Project Management for a Solo Developer

[SelArom]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Only in the music aspect, in the writing and painting the "code" is in plain view. The brush and the paints would be more akin to the IDE, text editor, compiler etc. And if you have a good enough ear you might be able to consider the notes in the music just as obvious, sadly my ears aren't that good.

well then akin it to music if that helps you understand my motivation. a composer does not enclose his score with the album.

So? If those scribblings were pertenent to the subject the book they'd be in it.

only if the AUTHOR decided he wanted them to be.

I look at it from the opposite perspective, what reasoning do you have for keeping it secret?

because I can, and more importantly, because I choose to.

Of course you do, but my question is what do you gain from withholding it? If you're not making any money off of the algorithms and you're not ashamed of the code quality why restrict who can see it?

what do I gain by releasing it? I don't make ANY money from my software, and I don't ever plan to. the programs I write for me are mine, and I make them available (well the 1 so far but more are in progress) so if anyone wants to use them, they can. but what goes all in the background that makes the program run, that's my business. *I* know what's going on, and as I run the program, I can reflect on what I went through to make it work. nobody needs to know that to run my software... if they're curious, as I said, they can ask me, but what obligation do I have to give out the source code for a free program? it's not gonna happen, it's my work and that's the way I choose to work, for my *personal* projects.

So? Anyone can duplicate anything given enough time and resourses, Linux itself is a huge testament to that. But why force them to that end? If you really see your programs as art why wouldn't you want to get it out there in front of as many people as possible?

I have, my software is out there for everyone to enjoy if they so choose, and it always will be.

-SelArom

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: SelArom
i love, LOVE all in one tools!

Just my opinion, but all-in-one tools blow chunks. You end up completely dependent on a single provider to do everything for you. Last year I worked at a place that used IBM's Visual Age for Java (still!). Basically it's a dev environment that tries to do absolutely everything for you to the point that you don't even have source files flat on disk. They're in a database and the editor gives them to you one method at a time. There's actual point and click wizards for creating class-level data members. This was nice and fancy and handy back 7 or 8 years ago when it came out but the company got completely locked in to the point that they're still using it several years after support has been retired. They couldn't improve it at all though, because there was no room to add new tools (they did eventually move to websphere 5.3 which pairs with eclipse). I seriously wanted to simply export the entire code base to plain files, do all my programming in eclipse (hell, textpad would have been better) and then import it back to commit it but it was too tedious. I couldn't do a million basic things like grep through the code when the integrated search was too stupid.

What's far better is integration. Take a bunch of open standards and patch tools together that make it feel integrated. Like, say, eclipse with svn and junit support. You've got the basic idea of a bunch of source files on disk and your tools can do anything with that. Eclipse can give you the awesome benefit of it's incremental compiler but you can back right off that, do your programming in vi and write an ant script to compile your stuff from the commandline without any hassle whatsoever. You can use svn from the command line or from eclipse. You can run your junit tests with a powerful gui or you can start them from the command line or you can use a completely external gui. You can install netbeans and use it on the same code base.

Visual Studio, imho, is going completely the wrong direction with this. Microsoft doesn't give a sh|t about letting people choose their own repositories (to the point that svn actually had to change the way repo information was stored on your disk because it screwed up the asp.net projects). The only source control integration projects I know of are done completely externally. They also don't give a sh|t about supporting standard testing frameworks like nunit. Last I heard they hired the lead nunit developer to do a rewrite. The exact same concept, just a different, microsoft-controlled, incompatible implementation. Microsoft wants developers to be completely dependent on them for all their tools and to me this just sets off all kinds of warning bells about getting sucked in to it, especially if you've got the freedom that comes with only doing this for a hobby. It's not as bad as Visual Age but I can see it headed in that direction.

 

[SelArom]

Originally posted by: patrick24601
Here is my response as a software development professional who owns his own company and has done worldwide consulting for the past 8 years.

Use something simple, fast, free and web based like basecamp from 37signals. It is web based which I know is against what you initially posted. But consider it, or something simple like it that runs on your local machine.

For your size team (1), your experience level, and the size of your project ALL of the solutions mentioned so far are overkill. You want to focus on requirements, problems, and change requests. You don't need any project management software - that is not what you want to be. You need something fast and simple. Almost a glorified to do list. You want to document everything you do, and everything that someone asks you do. At this point any PM software is just going to big you down with unnecessary details and the 'ooo ahhh' factor. Think simple.

