OPC is our internal slang for Other Peoples Code.  I’ve talked about this before but just in case you’ve never been here before, OPC projects are always the most dangerous kind of projects to work on.  They can quickly become a rats nest and cause no end of grief mainly because you have to figure out what the original programmer (or programmers) was thinking.  Because it’s a Friday afternoon and I’ve been up to my elbows in digging through your OPC project all week here is my list of complaints:

• Poor variable names:  Variables such at ‘tmpd’ and ”bDbDl” don’t tell me anything.  Long variable names aren’t going to kill you and using Real Studio’s autocomplete will (usually) make this a non-issue.
• Three Letter Acronym (TLA) Variable names:  Stop being lazy and use some real words.  Obviously you didn’t expect someone else to read your code in five years.  If I ever find you I promise I will mock you.  I hope you are doing a better job of naming variables in your new job than your last one!
• Poor method names:  Methods named “SelAcc” and “DoWork” don’t give me any type of clue on what it does – especially when you have no comments in your code.
• Nested If-Then Blocks from Death:  There are times you need to do this but it’s been my experience if you’ve got more than 2 or 3 at any given time your method is too long and should be broken up into smaller methods.  Keep it simple.  Complexity kills.
• Multiple nested loops from death:  See nested if-then blocks from death above.
• Long methods:  This kinds of goes with the previous two.  If your methods scroll and scroll and scroll you have a problem.  If you had a problem in that method (i.e. it throws an exception) good luck finding the problem.  Break it up into smaller chunks of code.  Perhaps you can take the 100 lines of code you have the first part of your IF statement and break that out?  Just sayin’.
• Controls using the default names:  Really, you expect me to figure out the difference between TextField1 and TextField11 by making me look at the UI?  Next time, please use a name that will mean something to you in code.
• Controls using generic names:  On the flip side you used a name different than the default one.  Good for you.  Perhaps next time you can use something other than ‘s’ for its name because it took me a while to figure out it was damn text field rather than just a plain string.
• Constant names versus property names:  Quite ingenious the way you used the same constant name as a property name so that the IDE doesn’t help me in autocomplete.  Thanks.  That’s ones special.
• Stop trying to be fancy:  I get it.  You went to whiz bang college and learned some cool programming tricks and techniques and you’re pretty smart.  Remember, you’re writing for your boss/client/person who signs your paycheck so don’t forget that you’ll eventually move on/get fired/hit by a bus.  Be nice to the poor bastard that has to learn your code after you.  Assume they do not have your skill set.
• No comments/documentation.  Of course given all the previous bullet points this one isn’t surprising.  Would it have killed you to put a sentence – ONE SINGLE &*^!@% SENTENCE – describing what a method does?  If you hadn’t done all of the above items too that’s all it would have taken but instead you have ZERO comments in 10,000+ lines of code.

But, I must say thanks for reminding me why I don’t like working on OPC projects.  You’ve taught me that just saying “no” in future projects will make my life easier and less complicated.  My wife, kids, and dog will like me better if I don’t take another OPC project.

I think if I had any advice for programmers just starting out.  Spend six months fixing Other Peoples Code (OPC) and see what drives you absolutely bonkers.  Then, and only then, can you start writing your own code.  You’ll hate it but it will give you some very valuable experience early in your career, on the things not to do.  Being kind to the developers that come after you is just as important and by doing this you’ll know.

Ultimately I’m a lazy programmer.  Not that I don’t do the work I just don’t want to work that hard at figuring out old code.  If you name your variables and methods properly and consistently, keep your methods short, and if you write minimal comments it’s not that hard to figure it all out later.  Having to guess at someone else intent makes my head hurt.

Sincerely,

Bob

So dear readers what OPC foibles drive you crazy?

