Discussion: What open source tools make up your developer stack?

[Cornelius]

I would like to discuss and propose this to be written as a blog(Anyone up for it can write it). Could be a series of blogs if we want to dig more into them. 

I would like to see a practical open source options available for software development from the local setup to production ready systems.

The idea here is to make it beginner-friendly for people who may not be familiar with open source alternatives.

Some areas we may want to cover can include:

• Code editors and IDEs
• Development tools and workflows (Git, package managers, debugging)
• Containerization (Docker, Podman - when and why to use each)
• Databases and storage options
• Deployment strategies (VPS, self-hosting, CI/CD)
• Monitoring and observability
• Optional advanced topics like systems tooling (e.g., eBPF)

We can also frame this around real scenarios. For example:

“If I want to build a production-ready project using only open source tools, what would my stack look like?”

The idea is to keep it practical, and maybe we can have a simple project walkthrough we might do.

What do you think? 

[ERICK NDETO]

i'll work on development tools and workflows section.

[Cornelius]

Hello Erick, could you please tell more? We can create a hackmd page and start a proposed draft maybe? Will share later today(if you still active you can do that)

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[Benson Muite]

On Fri, Apr 10, 2026, at 12:08 AM, Cornelius wrote:
> Hello Erick, could you please tell more? We can create a hackmd page and
> start a proposed draft maybe? Will share later today(if you still active
> you can do that)
>
> On Thu, Apr 9, 2026, 11:44 PM ERICK NDETO <erickn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> i'll work on development tools and workflows section.

This is great.

>>
>> On Thursday, April 9, 2026 at 12:10:55 PM UTC+3 corneliu...@gmail.com
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I would like to discuss and propose this to be written as a blog(Anyone
>>> up for it can write it). Could be a series of blogs if we want to dig more
>>> into them.
>>>
>>> I would like to see a practical open source options available for
>>> software development from the local setup to production ready systems.
>>> The idea here is to make it beginner-friendly for people who may not be
>>> familiar with open source alternatives.
>>>
>>> Some areas we may want to cover can include:
>>>

>>> - Code editors and IDEs
>>> - Development tools and workflows (Git, package managers, debugging)
>>> - Containerization (Docker, Podman - when and why to use each)
>>> - Databases and storage options
>>> - Deployment strategies (VPS, self-hosting, CI/CD)
>>> - Monitoring and observability
>>> - Optional advanced topics like systems tooling (e.g., eBPF)
>>>

This is a nice idea. Will contribute a short overview of email clients, though not just
for developers.

>>> We can also frame this around real scenarios. For example:
>>>
>>> “If I want to build a production-ready project using only open source
>>> tools, what would my stack look like?”
>>>
>>> The idea is to keep it practical, and maybe we can have a simple project
>>> walkthrough we might do.

Demos/hands on sessions are good. Maybe some could be done online?
This may make attendance from a broader set of people easier.

>>>
>>> What do you think?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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[Cornelius]

>> Demos/hands on sessions are good. Maybe some could be done online?
>> This may make attendance from a broader set of people easier.

Hi Benson, 

We can do it online. I suggest we do a project that may be helpful to us all. I'm thinking of a portfolio. I would put my thoughts together about this over the weekend.

Basically we can build it and whenever we have a meeting(online/physical) we can always present a given topic that we've covered and implemented over the time before the meet up.

Any Architect minded member here could suggest tools(in the above thread, or some I've not mentioned) we could use to maximize performance and and other things they think we could consider for this project. A simple project with no framework could be nice. 

[ERICK NDETO]

You could give me some time so that i can create notes on the same before i can share with you for further processing and posting...how about that????

[Cornelius]

Sounds good. No rush.

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[ERICK NDETO]

hey i'm done with git create the page so that you can post

[Cornelius]

Hello Erick, 

We can discuss about the structure of the blog, and the project here - and when we get a good idea about it, we can update the document here: https://hackmd.io/@lochipi/HJIXxMOhbe

Feel free to add more info. I'll get to it tomorrow evening.

Best. 

[Cornelius]

Hello, I still haven't found enough time to get to this. Maybe we can do more over the coming weekend. 

But before we get further into this, I can think of using software technologies that our members use to build the portfolio.

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[Cornelius]

Oh! Erick, I've seen your updates. I will leave my comments over the next few days. Thanks for working on that part.