Consider the work that went into the first word processors and web browsers, whose work can now be mimicked by a Mac developer who knows how to embed NSTextView or or WebView. Imagine the time that early game developers invested in rudimentary sprite drawing, animation, and collision, which is now achieved easily in iOS games with open source packages such as cocos2d.

Still, building truly great software continues to elude most developers. It’s easy to assume that a large amount of time invested in a project, combined with an impressive outcome, is the key to a successful product. But it’s not so simple.

The ninety-ninety rule is often cited when describing the challenge of finessing a product after most of the hard work has seemingly been done:

“The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.” — Tom Cargill

I agree with this perspective, and I cite it often when discussing software with others. The rule as stated is in terms of “code” but is also applicable to all the visual design, user experience, marketing, and positioning of a product. I think the rule is also recursive: whatever is missing can always be split up such that an “easy” 90% of the job can be done, leaving an elusive 10% of finesse work.

Many developers mistakenly assume that after they’ve put a ton of work into a project, and it achieves some impressive feat, that their work is done. When you focus on the enormity of work completed thus far, it’s tempting to pat yourself on the back and call it a day.

But customers don’t care about the hard work that went into the 90%. They only notice the flaws or omissions in the 10%. Imagine if Michelangelo’s statue of David was perfect in every detail, except that where David’s face should be, a clump of ragged, unfinished marble lay crudely in its place. Instead of marveling at the exquisite details of David’s feet, torso, and arms, viewers would reject it as unfinished and clumsy.

An important takeaway for software developers is that the missing 10%, or the missing one-tenth of 10%, may be something that will take a great deal of work to get right, but it may be something you simply overlooked the importance of.

You might build an impressive skyscraper projecting 40 stories into the sky. The architecture, interior design, plumbing, and electrical work may all be superior to that of your peers. But if some blindness in your product vision prevents you from adding windows, the product will never sell. It doesn’t matter how much time or effort went into this masterpiece: nobody will live in a windowless skyscraper.

We should endeavor to improve the lives of as many people as possible in a lasting and significant way, making the most of our own skills in the process.

Should we aim to affect as many people as possible? My heroes have tended to please themselves first, and to please everybody else by accident. When Steve Wozniak set out to invent the Apple personal computer, he did it for himself, and perhaps to show off for a few nerdy friends at the computer club. Noam Chomsky wrote generally about languages and grammars, and was allegedly annoyed when his research happened to lay the groundwork for major fields of computer science. I doubt many of history’s great advancements happened according to the plan of the geniuses who were responsible for them.

As a self-employed business owner, I want to improve the lives of my customers. And, yes, I would like to have a lot of customers. But Payne’s measure of success is too lofty. Rather than aim incompetently and uncertainly for a massive impact, I focus on a small area that I understand and that I care deeply about. I please a small subset of all people, but I please them greatly. Focusing on what I know and appreciate is the balance that keeps me self-funded, intellectually stimulated, and productive. Who knows, maybe I’ll turn out to be an accidental genius, as well.

Ambition to influence or change the world is, on its own, relatively useless. Pursuit of truth and understanding, on one’s own terms, is the noblest of endeavors. If you’ve found something you can work on all day for weeks, months, or years, don’t let anybody tell you it’s not worth doing.

Long time readers of this blog will note that I’ve had my dry periods as well. But watch closely: I’m blogging now about a thought I had just earlier this evening, while reading Twitter updates and responding to them. Colin Barrett complained that his perfectionism is limiting his blogging:

I plan to write more; I think my @secondconf talk on freelancing would work well as a series of posts. Just gotta get past my perfectionism.

I’m incredibly familiar with this line of thinking. In fact, it’s a variant of the indefinitely postponed software releases that I just wrote about. I read Colin’s tweet and, before I had even noticed that the neurons in my brain were firing, I had responded with a bit of encouragement:

@cbarrett The modern business model for solo writing is to blog your first draft and sell your final.

I’m referring to the fact that very few blogs are edited to the level of professionalism you might find in literary or scientific journals. On the contrary, some of the web’s most celebrated bloggers have let their essays loose in a semi-rambling form, only to piece them together later into a more refined, salable volume. Rands in Repose and Joel on Software spring to mind in the techie world, while writers such as Heather Armstrong and Julie Powell turned their respective parenting and cooking blogs into million-dollar enterprises.