Let’s go back to the 2008.  That was the last year that Real Software held the REAL World conference in Austin, Texas.  I begged Real Software to let me have a meeting at 8:00 AM to hold an organizational meeting for a REALbasic users group of some sort.  I was surprised at the turnout and the Association of REALbasic Professionals (ARBP) was born.  http://www.arbp.org

Starting ARBP has been a job of persistence and overcoming inertia.  Since we started with nothing: no organization, no leaders, no website, no expectations, we really had no idea what we were going to be when we grew up.  Thankfully I was supported by an awesome group of dedicated individuals that really helped push the organization, and me, along.

In three years, ARBP has hosted two conferences.  The first was in Boulder, Colorado in 2009 and the second was in Atlanta, Georgia this past March.  Both of those conferences were recorded and are available for ARBP paid members.

Besides helping organize both events I’ve spoken at both of them.  So has my #1 employee, über programmer, Seth Verrinder.  Seth has been with us for three and a half years and has been an awesome addition to the team.  Without him, we wouldn’t be as successful as we are.  Between the two of us we’ve also written a fair number of the tutorials, newer projects in the source code repository, and articles.

Sharing code with the community is great way to contribute.  Many of us ‘old timers’ have a library of code just sitting around that would contribute to the community and help people just starting out with Real Studio.  Think about adding your source code to the ARBP Source Code Repository.

Speaking of training, in late 2009 I was contacted to do some video training for Real Studio.  They only wanted about eight hours of video and I felt that I couldn’t do the language or the IDE justice in that short amount of time.  But it did start my creative juices flowing and now I have over 30 hours of Real Studio video training material available at http://www.bkeeney.com.  That 30 hours comprises over 110 separate videos including most of the common Real Studio controls for both desktop and Web Edition.  Most videos come with a project file that you’re free to use in your own projects.  I have two complete series where I start at the beginning of a project and follow it through to the end.  Needless to say, I’ve been very happy with the results and the comments I get from users are very encouraging.

What sort of work do we do with Real Studio?  Well, it varies all the time since we’re a consulting firm.  In the past year we’ve done major updates to professional athletic training system (we did version 1 as well), updates to teleprompting software (we did the version 2 rewrite), major work a Web Edition project for an underwriting company, fixed some right-to-left language support in an existing Real Studio app, updates to a veterinary management app, and updates to credit repair software.

From-scratch projects include a PDF viewer/annotation/organizer app, a military strategy simulator, a family genealogy organizer, a front end user interface to a serial lightning detection device, a neurological test for patients with brain damage, a proof-of-concept app for a Mac OS X computer to talk to a electronic keyboard that uses a proprietary ethernet protocol, and a Web Edition app to share URL’s among registered users.  Most desktop projects are cross-platform.

On top of all that, we’ve created a number of smaller, proof-of-concept/training projects for folks that want to do something specific in RB but don’t have the time or inclination to learn it on their own.  These projects are actually kind of fun since they’re very specific and allow us to explore a control or API that we’ve not spent much time on without having to worry about the nit picky details of a full-blown application.

I’m very picky on how I organize documents (I am an engineer after all) so every now and then I go through the older directories as a refresher.  We’ve done a LOT of projects over the years and not one of them is similar to another one.

So how do I find the clients?  At this point we’ve been doing Real Studio consulting for a long time and a lot of long-term clients keep coming back for rewrites and major new additions.  I’m very happy about that as the relationship is already in place and they trust us.  It’s an awesome feeling.

Believe it or not, the video training has been a nice addition to our consulting business.  The progression is that people sign up for the videos and then after a couple of weeks (or months) they send us an email asking if we are available for work.  Because of the videos we already have a ‘relationship’ even if I’ve never talked to them before because they see how I work with Real Studio.

I’m also a member of the Real Studio Consulting Referral Program https://secure.realsoftware.com/store/consulting.php.  It currently costs $495 for twelve months and $295 for six months.  It’s worth it.  By the time a potential client sends in their information to the Find a Developer Page at https://secure.realsoftware.com/support/consultants.php they’ve already decided that Real Studio is what they’re looking for.

