Just thinking out loud.
If not for a gazillion other reasons, a recent outage from Postman should remind us again why proper design decisions matter in devtools.
API workflows shouldn’t live in the cloud. A LOT of devtools shouldn’t live in the cloud. Some tools can’t work without it, all good. But a whole lot of them are there just because of some poor design choices.
Yet…
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No cloud? No outage.
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No cloud? No sync issues.
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No cloud? No data security gaps.
So why keep forcing it where it doesn’t belong?
And it’s not even just the cloud. Cloud is awesome for some stuff. SaaS-like designs are dragging devtools into the same trap.
As a matter of fact, devtools in general shouldn’t feel like SaaS platforms. Unless we’re going through app usage dashboards – tabs, and mouse actions are not built for devs.
Devtools should prioritize developer control, not just pay-per-seat subscriptions.
P.S. No need to send me Postman alternatives. I already work on building an awesome one, but chose not to promote it in this post.