Mark Roseman's Blog

Dodging Horses and Buggies on the Highway.

Went out cycling for a few hours this morning (about a 70km ride on a rail trail, from Elora to Hillsburgh... lots of corn fields, and the last 10km or so was just painful.. legs aren't quite up for that distance right now). While driving out there at 9 this morning had to be careful with all the local Mennonite families doing the horse and buggy ride to church. I swear, people who have been in this area for a while don't even think twice about how odd this is if you're not used to it...

Tk on Aqua.

Jeff has been playing around, now that ActiveTcl is supported on Mac OS X, with making Tk work a lot better on Aqua. Here is a good before and after. Still not 100%, but no longer completely embarassing either. I'm glad to see Jeff doing some work in there, as he is a good "get it done" kind of guy. I also enjoy seeing those sort of comparisons and GUI case studies, because they really highlight issues, and help move in concrete ways towards better solutions.

Work at home problem #369.

The guy two doors down jackhammering the crap out of his driveway is not conducive to good concentration.

Myopia times 37.

I'm a big fan of what 37 Signals (Basecamp etc.) has been doing, but I think as they start to get more popular, they're beginning to see the world through their own lens a bit much. Jason's take on small business software is a good example of "the market will be how we've approached things".

Now, it of course just makes sense to have your company operate according to your world view, but its always good to step back a bit from the (well-deserved) positive feedback and reflect on whether that is the whole picture. (Even though I do agree with most of what they've been doing, and much of it happens to coincide with the approaches I'm taking, etc.).

Small business is certainly an underserviced niche, and a potentially large one. Is pure web-based, externally hosted the right way to go? The same way we can make a hand-wavey argument that nobody wants to do maintenance, we can make a hand-wavey argument that nobody wants to put up with network issues, having your data outside the company, and user interfaces that despite the best AJAX-du-jour, are still clunky at best compared to well-done desktop apps. Or even mixed, client-side with remote data (think iTunes, or even Konfabulator... Tim O'Reilly had the most insightful comment that what was striking about Yahoo's acquisition of Arlo et. al. was the validation of web services to desktop apps).

What about reaching small business folks, the whole marketing side of things? To date, Basecamp has been hitting the (techno-savvy) early adopters. Will they be able to reach a larger audience? My guess is not effectively as a small company. While sometimes small businesses will think of themselves as small businesses (usually only when asked to fill out surveys that include company size), more often they see themselves as accountants, marketing professionals, writers, architects, etc. and read publications etc. to match. Which makes them harder (and considerably more expensive) to reach.

I think the people who have a good chance at reaching people with the sort of tools we're talking about are people like Quicken, who already have a relationship with those people. I don't think a small company can do it. Do enough to make a handsome living for themselves? Definitely. But serve a broad base of the small business market? Nope.

The underlying Ruby on Rails is subject to the same concerns about hyperbole as it gets increasingly popular. It's way of doing things has a lot of advantages, but as with anything else, its got its niche, its strengths and weaknesses, and stepping back to understand that is important. DHH is young and brash as a promoter, but I can relate to that.

Having said all that.... if you're in the middle of all this, focused on what you're doing (as the 37Signals guys are), it's good to believe in what you're doing, and make no mistake, what they're doing is enough to keep them busy and paid. And while the scope is larger than what they're doing, it's not taking over the world.

Great Programmers Revisited.

Joel doing the "why a good programmer is worth more than <insert some large number> mediocre programmers" routine.

Comment about Tcl.

Got this from someone trying out ProjectForum:

I was surprised to see it is apparently written in Tcl. I guess the biggest reason for the surprise is that most things I see written in Tcl look like crap. ProjectForum doesn't.

My response:

I liked your comment about Tcl; as with lots of other things, it can be used well or poorly. The best Tcl based apps often you don't know are written in Tcl; the worst (and there are lots, especially because Tk makes it easy to throw together a GUI without a lot of skill) it shows through loud and clear.

More Waterloo Area VC Seed Money.

You just got to like what Tech Capital Partners is up to if you're a tech company in Waterloo region...

Whoops.

Looks like I was ignoring the blog again. Easy to forget.

Not a lot new on the CourseForum/ProjectForum front, just working towards getting 4.5 (with the RSS and email notification changes) finalized, and also doing some behind-the-scenes stuff, exploring some possibilities for later versions. Will want to do another mix-and-match incremental cleanup version next, and then if a few things fall into place hopefully a 5.0. But relatively even-paced; glad to know where the dog is, just in case.

Pauline and I did a short cycling trip along part of the Elora-Cataract trail a couple of weekends ago (one of the many converted rail trails in Southern Ontario), from Elora through Fergus to Belwood Lake. Nice country-side around there. Also, I took a few hours on Friday and did a hike at Rattlesnake Point, along the Bruce Trail near Milton. That's definitely one thing I miss about living in Ancaster, being within minutes of the Niagara Escarpment, and the fabulous hiking that brings. Going to have to make a point of doing more of that.

Pauline's job has mostly been going well (though at the moment she's covering 16 beds instead of her usual 9 because of someone's holidays which makes things incredibly busy, and some of the nurses are doing the usual "let's see what we can get away with with the new doc"). We've been tossing around the idea of moving out to Guelph at some point; though the commute isn't bad, its not like there's anything really keeping us in Waterloo; plus our house has gone up enough in value to more than cover real estate fees etc. Been keeping an eye out for houses out there, and actually went to see one yesterday (which was a really nice fit actually), but I think we'll probably hold off a while longer.

Where's the damn dog?

I can tell when things are getting close to that "finishing" phase on any project (which I'm not so good at) by how much I procrastinate, all too easy working at home. Time to cut a beta and let a few people try it out.

On the plus side, it was a nice day today, not too warm, not too humid, and the air was actually breathable. Went out cycling for an hour or so, just out on some of the country roads near here... lots of blue sky, rolling hills and corn fields (yes, this area is for the most part geographically challenged, though there are some interesting spots here and there).

Stats on Real-Time Collaboration Market.

Gartner report, as covered in Computerworld, via Dave Collins. Keep revving up those business plans! Now where have I heard this story before...