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Monica: Open-source personal relationship manager

monicahq.com

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Re: Monica: Open-source personal relationship manager

#21

Post by theptip »

ddelt wrote: post #20

I love the Friends reference behind both product names. I also have been using Obsidian for this (and before that, any generic note taking software). To me this sort of software is really powerful if you have the time to constantly tend to it. I wish I had this built into my mind.

> I wish I had this built into my mind

One thing I am realizing over the years is that while it might seem so, the best “social people” don’t actually have this built into their mind, they have some external system for capturing facts like the OP, and do the work to maintain it.

Whether that is writing the name of the person you met at dinner into your diary when you get home (including info like spouse/children), or calendar invites for birthdays of everyone you know, or whatever.

Reading “How to win friends and influence people” gives the same broad advice.

As you say, it’s a lot of work (though it might look effortless to interlocutors). But the flip-side of that observation is that anyone can get better by just using these practices. (Of course, social people are by definition more interested in this sort of study.)

Re: Monica: Open-source personal relationship manager

#24

Post by rngname22 »

The one big problem I have with this (and I do take notes after some types of conversations with for example first dates through fifth dates to remember important things about people), is that I fear that if I truly took good notes on conversations with loved ones that if the data ever gets leaked / hacked that I've just 1000% fucked everyone I've spoken to and took notes about, if I record anything that is highly personal and private to them.

Re: Monica: Open-source personal relationship manager

#26

Post by renewiltord »

rngname22 wrote: post #24

The one big problem I have with this (and I do take notes after some types of conversations with for example first dates through fifth dates to remember important things about people), is that I fear that if I truly took good notes on conversations with loved ones that if the data ever gets leaked / hacked that I've just 1000% fucked everyone I've spoken to and took notes about, if I record anything that is highly pe…

This is also my personal fear. Instead I just have the people I trust in a group chat or Slack group and then I search each of these.

Re: Monica: Open-source personal relationship manager

#27

Post by renewiltord »

mulderc wrote: post #22

This is the type of software I would really prefer not to have on a server. The only part of this I would want not on my device locally would be an encrypted backup.

It's self hosted, so you could just run it on the local machine. It's a pity it uses MySQL because pgcrypto could enable you to make the database publicly visible.

Re: Monica: Open-source personal relationship manager

#28

Post by nico »

kapep wrote: post #15
muratsu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know why they are rewriting the whole thing? The github page doesn't mention the reasoning behind the decision

It's mentioned on their blog: https://www.monicahq.com/blog/a-new-version-is-coming > [...] Monica is an old code base now. Old in the sense that it’s 7 years old and it has been touched by hundred of contributors. There are some concepts in the code that we let through, because we either didn’t know any better back then or because we didn’t want to piss off contributors, that we don’t want anymore. The project has w…

Every re-write I’ve ever seen or been a part of, has either failed or taken way longer and a lot more effort than initially projected.

Changing something is definitely not riskier, especially if you have tests and real users who are actively providing feedback as well as showing the edge cases. You can also focus on changing only the things that need changing, instead of having to redo everything just to change some things. A re-write also delays everything, since current users will probably not get any updates nor access to new features until the re-write can provide a good alternative to the existing system.

Oh well, I guess since it’s a side project for them, the learning and fun will be more important than providing a good experience to their users.

Re: Monica: Open-source personal relationship manager

#29

Post by robinhood »

unixhero wrote: post #13
muratsu wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know why they are rewriting the whole thing? The github page doesn't mention the reasoning behind the decision

Well this is a very simple system and could for instance be reimplemented in Ruby On Rails in ... a few days?

Founder of Monica and Chandler here. It's so easy that the rewrite (aka Chandler) has taken Alexis and me 11 months so far, as a side project, and working most nights and weekends (check the number of commits). I know that Monica appears to be easy, and Chandler also, but it's not easy. Making a clone for yourself is easier, although not that easy if you want to replicate all the features. Making a clone for an entire community, which hosts Monica in tens of different configurations, means having a robust CI, a pipeline to package and deploy Docker images, a solid API, and so on and so on. I thought building a project like Monica was easy at first, but 6 years in, I can confidently say: it's really not.

Re: Monica: Open-source personal relationship manager

#30

Post by robinhood »

renewiltord wrote: post #27
mulderc wrote: post #22

This is the type of software I would really prefer not to have on a server. The only part of this I would want not on my device locally would be an encrypted backup.

It's self hosted, so you could just run it on the local machine. It's a pity it uses MySQL because pgcrypto could enable you to make the database publicly visible.

Founder of Monica/Chandler here. We support Postgre too, and SQLite on Chandler.
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