The ever-so-thinly veiled message? Don’t worry so much. Just blog it. If you are among the lucky few who achieves perfection effortlessly, then by all means carry forth. The rest of us are lucky if we coerce a unit of coherent thinking out our brains and onto the web. Perfectionism? Your editor will help you achieve it after you’re famous.

His latest, My Loss, reminds us that even successful entrepreneurs have gone through the wringer more than once, and have made their share of mistakes.

I especially like the “moral” of this latest post:

Say “no” where you used to say “yes”. Say “yes” where you used to say “no”. Do the thing that scares you the most, then get up and go.

This captures the essence of  one of my own motivational mantras: ”Say Yes.”

When someone asks me to speak at a conference, write an article, give a toast at a wedding, attend a conference, or just to have lunch, my gut reaction is to refuse.

Almost every public thing I do that pulls me away from my computer and out of my house, comes from saying yes when I want to say no. I psyche myself up, remember that this life isn’t going to drive itself where I want it to go, and step up to the plate.

Say yes.

I imagine that other small business owners, and larger venture entrepreneurs feel the same way. What a luxury to be immersed in this environment where every decision ultimately rests upon my shoulders. Whether I win or lose depends entirely on how I choose to move the pieces.

Of course this freedom and autonomy comes with a few downsides. In particular, playing the game can be stressful, and the consequences of losing can be dire. The indie software business is a long, sometimes tedious game with no extra lives.

I believe that the best game players are those who acknowledge they might lose, but who really, really, really, really, really, really don’t want to.

By acknowledging a risk of failure, you implicitly acknowledge:

1. You are willing to accept the consequences of losing.
2. The choices you make in playing the game affect the outcome.

This is good. Somebody who is blindly assured of winning is liable to play games that they can’t afford to lose, and to play them with foolish ignorance of the rules. Knowing you can afford to lose liberates your thinking so that you can play the game for the game’s sake. And your strong desire to win encourages you to seek out the wisest moves at all stages of play.

I often hear the opposite mentality celebrated. “Failure is not an option.” “Nobody told me it was impossible, so I did it.” “If you build it, they will come.” These are fantastic rallying cries, but they don’t reflect the true attitudes of a wise game player. They make a romantic postscript to games that were, ultimately, won.

Running your own business isn’t the only way to treat your job as a game. I always found framing the expectations and achievements of work in a game context made the work more fun, even when I was working for other people. Whether that was racing to fix bugs in time for a deadline, or counting the number of envelopes I could stuff in 60 seconds.

But the game has never been as complex or enjoyable as it is now. Running Red Sweater is incredibly challenging. I make decisions every day that could be the foolish move that leads to my failure, or the stroke of genius that guarantees my success.

I know there is a chance of losing, but I really, really, really, really, really, really don’t want to.

Twitter erupted with reaction, much of which was more earnest and emotional than I expected. I had learned about Favrd and used it myself from time to time, but I assumed it was one of those sites that you should feel slightly embarrassed about loading. Or at the very least, you should be ashamed if you were caught trying to get your own tweets to be featured.

But Dean Allen, who created the site, is apparently some massively famous, well-loved internet superstar. I had never heard of him, even though many bloggers whose opinions I respect obviously had. Disorder is good for a system, so I guess it was my healthy function to be ignorant of this man so that I could experience the curious emotion of respecting him not for what he built, but for why he dismantled it.

Mr. Allen’s goodbye message, which now occupies the entire content of the site, was matter-of-fact and sincere, but its declaratory tone gave it a tinge of self-aggrandizement. To learn some of the really interesting rationale behind this fascinating end, you need to visit the comments section of Jeffrey Zeldman’s blog (thanks, Gruber), where Mr. Allen responds to Jeffrey’s criticism of the abrupt shutdown:

“I’ve spent the past year or so reading and writing and doing my level best to chip away at 40 years of belief in the logical fallacy that one’s identity meaning – self-worth, self-image, whatever you want to call it – can accurately be measured in the thoughts of others.”

Many folks use the internet as a valuable tool for research and connectedness, but also as a dubious source for ego-validation. Some of us are more vulnerable than others. How many of the following questions do you care to know the answer to?

