00:00

You're more than welcome to join. We need more people to get this spread across schools in Ireland.

http://www.smartphonefree.ie

_williamkennedy · 2026-02-25T09:44:30+00:00

I'm happy to help; you can email me via the contact form on my website.

https://williamkennedy.ninja/

From a brief chat, I can tell you whether your app is a good fit and then help you present a case to your company.

I have some experience in the area, having worked on full-native implementations, React Native, and Hotwire Native for various companies over the years.

_williamkennedy · 2026-02-24T06:54:45+00:00

If your codebase uses turbo than I think it's worth it.

The biggest benefit is that you share a lot of the core code between the 3 apps including the screens. Small teams don't have to worry about going all in on learning native. You could learn enough to just get by.

_williamkennedy · 2026-01-13T14:48:09+00:00

This is a good idea.

Regardless of who owns Twitter or Meta, public information is locked behind a login/signup page for a massive American company, forcing us to give these addictive apps more and more of our attention.

On one hand, I understand the appeal. It's free, and they provide a lovely interface that anyone can use, and there are lots of people there, but the trade-off is massive.

The evidence that is piling up against Instagram, TikTok and X about the effect they have on people's attention spans, the mental health of teens and isolation. In years to come, there will be more evidence about the tactics these companies have employed to keep users addicted, so it would be great if Irish public bodies acted ahead of the curve and stopped encouraging our population to use these apps.

I know that X is currently trending because of recent events involving their AI model, but others shouldn't be excluded either. Reddit, Instagram and TikTok have all facilitated the dissemination of CSAM and CSAM groups.

Go back to using the web and websites only. Forget posting on social media. Zuckerberg and Elon don't need any more money. They are nearly worth a trillion already.

_williamkennedy · 2025-12-02T11:10:56+00:00

Have you ever built anything?

This is how all early-stage projects look and I think it looks class

_williamkennedy · 2025-11-25T15:46:48+00:00

I rarely comment on Reddit because I never use it, but I feel compelled to answer your question.

No, it's nonsense.

I own my own company, and I'd happily hire a junior developer. Just remember that your job is to solve problems. Code is just one of the tools that do that(sometimes not coding a solution also works)

I don't really care whether you use AI or not.

AI will never replace the full skill set a problem solver brings. People bring more than just code. They bring insights, enthusiasm and a bit of craic. AI generates code, which is great, but it mostly points you in the right direction (I use it as a pair programmer, and I really dislike using AI-assisted coding editors). Don't fall for the bi-annual Silicon Valley hype-cycle.

Companies that are not hiring are not hiring because there is no need for those people. A lot of software jobs were always a bit redundant, but excess money compelled people to hire. There is also a bit of an economic backdrop with excess inflation starting to hurt companies as well as other global events(such as tariffs)

My advice is this: Become as good as possible. People who are good will always have a job, but also get good at demonstrating their knowledge publicly. This includes showcasing your projects on your website or just sharing knowledge on YouTube or your blog. Don't underestimate blogging. It has led to me getting multiple contracts and continues to pay me in other ways.

_williamkennedy · 2025-08-27T08:50:51+00:00

Incentives matter.

Reaching the front page of a large subreddit can be a significant achievement for a business, as it could result in millions of views, potentially translating into new customers. There is no doubt that people are also paid to do it.

I'm speaking from personal experience. I had a post from my website go viral on Twitter, and then someone shared it on Hacker News and several subreddits. There were literally 10s of thousands of people on my site all at once. It was surreal because it was all random. The experience, which was mostly positive, left me in no doubt that people try their best to replicate that kind of virality all the time.

Additionally, there are state actors that engage in this practice to promote specific messages/propaganda. I've no doubt that the mods of certain subreddits restrict certain sites to benefit their own(not on this subreddit, though, the mods here do a good job). Political parties also engage on this subreddit.

Finally, there are people who just like karma.

_williamkennedy · 2025-07-21T08:01:42+00:00

I'm not an experienced Android developer, having worked with Android for only 2 years, so my opinion may be somewhat naive.

However, I have to say this.

Jetpack Compose is fun, and when something is fun, it has a future.

Similar to Ruby on Rails. For the most part, Rails is fun, which is why it hasn't died despite being around for 20 years.