At one Real World I said being part of the Referral Program is “like shooting fish in a barrel”.  I still believe that.  The cost is insignificant.  One very small project and it pays for itself.  If you want to start working with Real Studio on a full-time basis, this is the place to start.

One last note on ARBP.  I’m happy, and a little sad, to say that today is my last official day as leader of the organization.  Tonight is our board meeting where a new board will take over and a new president will lead ARBP into the future.  I’m still on the board as Treasurer (assuming no one else wants it) but the day to day stuff will no longer be in my hands.  I urge you to volunteer as it’s a great organization that is always looking for help.  You don’t have to be a Real Studio expert (or professional) help out.

So those are the current chapters in the BKeeney Software Real Studio story.  What sort of projects are you working on?  How are you finding work?

Sadly, we (BKS) meet very few of our clients face-to-face.  Those that we do have become more than just clients – they’re colleagues, partners, and sometimes even friends.

Personally, I think this is why I’m so excited about the REAL Studio conference coming up in March in Atlanta.  It’s a lot of work to put on a conference and do a presentation.  But past conferences have shown that I always come home very happy and jazzed about the things that I’ve learned and people I’ve met.  Exhausted?  Definitely!  But well worth it.
What about you?

If you’ve not heard about it already, THE REAL Studio event of the year is happening on March 19th and 20th in Atlanta, Georgia.  The Association of REALbasic Professionals (ARBP) and REAL Software are hosting the REAL Studio Summit 2011.

That’s just 10 weeks away!  There is still time to sign up and save some cash.  Until the end of January the cost is only $350 but after that it’s $450.

Nowhere else will you get as high a density of REALbasic developers in one location.  Currently there are REALbasic developers coming from across the United States, Europe and possibly Australia to come together to talk about our favorite development tool – REAL Studio!

This conference is shaping up nicely because there are topics that should interest many people.  If you want to learn more about the new Web Edition there’s a session on that.  Learn how to get your apps ready for the Mac App Store.  Learn about Cocoa and what’s going to be forthcoming in REAL Studio.  Learn how to manipulate PDF’s in your RB applications.  That’s just a few of the highlights.  See the complete session and speaker list at http://arbpmembers.org/real-studio-summit-2011/sessionspeaker-listing.

Some argue that conferences are a waste of time and resources and that you can do the same thing electronically.  I disagree, for many reasons.  There is something special about people coming together to discuss any particular topic.  Being able to sit across the table and look someone in the eye is an important quality that we overlook a lot of times.  I know I trust people more when I’ve met them in person than I do when I haven’t.

In years past (at REAL World events and the Colorado Summit ’09) I’ve found that the time in-between sessions is, in many ways, more valuable than the sessions themselves.  Developers that are business competitors discuss what they do to find clients.  They discuss the realities of being a business owner.  They discuss things face-to-face that they’d never do electronically.  Of course everyone gets something different out of conferences but I’ve found them invaluable as a RB consultant.

It’s also a place where work can be found.  I’ve not been to a conference where there wasn’t someone looking for a REALbasic developer.  Since there is no higher concentration of RB developers than at these conferences it’s an excellent way to find developers and find work.  Plus, you never know when another developer might have a lead and they’re too busy to work on so networking with other developers is always a good idea.

REAL Studio is made in REALbasic and it’s awesome that RS ‘eats its own dog food’ but we, as users, don’t necessarily have the same needs.  Many of todays biggest features have been discussed (ad nauseum it seems) at past conferences before they were implemented so don’t underestimate the power of cornering discussing things with an RS engineer.

I’m excited about this conference and I can’t wait to see you there.  See you in Atlanta in March!

Unfortunately, The Sixty One is a prime example of how redesigning the user interface can make your existing user base very angry and make them leave.  Common complaints about the new design are “antisocial and unnavigable” and I happen to agree with them.  The new changes made a great music discovery site not nearly as much fun and discover new bands.  It sure looks pretty though.