To tell you the truth unless you need to produce fancy reports for somebody something like excel (or the openoffice equiv) is great.

thank you for your insight! I do want to avoid overkill, but at the same time, I want to dip my feet into serious project management. I like the look of basecamp! a to-do list is indeed what I REALLY need, with support for breaking that to-do list into subcomponents, and also a way to track errors and fixes. i don't want something exhaustively complicated, but at the same time, I don't want to just use notepad thank you for your advice! i'm not commited to anything yet, still just getting a feel for what's available.

-SelArom

 

[WildHorse]

here's a British entry, but I haven't tried it. Looks sort of complicated.

PromptPM?

 

[WildHorse]

Here's another free one:

Office.com

Calendar, addressbook, forum, todo, reminders, meetings, calls, notes.

I haven't used it but just discovered it & plan to give it a tryout.

 

[Nothinman]

well then akin it to music if that helps you understand my motivation. a composer does not enclose his score with the album.

No, but as I said people with good enough ears can decipher the notes just as easily as I can read a book. And if we're talking about music with vocals then the words usually are enclosed and they could be considered at least 50% of the total work. If someone steals his work and reproduces it he uses copyright law to make them stop, the same is true for software, even if you release the code you still hold the copyright and can do with it what you want.

only if the AUTHOR decided he wanted them to be.

If he left out pertinent notes on a subject that he's supposed to be writing about then he's either ignorant or negligent. If it was a note to remember to wish mom a happy birthday, who cares?

because I can, and more importantly, because I choose to.

Ah, so you're like the kid with the shiny new toy that you want to show off but not let anyone else touch?

what do I gain by releasing it? I don't make ANY money from my software, and I don't ever plan to.

More people using the software for one, possibly help from other people to make the software better and/or take it into directions you might not have thought about for another. There are hundreds of examples of a piece of software no longer working because the original author just doesn't care to update it any more and anyone using that software is screwed.

 

[SelArom]

a pop song is not the same as say an orchestral piece, and this is the level of complexity that is more analogous to software code. i don't care how good your ears are, you're not going to reproduce the piece unless I give you the score.

as for the shiny new toy? you're sounding like the kid who's jealous he doesn't know how to make one himself because nobody showed him how. i think a better analogy would be the kid who tries to ruin a magic show by demanding to know how the tricks are done.

you're trying to impose your values of releasing software over mine, suggesting that your ideals are superior, which is strictly a matter of opinion. as for the benefits you suggest, I'm open to suggestions for improvement on my software (and indeed have implemented many from my users), as well as the reporting of errors (which I always address immediately). but you don't need to see my code to do either of those things. I'm not a professional software development corporation, so if people want to use my software, well they can wait until I'm done with it. if that's not good enough for them, they can PAY ME and then they can have all the source code they want.

and that's assuming I would even take their money. I'm not interested in selling my software, and I'm even less interested in distributing my source code. I don't know how many other ways I can say that.

-SelArom

 

[Nothinman]

i think a better analogy would be the kid who tries to ruin a magic show by demanding to know how the tricks are done.

Well I doubt the kid is specifically trying to ruin the show by asking how the tricks are done and in that case the magician is probably getting paid so he has incentive to keep his methods secret. Although lots of magicians sell DVDs with instructions on how to do their tricks, a friend of mine is into that and it's really cool to see how they're done.

you're trying to impose your values of releasing software over mine, suggesting that your ideals are superior, which is strictly a matter of opinion.

I just can't see a single real reason as to why you insist on keeping the source closed. And it's not that my ideals are superior but there are valid technical benefits to be had from releasing the source. There has to be some motivation behind not doing it since doing it wouldn't cost you anything, hell this thread has cost you more time than releasing the source code on a dozen projects would. =)

'm open to suggestions for improvement on my software (and indeed have implemented many from my users), as well as the reporting of errors (which I always address immediately). but you don't need to see my code to do either of those things. I'm not a professional software development corporation, so if people want to use my software, well they can wait until I'm done with it. if that's not good enough for them, they can PAY ME and then they can have all the source code they want.

And if you die? Or for a less extreme example, if you lose your copy of the source code to a dead hard disk or something. Then you and the rest of the world are screwed.

Anyway I'm done with this thread, we've derailed it more than enough and it's pretty obvious that it's not going anywhere.

 

[SelArom]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Anyway I'm done with this thread, we've derailed it more than enough and it's pretty obvious that it's not going anywhere.

clearly. i appreciate your insight, but i've made my decision and it will stand regardless of whether you agree with it or understand it.

that being said, i'm still looking into all the suggestions. i'll come back and post my thoughts once I've had time to examine them all

thanks everyone!

-SelArom

 

[Atheus]

I use teh bits of paper...

 

[WildHorse]

Here's another one I just read about on digg.com:

Eclipse