[HN Gopher] 20 years working on the same software product
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20 years working on the same software product
Author : hermitcrab
Score : 84 points
Date : 2025-02-21 21:22 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (successfulsoftware.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (successfulsoftware.net)
| piker wrote:
| Great read. This was particularly funny.
|
| > 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.
| piker wrote:
| Also worth noting that a more detailed write up of the business
| elements would likely go down very well here!
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Yeah, I'm really curious how the author was able to get the
| kind of sales needed to support a family.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| https://successfulsoftware.net/category/marketing/
| gwbas1c wrote:
| The first post is a rant about SPAM, not "how the author
| was able to get the kind of sales needed to support a
| family"
| hermitcrab wrote:
| There are 147 articles tagged 'marketing'. Some of them
| might be the sort of thing you are looking for. Some
| might not.
|
| If you are looking for articles about starting a software
| business, see: https://successfulsoftware.net/starting-a-
| microisv/
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Author here. Since you asked. This TV comedy included a plot
| point where some wedding planning software was shown to lose
| the seating plan. The wedding planning software was clearly a
| mockup (probably done in Powerpoint), but was clearly based
| on my software - even including icons I had created. I
| thought I could get some free publicity from it. I talked to
| a lawyer friend of my father's and he told me it would cost
| hundreds of pounds to do the research to even send them a
| legal letter. It was the early days for PerfectTablePlan and
| I didn't have that sort of money. So I just wrote my own
| letter demanding a public apology. I'm still awaiting a
| reply, nearly 20 years later.
| antithesis-nl wrote:
| Very cool! Yet: I found out that CDs are edible
|
| PSA: CDs are not, in fact, edible, nor are DVDs or Blu-ray media.
| Sure, if you click through, you'll see that the CD was not
| actually damaged and that it was only the printed license key
| that got mauled, but still: CDs are mostly polycarbonates, and
| not, in any way shape or form, part of a healthy diet, no matter
| what your local party liaison tells you.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You're clearly not preparing them correctly. You have to ground
| them down to a fine micro-plastics powder.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Does it still use a genetic algorithm and is this necessary? I'd
| guess there is some kind of MIP or IP solver solution that you
| can just call out to, but that could be extremely wrong for all I
| know.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Yes, it still uses a genetic algorithm which is capable of
| producing decent solutions for thousands of seats in the time
| you can drink a coffee. Also it is highly specialized for the
| nuances of seating plans (do you want your partner sitting to
| the left of right, which tables are near each other, do you
| want to alternate genders).
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Nice one! I would expect more versions of PerfectTablePlan all
| these years, going from v1 to v7 is roughly 3 years per major
| release ;-)
| 101008 wrote:
| Excellent read. I was happy for the author while I was reading
| it, looks like it was and still is an amazing journey.
|
| By the way, some engineers are dream with working at FAANG,
| others to create a million dollars startup. My dreams was always
| something like this: work on a niche piece of software that
| solves a problem for a subset of people. Give them a something
| that avoids a headache for them, deliver value, and get paid. You
| aren't going tonbe millionaire, but it's going to be a nice ride.
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