Microsoft has gone through similar criticism with the Office ribbon.  Some people love it and others hate it.  The few times I’ve used Office with the ribbon I was frustrated beyond belief because of the way *I* learn how to use applications.

A friend recently commented to me that they learned to like the ribbon.  I’m not sure that Microsoft would get that benefit (of time) if Office wasn’t ubiquitous.  I can say that as a Mac user I’m not excited about getting the ribbon in the next version of Office but them I’m already using Pages and Numbers more and more because they do everything I need them to do for far less money and less bloat.

From my own experience, we went through interface changes on Task Timer, our Mac/Windows desktop application that tracks your time.  It’s a very simple interface.  Version 1 and 2 let you track one project/task combination at a time.  People complained so we opened it up to five.  People (mainly lawyers – go figure) said that five simultaneous timers weren’t enough so we made it unlimited.

We rewrote the interface to allow an unlimited number of simultaneous timers and project and task combinations.  The beta users were very happy and we were happy too (since we use it every day as well).  We released and the very first bug report was from a long-timer user who complained that we destroyed the simplicity of the interface.  I guess there’s no winning.  Thankfully, with a few minor tweaks we were able to make that customer satisfied but most users will just walk away in disgust.  It’s not easy to get a second chance.

Every time FaceBook changes their layout there’s always a round of complaints.  I generally fall into the group that is willing to work with it but I do have to admit that I generally don’t mind the changes after I’ve gotten used to it.  But then, I also find that the new interface isn’t that much better than the old one – usually.

I sometimes think that companies redesign their website and products because they’ve got designers on staff and they think the designers need to earn their keep.  Don’t fall into that trap and change the interface ‘just because’.

Interface changes should be well thought out to satisfy existing users and to get new ones.  Doing so without some serious thought and effort, both before and after the change, can result in people abandoning your product or service.  Tough to stay in business that way.

Any other examples of a bad user interface change?

Many of us charge clients by the hour regardless if we tell them that or not.  In a fixed bid project we estimate how long it will take to do the various parts of the project and then give the client a value based on those hourly estimates.

Reliable and accurate estimates are just the first step in making your business profitable.  The final step is going back and seeing if you estimated properly.  The only way to do this is to track your time on a project by project basis.

There are variety of tools available for doing this, but Task Timer, one of our products, is a very simple and inexpensive ($24.95) way of doing this.  Task Timer is designed to be simple and easy to use.  It’s as simple as pressing a button!

Setting up Task Timer isn’t much harder.  Add your project, add the major tasks you want to track, and add your initial estimates and start using it.  The new built-in estimate graphing gives you a minute by minute graphical view into how you’re estimate is tracking in comparison to your actual time spent.

For many of our consulting clients we give them a discount rate when they pre-purchase a block of hours (usually 40 hours).  Task Timer’s new estimates feature makes tracking the hours used really easy.  When the client purchases a new block of hours simply create a new task for the project and put the block of hours into the estimate field.  Task Timer is now tracking your bulk hours used for the client!

Many people who have purchased Task Timer have told us that it pays for itself in the first week!  We can’t verify their claims but we can say that when we created Task Timer and started implementing it for all of our projects we found that our billable hours rose over 15%.  It seems we were not very accurate reporting how much we worked on any particular project at the end of the day.  If we reported (really guestimated) our hours at the end of the week the numbers were even worse!

For additional information about Task Timer, please see this link:  http://www.bkeeney.com/products/tasktimer4

Download links:

Mac OS X:  http://www.bkeeney.com/downloads/macintoshdownloads/download/36-tasktimer

Windows:  http://www.bkeeney.com/downloads/download/38-tasktimer

Tracking your time is a good reality check.  Were those products you were spending so much time on really worth it?  How much time are your blogging?  What about video production for those training videos?  For that big size month project what did you get right (and more importantly wrong) in your estimates?

Plan on getting a handle on your estimating skills in 2010.  Task Timer is just one of the tools you can use.

