Great post. I feel I’m in the same boat as you are in some ways: at least two of the three programs I’ve released commercially are “failures” by the standards you mention here. The third is a very modest commercial success–at least I’ve earned some revenue from it. What’s interesting is how each program differs. The one that I consider a success was a case of the right program at the right time–there was a need for it, and no one else had developed a similar tool. So it became popular kind of by default. The second program was written to scratch an itch, and while it’s sold a few copies, I don’t expect to earn much from it. The third program was written in response to what I saw as a market opportunity, but that arena is very crowded with both free and commercial stuff, and mine seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle. So, it’s definitely an educational process!

Kevin

Faizal: Would it be great to never fail? This goes back to the often debated question about whether there can be happiness without sadness, pleasure without pain, etc. I think that a neverending string of success would feel pretty boring, and might drive a person to question whether they even knew what success was. So the best we can hope for is a relatively high degree of success, with minimally painfully but nonetheless educational failures along the way.

Dan: thanks so much for the thoughtful observations. I think you’re right that a lot “remains to be done” with FlexTime. I’m embarrassed that you encountered the script triggering problem - that, if nothing else, is definitely an “unfinished” feature.

For most of the other stuff you observe, I agree completely that they should be enhanced, but I tried to keep the features of the 1.0 as minimal as possible so I could stay focused. But, in targeting myself and then extrapolating to try to serve users, I can appreciate that it might still have an excessively “programmery” feel to it. I will take that to heart as I continue to develop it. And especially some of the specific examples you point out as needing work. Some of the shortcomings have been so thoroughly recognized by users (like the lack of a “time remaining” and “time elapsed” UI), that I clearly have my work cut out for me in building a better product for 2.0.

Thanks for commenting, everybody!

- I don’t like staring at that blank space on the right when the timers are running.
- The intervals for actions during the timing are not intuitive - if I want a reminder every minute during a 10 minute timer I need to set n-1 intervals. As a programmer this is easy for me but a time value for the interval may be better.
- I was surprised that the elapsed time didn’t show up on the UI anywhere - I set up the script you provided but again scripts can be scary things for non-programmers. A timing program that doesn’t show the time just seems wrong.
- I also hit the script problem in 1.0.3 it wasn’t being triggered when I used the saved routine from the previous day.

Having said that, I will now go and buy a license. ;-)

I don’t consider it a failure, just unfinished.
I will add Red Sweater Software to my “monitor list” for cool apps in the future.

Good Luck,
Dan

Hihgly talented and sought after consultant also fail. It seem failure is a sign of success. But it be really great if failure never happen, right?

btw, i love clarion and would love to see more music related software from you!