https://successfulsoftware.net/2025/02/21/20-years-working-on-the-same-software-product/ Successful Software ...requires more than just good programming. Menu Skip to content * Home * About * Articles * Books * Links * Tools * Starting [cropped-peak43_960x250px] 20 years working on the same software product 5 Replies I released version 1 of my table seating planning software, PerfectTablePlan, in February 2005. 20 years ago this month. It was a different world. A world of Windows, shareware and CDs. A lot has changed since then, but PerfectTablePlan is now at version 7 and still going strong. [v1-screenshot-20th] PerfectTablePlan v1 [v7-screenshot-20th] PerfectTablePlan v7 I have released several other products since then, and done some training and consulting, but PerfectTablePlan remains my most successful product. It's success is due to a lot of hard work, and a certain amount of dumb luck. I was getting married and I volunteered to do the seating plan for our wedding reception. It sounded like a relatively straightforward optimization problem, as we only had 60 guests and no family feuds to worry about. But it was surprisingly difficult to get right. I looked around for some software to help me. There were a couple of software packages, but I wasn't impressed. I could do better myself! So I wrote a (very rough) first version, which I used for our wedding. Things weren't going great at my day job, at a small software startup. Maybe I could commercialize my table planner? I was a bit wary, as my potential competitors all seemed rather moribund and I didn't think I would be able to make a living off it. But I thought I could do everything worth doing in 6-12 months and then start on the next product. Wrong on both counts! Web-based software was still in its infancy in 2005. So I decided to write it as desktop software using C++ and cross-platform framework Qt, which I had plenty of experience in. Initially, I just released a Windows version. But I later added a Mac version as well. Qt has had its commercial ups and downs in the last 20 years, but it has grown with me and is now very robust, comprehensive and well documented. I think I made a good choice. I financed PerfectTablePlan out of my own savings and it has been profitable every year since version 1 was launched. I could have taken on employees and grown the business, but I preferred to keep it as a lifestyle business. My wife does the accounts and proof reading and I do nearly everything else, with a bit of help from my accountant, web designers and a few other contractors. I don't regret that decision. 20 years without meetings, ties or alarm clocks. My son was born 18 months after PerfectTablePlan was launched and it has been great to have the flexibility to be fully present as a Dad. CDs, remember them? I sent out around 5,000 CDs (with some help from my father), before I stopped shipping CDs in 2016. [l-shadow-only-hq] During the lifetime of PerfectTablePlan it became clear that things were increasingly moving to the web. But I couldn't face rewriting PerfectTablePlan from scratch for the web. Javascript. Ugh. Also PerfectTablePlan is quite compute intensive, using a genetic algorithm to generate an automated seating plan and I felt it was better running this on the customer's local computers than my server. And some of my customers consider their seating plans to be confidential and don't want to store them on third party servers. So I decided to stick with desktop. But, if I was starting PerfectTablePlan from scratch now, I might make a different decision. Plenty of strange and wonderful things have happened over the last 20 years, including: * PerfectTablePlan has been used by some very famous organizations for some very famous events (which we mostly don't have permission to mention). It has seated royalty, celebrities and heads of state. * PerfectTablePlan was used as part of a demonstration of the (controversial) first commercial quantum computer by D-Wave. * A mock-up of PerfectTablePlan, including icons I did myself, was used without our permission by Sony in their 'Big day' TV comedy series. I threated them with legal action. Years later, I am still awaiting a reply. * I got to grapple with some interesting problems, including the mathematics of large combinatorial problems and elliptical tables . Some customers have seated 4,000 guests and 4000! (4000x3999x3998 .. x 1) is a mind-bogglingly huge number. * A well known wedding magazine ran a promotion with a valid licence key clearly visible in a photograph of a PerfectTablePlan CD. I worked through the night to release a new version of PerfectTablePlan that didn't work with this key. * I found out that CDs are edible. * I sponsored the building of a kindergarten in Nepal. * I once had to stay up late, in a state of some inebriation, to fix an issue so that a world famous event wasn't a disaster (no I can't tell you the event). The lowest point was the pandemic, when sales pretty much dropped to zero. Competitors and operating systems have come and gone and the ecosystem for software has changed a lot, but PerfectTablePlan is still here and still paying the bills. It is about 145,000 lines of C++. Some of the code is a bit ugly and not how I would write it now. But the product is very solid, with very few bugs. The website and user documentation are also substantial pieces of work. The PDF version of the documentation is nearly 500 pages. I now divide my time between PerfectTablePlan and my 2 other products: data wrangling software Easy Data Transform and visual planner Hyper Plan. Having multiple products keeps things varied and avoids having all my eggs in one basket. In May 2024 I released PerfectTablePlan v7 with a load of improvements and new features. And I have plenty of ideas for future improvements. I fully expect to keep working on PerfectTablePlan until I retire (I'm 59 now). Share this: * Bluesky * Reddit * * More * * Share on Tumblr * * Email * Like Loading... Related This entry was posted in article, C++, Easy Data Transform, Hyper Plan, microISV, PerfectTablePlan, software and tagged 20 years, mac, microISV, PerfectTablePlan, product, Qt, software, Windows on 21 February 2025 by Andy Brice. Post navigation - Setting up a new PC 5 thoughts on "20 years working on the same software product" 1. [4bca7]Tom Reader 22 February 2025 at 12:28 am Congratulations on this milestone! It's been good following your journey - you were kind enough to give me some good advice when I set up along a similar path a few years after you started (also still going strong, albeit in a completely different field). I totally agree about 'lifestyle' businesses - I really appreciate the time I've had to spend with my family along the way, avoiding offices and 'the 9 to 5' where at all possible, and now the kids are older I also fit various voluntary roles around what passes for my 'day job' :-) Once again, congratulations and good luck for the future. Tom Reply | 1. [a223b]Andy Brice Post author22 February 2025 at 12:30 am Tom, Thanks. Glad to hear things have worked out well for you. Reply | 2. [f1c2e]Eduardo Rocha 22 February 2025 at 12:28 pm Parece muito com o SAS Enterprise Guide. Reply | 2. [305d9]rhyswynne 22 February 2025 at 7:39 am Hi Andy, I discovered this post when shared in my network. Really enjoyed it! Released a few WordPress plugins in my time and it is always nice hearing who ends up using them! So I really enjoyed reading the fun stories over the last 20 years! May I wish you future success and happiness for the next 20. Reply | 1. [a223b]Andy Brice Post author22 February 2025 at 8:59 am Thank you! Reply | What do you think? Cancel reply [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] D[ ] Easy Data Transform Easy Data Transform Clean, reformat, merge and dedupe your data without programming Easy Data Transform Free trial! Hyper Plan Hyper Plan Flexible visual planner for Windows & Mac Hyper Plan Free trial! PerfectTablePlan Perfect Table Plan Create the best seating plan in the least time PerfectTablePlan Free trial! Subscribe to Blog via Email Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. 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