I started thinking about our clients.  With the exception of a handful, most of them are not in the Kansas City area.  Heck, most of them aren’t even in the Midwest.  So what this means is that we never see our clients in a face-to-face meeting and have to rely upon phone calls (both traditional and via Skype), emails, instant messages, and the occasional screen share or video conference.

This makes managing a project harder in my opinion.  There is so much information that gets passed when you’re sitting across from a person that you’d be hard pressed to write it all down.  It’s hard to get that same level of info electronically.

I get a chuckle when I hear about companies looking to offshore their development work to developers in developing countries.  Sure, it’s possible and you might be able to save some money but there’s a hidden cost.

In an Cutter Consortium survey Link over 20 years and 8000 projects they found that offshore projects reduced the cost of projects to $3.2 million versus the $3.5 million it typically cost by doing it on-shore.  From a time perspective the on-shore project took 12.6 months and the offshore took 9.6 months.

The real kicker is that the defect rates for offshore projects were an incredible 7565 versus the 2702 for onshore projects.  So even though the offshore project cost less and took less time, the company had to fix nearly three times more defects.  In the long run I’m not sure the offshore projects saved anything.

In the same study Agile methodology came out looking like a winner.  The average agile project took 7.8 months with a cost of $2.2 milling with a defect rate of 1372.

Last summer we worked on an agile project.  It takes some time getting used to but after the initial learning curve the project went very fast and the client was very happy with the results.  If you have a big project you should probably think about using agile.

I apologize for digressing from the main topic.  Certainly one of the of biggest challenges with a long-distance client is communication.  I suspect this is why the offshore projects have higher defect rates.  Everything needs to be written down and communicated – mostly via email.  Throw in cultural and language differences and you have a recipe for misunderstandings (if not outright disasters).

A couple of things that I’ve learned is that the communication skill of each client is different.  Some can handle an email with a list of questions.  Others can’t so you end up with single point emails.  Email management is a must!

We use a bug tracking system and encourage our clients to log in and use it.  Most get it and love being able to track what’s been fixed and what hasn’t.  Others just won’t use it (despite regular prodding) and resort to emails.  Depending upon the size of the project, it might just be easier to transcribe those emails into your bug tracking system.

Long-distance clients need special attention.  They need reassurance that you are really working on their project.  For some clients we do a 3P report where we report on Progress, Problems and give the Plan for the upcoming week (sounds sort of agile, no?).  With the web becoming an integral part of our lives and business, learning how to work with clients from anywhere in the world is an important skill.

How do you deal with long-distance clients?  Do you try to have a face-to-face meeting with them?  Do you think you do anything special for your clients?

I’ll be honest that I was a bit skeptical at first.  Maybe I’m just old enough to not ‘get it’.  I understand the importance of search rankings and all that but the social media thing has been somewhat of a mystery.

One of the first things we installed on our various websites was Google Analytics and I must admit that I get a kick out of seeing where people are coming from and what they’re search for.  Google Analytics is why I know people are coming from the social media sites.  I find it fascinating that some relatively obscure comment or article is drawing people.  As they say, the more eyes that see your product the better chance they’ll at least try it.  Leading them to your website is at least half the battle.

Since we’re heavily into Mac OS X software it comes as no surprise that a lot of referral traffic comes from MacUpdate www.macupdate.com and Version Tracker www.versiontracker.com.  Windows traffic isn’t nearly as clear cut and we’re working on how to get better exposure on that platform.  It’s obvious that the users of the two platforms research and consume their software differently.

I’ve heard some of the buzz about Woopra but I’ll wait a little bit before delving into it.  If you have any first hand experience with it I’d love to hear about it.  What is its strength and is it really useful for a small business like us?

The other thing we’re doing is making sure we get our press releases out.  I hate doing them myself because I have enough stuff on my plate as it is (and marketing speak is anathema to an engineer).  I’m glad to have turned that responsibility over to someone who likes doing them (at least more than me).  We are using prMac http://prmac.com/ and it is obviously making a difference because of its distribution network.  I find links from all over the internet based on the press releases.

