From: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us (Joseph Nathan Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Amateur Programming? [Re: Is IM going to be repackaged?]
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 92 21:35:43 EDT
Organization: 5 Sigma Software
Reply-To: joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us
X-Mailer: uAccess - Macintosh Release: 1.5v5


In article <pcw.718730472@access.digex.com> (comp.sys.mac.programmer), pcw@access.digex.com (Peter Wayner) writes:
) 
) >Word processors are done pretty well by the big companies these days.
) >So are drawing apps.  But the development of something like THINK
) >C 5.0 is well within the reach of two or three talented and informed
) >folks with a year or two of evenings and weekends to spend.  And the
) >end result could well be better.
) 
) It is my impression that marketting costs and telephone support
) are the main reason that amateur programmers don't enter the market.
) These can be substantial. Perhaps it would be possible to write a
) decent word-processor alone. But getting market share and fielding
) the phone calls with questions about how to format double-column
) text in Albanian are what will suck the cash. 

True, but the packages in question (e.g. Word) are pretty big all
by themselves.  Perhaps one or two talented "amateurs" (I prefer the
word "hobbyist," since I'm not so sure whether "professional" implies
a level of quality, or just that someone pays for the work) could
write something with Word's core functionality and even produce suitable
documentation, but the years would start to go by after the job of
writing translators, accessories, etc., commenced.  Here is an example
of commercial developers doing things in a sensible way (finally!)--
modules with well-defined interfaces that really can be developed
in parallel with the client software.

The success of large commercial developers is certainly not generally
due to code quality, nor due to the cleverness of designers or managers.
Nor is it due to the working environment or the quality of personnel.
One of the reasons I work primarily as an engineer, and not as a
software developer (that is, I am a programmer/designer working in
an engineering company), is the spirit of cooperation and teamwork
in evidence among people who consider themselves engineers.  When
I was shopping around for a new job in the software industry a while ago 
I was disheartened to find myself tripping over egos, crossing into 
invisibly-delimited "territories," and continually gearing up for 
competition with folks who in a more sensible world would be cooperative 
coworkers.  (With this attitude of fear and loathing apparently so
often in evidence I am surprised that any software EVER gets written.)
When the opportunity to develop software and provide technical support
for folks who design things that will actually be BUILT (satellites, 
among other things) came along, it was easy to say "yes."

This doesn't have that much to do with Mac programming, I suppose,
but I am an active Mac hobbyist and have been for five years or so,
now, and it was mostly Mac development work I was looking for at the
time.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled discussion of the Palette
Manager and VBL tasks.

uunet!joebloe!joseph   (609) 273-8200 day   joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer