Sugar Maple Software

I still hope to gather my thoughts on C4[1] and share them. However, while I’m gathering, I’d like to redirect everyone to a thoughtful piece by Rich Siegel: Tumbleweeds and Used Car Lots. Pay particular attention to the section where Rich describes how the debates on the internet can easily deteriorate into a situation where the person who shouts with the largest megaphone, rather than the person with the best argument, “wins”.

Last night, C4[1] began. Wolf Rentzsch and Wil Shipley were the speakers. Wil was, well, Wil. Wolf’s talk was interesting and I found myself still thinking about it this morning. Wolf talked about the sea-change that indie developers are experiencing. He believes that indies have much more influence and power since platforms, languages, and interfaces have shifted from the large companies (e.g., Microsoft and Apple) to the web, resulting in a democratization. The lower cost of entry for developers is certainly an example of this trend. However, while I think we’re heading in this direction, we’re not there yet. …

I’m off to C4[1] in a couple of days and am really looking forward to it. I haven’t made the time to prepare for Iron Coder Live at all. Maybe something fun that doesn’t require actually owning an iPhone will strike me in the next couple of days. I’m really looking forward to meeting a number of people in person that I only know via their blogs, e-mail, or IRC. Speaking of IRC, there’s a channel for C4. There’s also a Wiki where attendees can add themselves. I also hope that this conference will help me focus my vision for Sugar Maple Software.

Astute readers may have noticed the plurality in the following quote from my initial post introducing Sugar Maple Software:

I decided that I had other passions to explore and I wasn’t getting any younger. One of these passions is independent software development for the Mac. So, I founded Sugar Maple Software.

I referred to passions plural. The other passion that I’ve been pursuing since last September is teaching high school physics.

The Mac community is an amazing beast. More generally, the Apple community is an amazing beast. In the days before the advent of the Internet, when I first starting programming on Apple computers, the community was local and gathered at computer fairs held at area malls. Later, when I began developing for the Mac, the community had a fledging on-line presence (e.g., Guy Kawasaki’s Evanglist and various web sites), but I still eagerly awaited my Apple developer mailings and develop magazine. Today, the community is global and gathers on a variety of mailing lists and web sites. The general Apple community seems stronger today than ever before; this is especially the case of the Mac developer community. For someone starting down the independent software developer path, this is quite fortuitous since this community is an incredible resource.

Recently, a couple independent software developers have shared their stories. Paul Kafasis presented the Rogue Amoeba story, “The Full-Time Gap.” Encouraged by this, Daniel Jalkut recently commented on his path to become an independent software developer in his post “The Road Less Traveled” and invited others to shared their experiences. These are both in the same vein as Gus Mueller’s story from last year, “How to become an independent programmer in just 1068 days.” Encouraged by Daniel’s post, I’ll share my story.