Certainly one of the issues we struggle with is finding the time to do it all.  We’re lucky, to some extent, by having multiple employees who can do a bit of everything.  We hired a part time marketing person to help us out with all this stuff.  I know a lot of you don’t have that luxury.  How do you find the time for marketing?  Do you have any marketing tips for the small, independent software developer?

I’ve even found that potential clients that post on the REALbasic Developers list and the ARBP Find a Developer page never respond to emails. It seems odd especially when I know many of the people that post on those two sites don’t get any responses from developers to begin with! I know this because after a couple of months I’ll do a very short “Hey, have you found an RB developer yet,” email to those I don’t initially respond to and I get a response more often then not saying how the response was poor by RB developers. Go figure.

Well, to be fair to us RB developers, sometimes the specs are worded pretty poorly or are so specific that unless you know exactly what they’re asking for we don’t respond. Other times they’re so broadly worded that the project could mean anything or they’re lacking so many details you start to wonder if they really know what they want. One project that went through the network had a 20 page requirements document. Awesome, I thought, finally someone that knows what they want. Unfortunately, it only had a single page of what their current system is and does and nothing in regards to database details, screenshots, or anything else really helpful. In other words it was 20 pages of technical jargon that didn’t mean anything to a typical REALbasic application (which they were pretty sure they wanted).

A few years ago I used to have these nice formal proposals that I used for everything. These multi-page documents, contracts really, took me about a half day to customize for each project. After a few years of wasting time writing documents I now just send a summary email now because most people aren’t very serious about getting their project done. Let me revise that statement: They’ve not very serious unless it’s going to be dirt cheap.

So what has your experience been? Why do you think clients don’t bother to respond? Have you found the RB developer networks to be useful or not?

I’ve had bug reports that are very insulting.  Reporting the bug is one thing but often times the comments get personal.  I’ve had people swear at me in an email.  I think that they’re used to being ignored by tech support so they think that being as mean as possible somehow gets more attention.

In those few cases I simply put their tech support question at the bottom of the queue and deal with them after all the other stuff.  Occasionally I respond via email that real people read their tech support emails and that we were offended.  Mostly they write back to apologize.  Sometimes.

I can understand their problem to a certain extent.  When your software isn’t behaving and keeping the customer from doing their work it’s a huge problem.  If you’ve ignored their emails and phone calls then I can understand why they’d be rude but I pride myself in being responsive to my customers.  It takes but a minute to respond with a “we received your email.”

Generally phone calls go better because there’s an instant verbal connection.  We’ve also been taught since childhood to be polite on the phone.  Maybe it’s the lack of a ‘connection’ that causes the problem with email and forums.

A few years ago I was dealing with a developer out of California.  The other developers on my team hated dealing with “Jack” because he was always very rude, uncompromising and swore like a sailor.  He wasn’t a nice guy.

Jack called me one morning while he was driving on the freeway and started reading me the riot act and calling me every name under the sun and asking me why my code didn’t do something.  I was very mad and was about ready to tell him off, but decided that would get me fired pretty quick.  Jack was being unreasonable and not being civil so I simply told him to call me back when he wanted to treat me like a human being.

Silence and then an “okay” from the other end.  Jack hung up and I knew I was going to get a phone call from the boss.  Time to start updating the resume, I thought.

Sure enough, thirty minutes later my boss calls up – ecstatic.  “What did you say to Jack?” he asked.  I told him and all he said was, “Wow.”  Seems that Jack had been tormenting developers for years and it was even worse than I had been told.

Oh, and Jack called me that afternoon and apologized.  I never had a problem with Jack again.  The drawback is that I had to deal with Jack again and again because no one else wanted to.

How do you deal with the tech support emails and forum posts that are not civil?  Do you ignore them?  Do you let them know that their behavior is unacceptable?