• How many people are following me on Twitter
• How many hits on my home page?
• Has any high-profile blogger linked to me recently?
• How many people are @responding to my tweets?
• How many comments on my latest blog post?
• How early does my name show up in a Google search?
• How many people are buying my app/t-shirt/CD/craft?
• Who left positive feedback on eBay/Amazon/iTunes?

If you’re interested in the answers to these questions, it’s probably because you are concerned on some level about whether you matter or not. But more specifically, when it comes to the internet and other people you may reach by way of it, all these questions boil down to whether you have pleased anybody lately.

I relate strongly to this urge, because I find most of my time at the computer ultimately boils down to striving to get another “fix” of pleasure acknowledgment. When I’m working on my apps, I’m hoping the features I add will move somebody to send positive feedback, or to buy the software. When I’m writing on Twitter, it feels great to have people declare their enthusiasm for something I’ve said. And yes, when I’m writing on this blog, it’s ultimately because I hope what I’ve shared will resonate with other people, and some percentage of those readers will share their satisfaction with me.

What can I say? I aim to please. And I think this is a pretty common “problem.” It’s not exactly humanity’s worst defect. The expectation that our help and amusement be acknowledged has probably fueled a lot of important help and amusement. While a few saints work tirelessly and without need of emotional coddling, the rest of us always benefit from a pat on the head and an “atta boy”.

Sites like Favrd, and even Twitter itself, demonstrate how the internet has facilitated an ever-increasing diversity of positive feedback. A witty remark to an appreciative cluster of people at a party was once chalked up as a major win, but nowadays you might find yourself recognizing the wasted potential of that line, and quickly cc’ing it to Twitter. Then what? If 10 people favorite it, you’re a rock star. Until 10 people favoriting you is an everyday occurrence, then it takes 100 to move the meter. When does it end?

While the desire for praise and acknowledgement that we do matter is a healthy instinct that motivates us to do life-affirming things, I believe it can be fed inappropriately. Compare this need with hunger, which can be sated easily at first, but which tends to become harder to satisfy as your meals become larger, richer, and less complex.

It’s become relatively easy to find praise on the internet. A quip on Twitter yields a simple reply of “Hilarious!” from somebody you’ve never met. Not the most illustrious validation you’ve ever received, but it will get you through the hour. If you don’t pay attention to what you’re feeding your ego, it might develop health problems. Adulation by way of Twitter replies, favorite counts, blog comments, etc., are all fast food gratification. They are invaluable when you’re stuck in a lonely place and are desperate for a boost, but if it’s all you consume day in and day out, you’re heading for an epic fall.

I’m not saying the blog changed everything overnight, but my first post, on June 24, 2005, set the stage for what has been an exciting 4 year adventure. At the time, I was fresh from graduating with my second BA degree (in Music!), and was scraping by doing freelance development for an assortment of clients. Today, I spend every day working on my own software, which sustains me and my small family.

So what changed? The moment I started blogging, I became part of a community. Sure, the community was just myself and a few readers at first, but as my readership grew, it merged with other readerships, and connected me to other bloggers and readers, many of whom have become good friends. Every opportunity I’ve had the privilege to take advantage of over these years can be traced back to the reputation I earned and the friends I made by blogging.

Dan Wood wrote about the value of blogging on his excellent marketing blog. The Importance of Blogging discusses the benefits of writing a blog in more concrete terms than I have here. Check it out!

Some of you consider yourself more adept at reading than at writing. I know you’re with me, because you’re the type of person who had no problem digesting the content of this post, and you’re still reading five paragraphs later. You might be tempted to think you can’t start a blog because you’re not the world’s best writer. Think again. I covered this a couple years ago in another post: No More Excuses. I stand by those thoughts today.

If starting a blog is so great for your reputation, and will make you lots of friends, and bring you fame and fortune, why should I share the secret with you? Why not keep it to myself? Because I write blog editing software? Well, sure, more blogging is good for me. But much more importantly, it’s good for you. Helping others has always been a mission of this blog. It’s one of the things that led to its success, and it is one of the aspects of my work that gives me the biggest charge.

So start a blog intent on helping others. You’ll reap personal benefits and feel good all at the same time. Furthermore, everybody who ever helped me over the years holds a special place in my heart and they’ll always have my deep respect. If this post gets you to start blogging and achieve the level of success you deserve, maybe I’ll earn a similar spot in your heart. Bonus!

