Re: I've thought better of Linux

alex goldman <hello@xxxxxxxx> writes:

> Tim X wrote:
>
> >
> > Well, I guess I'm lucky. I don't have any financial pressures
> > anymore. I actually only work because on the whole I like to and
> > mostly enjoy what I do. However, at one point I had pretty much
> > nothing and worked in a couple of dead end jobs. However, while I was
> > doing those dead end jobs, I actually wrote applications, sold them
> > and managed to change my situation by actually producing something
> > which people were willing to purchase - I didn't waste weeks of time
> > on the Internet moaning about how nothing fits my unique situation and
> > that in 10 years I would be a millionaire!
>
> You got filthy rich by writing software in your free time? Isn't that
> something? Tell us more. Lately, I've been thinking about giving in to the
> kind of get-rich-quick schemes Paul Graham wrote about in one of his recent
> essays.
>

Filthy rich is an over statement. I'm not filthy rich, but I have no
debts, own my home outright, have several investment properties, only
about $20 on my credit cards and healthy bank balances. I could stop
working now and would survive without any noticable drop in my
standard of living - but thats also a function of how I like to
live. I don't need big flash houses, cars, suits, holidays etc. I'm
quite satisfied with good friends, a nice meal out every week or so,
enough money to buy the books and occasional bits of technology I like
to play with and afford to indulge my weakness for cooking, wine, beer
and the occasional bottle of Cognac.

Everything I have has been earned through writing software, but I feel
I was very lucky. I started in the mid 80's and at that time, you
could earn quite good money with fairly simple, but useful,
software. Up until mid/late 90's I think this was a lot easier than it
is now - users have become more sophisticated and expect a lot
more. To a large extent, its much harder for a one person team to
produce software within an acceptable time which can earn sufficient
revenue these days - now you need a team and once its more than just
you, things become much more difficult and complex.

I also finid it harder to come up with good ideas now than I did 20
years ago. I don't know if thats just me or if its because all the
obvious/easy stuff has been done. For example, the first 4
applications I wrote which earned reasonable income for me included a
set of TSR DOS utilities which, at the time, really impressed people,
but which these days would'nt even get noticed and would probably be
done as a 1 week project for 1st youer comp sci students (that is if
anyone needed TSRs these days). The other applications included a
database and application generation framework which had a pseudo GUI
(it was for DOS) front-end which allowed anyone to create a basic
database application. The framework generated C code which could then
be compiled by Borland's C compiler. I also did a similar app for
generating menu systems (in a way it was an early interface builder)
and finally a couple of domain specific applications.

There werer also a lot of failed projects mixed in with the successful
ones. However, the real money was never made in the sale of the
software - while it did earn reasonable revenue, the real money came
from support/consulting and selling the interlectual property rights
to other companies - the application builder and menu builder were
real winners. Actually, I've always felt a bit bad about those two as
the company I sold them to just sort of vanished not long after I sold
them the software! Maybe it was a pile of ...., who knows.

In the mid 90's I stopped working as a developer because it was
becomming too competitive and a lot more difficult. However, I was
then in a position to be more picky with respect to what I do. For a
while I got involved in some interesting research projects in various
fields, including AI (Conceptual Graphs, Automated Planning and
Autonomous Agents), then needing something more concrete I worked on
some interesting projects in fields such as geophysics, image
processing and GIS. Now, well I guess I really just potter, play and
occasionally advise!

I do mis the old days though! While there has been some great advances
in the last 20 years which have really increased productivity, it has
raised the bar somehwat - possibly too high for this old dog anymore!
I dunno, it just seems a lot harder to get original and 'doable' ideas
- its probably just brain atropy (got to cut back on those fatty
foods, beers, wine and cognac). When it use to take ove 24 hours to
compile my kernel, it seemed like we had more time. Now I can compile
a kernel in a few minutes and there never seems to be enough time!

Though, I must say that since beginning to learn Lisp, I have been
somewhat re-invigerated and beginning to get some (possibly) original
ideas beginning to purculate - at least, thats how it feels and often
how it feels is as good or better than "as it is".

Tim
--
Tim Cross
The e-mail address on this message is FALSE (obviously!). My real e-mail is
to a company in Australia called rapttech and my login is tcross - if you
really need to send mail, you should be able to work it out!
.

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