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frownyfrank · Oct 25, 2004, 06:42 AM

I'm sure everyone who reads these forums has had some idea of an enhancement that they'd like to be turned into shareware, or even a part of the system. But for the non-developer, what is to be done about it?

If you send it to an established shareware developer, would you just send it to them and simply be content if they actually developed it into something you could use, or would you want some cut of whatever meager amount they might get for it in shareware fees? Do shareware companies ever even take submitted ideas?

Or has anyone just taken it upon their non-programmer brains to learn something like RealBasic and do it themselves? Personally I do a lot of development in Flash, but I don't know how that would possibly relate to actual application development, though I suppose doing OOP in Flash MX is getting closer?

Thanks!

Chuckit · Oct 25, 2004, 08:17 AM

Ideas are cheap � no developer worth your time is going to offer you a cut for a commodity as plentiful as air. If you want to see an idea made, you can throw it out and hope some developer likes it. Several people have thrown out ideas like that on these forums, resulting in apps such as Small Screen X and FocusLayer. You could try making it yourself, but you'll find that programming a working application is hard if you don't know how to program.

It's your call.

barney ntd · Oct 25, 2004, 08:31 AM

I'm a shareware developer, so I thought you might like my take on this.

There is no money in shareware. The most popular of my applications took many months of work, users regularly write to me about how much they love it, it's got five star reviews, but I've made about $2500 total from it. Not enough to live on. The only reason for doing it is because you want to.

This means that shareware developers don't want ideas. They already have ideas of their own, and limited time to work on them. Even if a developer likes your idea, he's not going to spend his time developing it the way you want, he's going to do what he wants with it. Even if a developer thinks he might make enough to pay himself for the time spent on it, your contribution of the idea is tiny compared to his work implementing it, and his risk committing all that time to it. Expecting payment is dreaming.

On the other hand, software development is fun. The sense of achievement you get from running an application you wrote from scratch is enormous. What's more, using Cocoa and the developer tools, building an application is quite easy. Usually the hardest part is searching through the documentation for the information you need!

If you decide to try your hand at it, my advice is don't bother with realbasic. It's not really any easier than cocoa, and it's a lot more limited. Even if you already have some familiarity with basic, learning a second programming language is much less work than learning a new API, which you'll have to do anyway. Probably the best combination for a beginner is cocoa/Java, because you don't have to worry about memory management, but there are still some things which can only be done in objective C.

Hope this helps,

Barney.

frownyfrank · Oct 25, 2004, 12:21 PM

Thanks for the replies, good to hear it straight from a developer Barney. It's pretty much what I assumed, there being no money in it, and not worth it for another developer to pick it up. I think I'll just finish my schematic and photoshop comp, and post it here, get flamed, and give up. It's a plan!

threestain · Oct 25, 2004, 12:28 PM

So what do you need to start developing in java and cocoa? program wise?

Turias · Oct 25, 2004, 12:32 PM

Originally posted by threestain:
So what do you need to start developing in java and cocoa? program wise?

All you need are the Apple Developer Tools, which come with OS X or can be downloaded from http://connect.apple.com/ after signing up for a free account.