Write a successful piece of software

Building large websites is cool, but not as cool as getting emails from strangers saying how much they love your site – that’s what it’s all about :)

homepage + videos
toolboxapp.com

purpose
For seamless textures and photos

Finally, I have just released my first commercial program, which I believe is a success. I started working on this in 2004 and a good friend of mine happened to work on a similar project, so together we refined our ideas. I have been working full time on it for 1 year now.

I am working on a graphics program for Mac, that hopefully will turn into a successful piece of software. It has been on it’s way for ages, so I wonder if I can collect all the pieces so it becomes a single piece of software.

I have written a checklist about this.

http://opcoders.com/articles_about_business/feels_like_mac.html

I have put myself in the role of the user, by using other programs than my own. This is educational for me and I see what works and what doesn’t. Before I wrote it I thought that my own program were just fine, but after I realized that my program is rather poor :-(

Put your burden down has been updated to a brand new version, with much stronger skinnability (total redesign of layout code using divs and spans, prettifying with CSS)

It’s been pretty well visited, but I don’t think many people are using it. It felt good to rework it, though, and so I deem it a success.

I mark this goal as done mainly to clean out my list. This goal should take care of further progress of things like this.

Really, what I meant when I put this goal on my list was that I wanted my software to be successful, as in well used. That’s pretty much the same as ‘Develop a useful and popular web application’

Now, though, I see the duality of this goal – and I prefer the other meaning: I want to write a piece of software that is successful in regards to the process of writing it.

I want to practice Don’t Repeat Yourself, and Do The Right Thing. I want to be smart and get things done. I want to not write stupid or ugly code, even if writing smart and readable code takes longer. I want to work based on a plan, and within a time schedule that is realistic. I want to work with smart people.

I want to create a good Web Administration Interface.

It has been an extremely rewarding thing to have created something used by so many. It’s also a bit daunting, since there’s a need to maintain it and improve it. I definitely need to get better at that.