Consider this the Year in Review for Software by Rob. Here are my seven most popular posts from 2008:
The Software Product Myth
“A certain percentage of developers become unhappy with salaried development over time (typically it’s shortly after they’re asked to manage people, or maintain legacy code), and they dream of breaking out of the cube walls and running their own show. Some choose consulting, but many more inevitably decide to build a software product.
‘After all,’ they think ‘you code it up and sell it a thousand times - it’s like printing your own money! I build apps all the time, how hard could it be to launch a product?’”
Should You Build or Buy Your Micro-ISV?
“None of the products I’ve built or bought required skills beyond that of a mid-level developer. Let’s be honest, building an invoicing system does not involve insanely complex algorithms and coding chops. Most successful Micro-ISV products (and a lot of not-so-Micro-ISV products) could have been built by a few solid mid-level developers.”
They finally said it - the “R” word. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research the U.S. has been in recession since December of 2007.
It’s a bit anti-climactic, seeing as we’ve been hearing about the financial crisis from every major media source for months. But stock indexes continue to slide and the unemployment numbers are getting worse.
So in this age of uncertainty how should someone react who simply wants to collect a few greenbacks in exchange for their brilliant programming acumen?
You could hide under your imitation Aeron and hope no one notices, or you could start pursuing ways to recession-proof your career.
Suffice to say you probably noticed this site was down for a few days last week (the RSS feed was down even longer). At some point Wednesday morning the process that powers this site was consuming too much processing time and started being killed by an automated DreamHost script. You can read more about the gory details and bizarre side effects, but I just wanted to post a follow-up for the next person who encounters this.
After about 8 hours of troubleshooting I was downloading all of the files and database to move to another host, when the DreamHost support rep suggested I try to run this site under a different shell username. It was a shot in the dark, but sure enough as soon as I moved it to a new user everything started working. Unbelievable.
Of course, next was the hard question: Do I spend the 5 hours to move this blog to another hose, knowing that I’ve had no trouble with DreamHost in the past couple years and that a new host is as likely to have similar issues?
Update: I finally fixed this issue based on a shot in the dark, hail mary attempt. I will blog about it more next week. For now, suffice to say this kind of thing makes me want to buy and colo my own server.
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You may have noticed this site was down all day yesterday.
After about 5 hours of troubleshooting I’ve narrowed it down to either a WordPress issue, or a DreamHost issue.
Closing HTML Tag Killer
I know how to fix the problem: If I go into footer.php and remove the closing HTML tag the home page and single post display work…if I add it back they crash (500 error - when I look in the error log the message is “Premature end of script headers: php5.cgi”).
But the weirdest part is that I haven’t touched the blog, aside from publishing a couple new posts, in weeks. So for this to start suddenly means something else must have changed.
The Secret to Landing Clients Nearly 100% of the Time - I almost didn’t post this link here I think it’s so good and wanted to keep it to myself. It’s written by an internet marketing consultant, but the message applies to web design, web development, and software development just the same. The point of the entire article is a quote about halfway down - if you do nothing else, read the section titled “How to Land Your Client, Every Time.”
MileMeter - Auto insurance by the mile. If you drive less than 12,000 miles per year it will probably lower your insurance expenses. It also encourages you to drive less.
ResearchedFacts.com - “Tired of losing arguments just because your facts happen to be incorrect? We can help! Simply make your dubious assertions anywhere on the web and link back to us. We’ll back up your claim as a ‘Researched Fact’.”
The Startup Success Podcast - After the demise of The Micro-ISV Show, Bob Walsh is back discussing issues affecting software startups. A good weekly listen.
Open Source, For-Profit Startups - “FairSoftware is the place to start and grow your online business. We help you team with others, track revenue and share it openly and fairly. Hire people in return for a share of your income stream instead of upfront cash. You save money and they have more incentive to collaborate.”
One Laptop Per Child Give One Get One 2008 - For $399 you get one XO laptop for yourself, and one is sent to a child in a developing nation. The keyboards are small, but they run Linux and have wireless NICs.
$19 Usability Testing - This is awesome. For around $19 (you can add bonus money to get your tests completed faster), you get a 15-minute video of a real user going through your site or web app, and a written summary of their findings. I’ve used it on two projects and it has raised a slew of issues we had no idea people would have problems with. Definitely worth a look.
If we’ve learned one thing from funding so many startups, it’s that they succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders. The economy has some effect, certainly, but as a predictor of success it’s a rounding error compared to the founders.
Most developers start as salaried employees, slogging through code and loving it because they never imagined a job could be challenging, educational, and downright fun. Where else can you learn new things every day, play around with computers, and get paid for it? Aside from working at Best Buy.
A certain percentage of developers become unhappy with salaried development over time (typically it’s shortly after they’re asked to manage people, or maintain legacy code), and they dream of breaking out of the cube walls and running their own show. Some choose consulting, but many more inevitably decide to build a software product.
“After all,” they think “you code it up and sell it a thousand times - it’s like printing your own money! I build apps all the time, how hard could it be to launch a product?”
Blog Blazers is a book where “40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets to Creating a High-Profile, High-Traffic, and High-Profit Blog.” And amid the likes if Seth Godin, Eric Sink, Aaron Wall, and Jeff Atwood is yours truly (chapter 34).
It’s an easy book to pick up for a few minutes at a time since each chapter (comprising one interview) is only 5 or 6 pages. Many of the ideas presented are unique to this book, and I’ve been keeping a running list of changes I plan to implement on this blog.
I’m intrigued by the unique concept of this book: to provide alternatives to IT workers looking to change careers, but who want to leverage their existing technical knowledge.
The book lists 20 positions and includes an overview of each, a job description, an example of the typical workday, advice on where to look for this type of job, and a look at how the job is likely to hold up to outsourcing and a recession.
A few of the job titles include:
Product Manager
Systems Engineer
Technology Due Diligence Analyst
Technology Insurance Underwriter
Intellectual Property Lawyer
For someone looking to leave software development, this book would serve as a good starting point for additional research. I would not recommend it to the casual reader (the text is a bit dry), but if you are seriously considering leaving programming it’s a good way to get an idea of where you might find refuge.
If you’re in this position drop me an email and I will send you my copy. (sent)
Micro-ISVs. I’ve been contemplating the issue of building vs. buying for the past four years.
I’ve been on both sides of the coin: I’ve purchased 10 profit-oriented software products or websites, and built three.
Knowing what it takes to develop the initial version of a non-trivial software product (read: hundreds of hours), I’ve become a fan of buying. This is based on two factors:
I have no spare time and a bit of spare money
Hmm…no, I guess #1 is the only reason
As a software consultant I’m booked full-time and I bill a reasonable hourly rate. So to spend 348 hours (2 months) building a product means I’m approaching a mid-five figure investment into a software product. That’s not play money; those are real dollars that don’t wind up in my pocket.