I’m grateful to my family for supporting and encouraging me in my life pursuits. In particular, to my wife Chrissa and my infant son Henry. It’s cheesy but true, their love keeps me going every day.

I’m also grateful to everybody on the internet who gives me the time of day. You invigorate and revitalize me. Customers, bloggers, journalists, podcasters, twitter followers, Mac and iPhone development colleagues, and most significantly at this particular instant, folks like yourself who are bothering to read this post.

Talent and ambition are meaningless in a vacuum. All of us depend on all of us for mutual inspiration and gratification. Let’s make an effort in 2009 to help each other and to thank each other as much as we can.

Let’s kick ass in 2009.

I was (mostly) joking, but there’s a philosophical truth in there. All of us have lately learned, or been reminded, that there are no guarantees when it comes to investing money. At the core of most investments is the expectation that one day down the road, we’ll take back more dollars than we put in today. We’re disappointed at best and devastated at worst if we are forced to cash out with less money than we started with.

But many of life’s investments are risk free precisely because we don’t expect anything tangible in return. So be sure to spend at least some of your dollars and time on something more valuable and permanent than money. Education, artistic expression, good health, time with family & friends, travel, or pursuing your own particular favorite pastime.

All of these investments yield immediate, intangible returns that can’t be diminished at the whim of bankers, stockholders, or public policy makers. People who invest only for financial return wind up going mad with money lust. Losing their investments spells catastrophe. A pity they never took the time to write a novel or learn to play guitar.

In short, invest in yourself and you’ll always have plenty of you to value.

1. If you’re the slightest bit curious, buy Mark Dalrymple and Scott Knaster’s affordable book, Learn Objective-C on the Macintosh. It’s great that this book not only starts from the very beginning, but is available as an easy electronic download, for instant gratification.
2. If you’re convinced you’re in for the long haul, but prefer to learn at your own pace and in your spare time, pick up Aaron Hillegass’s Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X.
3. If it’s time to put the pedal to the metal, and you want to minimize the chances of failing as you learn the basics of this art, drop everything and enroll in the Objective-C and Cocoa Bootcamp class at Big Nerd Ranch.

Big Nerd Ranch is run by the very Aaron Hillegass who authored the book you picked up in step 2, and he teaches the Cocoa bootcamp class himself. The class is not cheap, but neither is it exploitatively expensive. You will learn to program for the Macintosh with a group of classmates, living and programming on a bucolic country retreat, where your meals and lodging are taken care of.

The Big Nerd Ranch concept is exciting, and I have often fantasized about attending a class there myself. I’m probably overqualified for the boot camp, though as with most life experiences, you learn something when you review the basics. The ranch offers a variety of classes in addition to the boot camp, including courses on more advanced Cocoa programming, iPhone development, and even on Django and Ruby on Rails web programming.

Right now, Aaron is busy building a bigger, better, greener, serener (funner? funnest?) Big Nerd Ranch. He’s actually bought a large plot of land and is drafting plans for several new buildings. He’s treating all of us to many glorious details on his personal blog: possible/probable. The blog frames itself as the chronicle of a man in his mid-youth, aiming to improve an already successful life by taking chances and aiming for the stars. It so happens that his stars form a constellation that idealizes and glorifies learning to program on the Mac.

When you check out the blog, be sure to read through the archives. You’ll be riveted by his stories of searching for suitable property, securing bank loans, winning and losing architects, and grappling with the underlying question of just how crazy pursing this dream might be.

Fortunately for us, Aaron seems to be guiding his own life with the words of his blog title, “possible” and “probable.” I interpret these slash/stroke separated terms optimistically, as I expect he does. If you can imagine something, if it seems vaguely possible, then with a little work it is made probable.

I find Aaron’s optimism inspiring, and his stories remind me of my own possible/probable dreams still waiting to be fulfilled. His zeal for the pursuit of happiness rests safely between recklessness and painful deliberation. He recognizes that while frightening risks need to be taken, putting in hours of hard and tedious work will greatly improve the odds of success.

We should all get to work turning our own possibilities into probabilities, because nobody else is going to do it for us. With the help of Aaron’s blog, we might find ourselves inching just a little bit closer.