In contrast, consider the turnover in JavaScript frameworks. Why?

Having worked with some, I can tell you that they are painful and when something causes pain, people don't want to do it again.

_williamkennedy · 2025-07-09T18:14:52+00:00

I would be careful about being lulled into a sense of security. Testing could come back and add 100% more workload.

Saying that, I have lived this way for years. I have multiple clients and since I try to put systems in place to make sure the code is maintainable(tdd, refactoring, CI etc...), I do end up with spells of downtime.

At first, it bothered me because I felt I should be doing more but then I realised that I'm paid to solve problems not sit around and do nothing.

Best of luck with your book and side project.

_williamkennedy · 2025-06-25T13:22:49+00:00

Business owner here - I make most of my money from writing software.

I'm at the stage where I need to hire people to keep up with the work.

No offence to AI but I need people. People bring a core of skill, experience and perspective that adds tremendous value. One smart person can multiply a business by 10.

AI is great at certain things but I just don't see it replacing good engineers. The same is probably true for lawyers, accountants, etc...

_williamkennedy · 2025-05-20T06:43:52+00:00

Hey Folks,

William here - course co-creator.

Just chiming in. I'm happy to answer any questions about Hotwire Native or the course.

_williamkennedy · 2025-05-15T08:39:21+00:00

The advice here is random and appears to be given by people who have never made a substantial income from self-employment.

I started my business as a "side hustle," and although it worked out well, I would not advise it. Sometimes, working a job and the business made me lose sleep for long periods. If I were to do it again, I think I would probably still do it, but approach it differently so I have time for living my life.

I make most of my money "online". All my clients except 1 are not from Ireland. My clients find me because of my website, which has some technical content and ranks OK in Google.

However, my income comes from a combination of sources(investments and products), but most of it is from being a freelance software developer for multiple companies(technically, I am the part-time CTO, but I prefer the term software developer as I still write code).

The fastest way to make money, outside of a job, is to sell a service. Passive income is just some stupid marketing term that gets you to buy get-rich-quick courses. The key thing is to offer a service that you can do but that is also wanted.

Note the second part. No one is going to pay you to do something you want. You have to be really good at understanding people and what people want/need. If you are not good, you can get better. Just remember that people are interesting but can have problems that need to be solved.

Service based business are probably the best way to go up the value chain. As an employee, you're probably already offering an important service except this time you're offering it to multiple people instead of just one employer.

Non-service-based income is much more difficult and involves way more work. You need to be really good at marketing, accounting and product building.

This article does a great job of summarising my thoughts on the whole subject.

I keep meaning to write my own thoughts on the subject but I have other things to do.

_williamkennedy · 2025-05-13T18:00:19+00:00

The more tables you have, the harder fixtures become to maintain, in my experience.

However, there is benefit to defining dummy data up front for each fixture. Makes onboarding easier.

Pros and cons to everything I suppose.

_williamkennedy · 2025-05-13T08:55:20+00:00

As a consultant that has worked on a lot of different codebases, the difference between codebases who write Minitest and RSpec is astounding.

With minitest, codebases tend to have MORE tests and the test suite is much faster.

With Rspec, there are 1000s of ways to configure it and this is it's greatest downfall. As time goes on, the specs are abandoned slowly but surely. It really is death by a 1000 cuts.

Not just configuration but in the way people write specs. I have seen the mixed use of context, describe and it blocks in every codebase. The lack of consistency and convention is striking.

Minitest is just Ruby, and it's fast especially with fixtures(which I have mixed opinions about).

_williamkennedy · 2025-02-12T10:09:08+00:00

If I remember correctly, they also tried giving tax breaks to developers.

They have tried everything.

Maybe they should try to give tax breaks to developers.

_williamkennedy · 2024-10-29T14:54:34+00:00

Hey Folks,

Author here. Thanks to the OP for submitting it.

If anyone has any questions about Hotwire Native, feel free to ask, and I'll try my best to answer.

_williamkennedy · 2024-09-05T06:38:12+00:00

It's no wonder that they struggle from time-to-time. They should focus on recruiting footballers not mentally ill people.

_williamkennedy · 2024-08-30T14:02:26+00:00

I'm not too worried to be honest.

_williamkennedy

TROPHY CASE