So here I was, job hunting (as usual), and I came across Replit, and I decided to take a deeper look into what it is they were offering, they called it the "collaborative IDE" and I was like okay, sure... what does that even mean?
Took 24 hours to make more research about their services, and their socials to figure out more cause I was intrigued. Created an account, and began exploring. Here's what I found out.
Replit's IDE
Replit essentially is an unconventional IDE, where you can create "Repls", it's essentially like repositories, they are by default public where people can fork and make their own. You can create whatever you want with any programming language.
The onboarding process is pretty straightforward, you either choose if you want to use Replit for your business, as a student, or as a teacher; each bringing a customized set of functionalities to the table.
AI nature (Ghostwriter)
If you're part of the tech community you have to have heard about the major buzz around AI, some are about fears of machines taking their jobs in almost every field, and companies are already implementing AI as their product, like AI writers, image generators, and much more.
So when I saw Replit's Ghostwriter, I was like "oh so it's like Github copilot", well yes in a way, except it has features like an advanced debugger, code transformation, and even a tool that explains code.
Okay, not bad for an IDE, actually very impressive. Wish I got my hands dirty with some JavaScript of course, but it was behind a paywall. So perhaps later. Worth trying out.
on the pop up I saw something intriguing, there's a little button that says "Pay with cycles" cycles?
what in the heck is that?
Bounties
Here comes the part that made me go, "okay, this is definitely worth looking into". Yes, Replit pays you as you complete several coding tasks. Here's how it works, people post some coding problems that they call bounties, and you as a developer would apply to solve the problem quickly and get paid in bounties.
You get paid in cycles though, cycles aren't exactly pegged at 1:1 to the dollar. So 1 cycle is equivalent to $0.010, so a bounty with the price of 10,000 cycles would mean you get $100, considering the fact that you can complete many bounties in a day, you can earn up to $200/day.
The jobs aren't exactly full fledge, most of the time they are generally bug fixes or something on a lighter scale.
Although, As you can see, some projects can be big too! look at this current one with $2,700 ready to be paid. So tasks can vary.
Collaborative Coding
Collaborative coding is also one of its major selling points, with major selling points. Obviously, this means that different people can come together and write code on a single document. I did take a look at the teams' section and they have different plans.
Teams Pro: Teams pro allows coworkers to add themselves up and work on projects together
Teams for Education: This allows users to create an educational organization and use it to share materials for students to pick up from anywhere in the world.
Teams for Friends: This one's free, and a user can add 5-10 friends where they can just chill and work on side projects together, remotely.
My Final Thoughts
So! now that we have all of the core features of Replit, what do we think of it? I feel it has the potential to become something really huge in the nearest future, it's the reason developers are being early pioneers.
If you're a developer and you want to test out their ghostwriter feature, then you should give Replit a shot, if you want to complete bounties and earn good money, then now's a perfect time.
If you look at the screencap above, you'll see competition isn't even high at all. On a bounty, we can have as low as 3 applicants on a bounty.
If you want to break into the ecosystem and be the best. Take a look at this profile; a 16 y/o high schooler is already completing bounties and has earned a solid 60,000 in cycles, which translates to $600.
If you're a beginner or a professional, you should definitely take a look at Replit, I feel like it has quite a lot of potential, and hopefully, I get to get my hands on the Ghostwriter feature, and write back to you guys about it soon!
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