Ok, it’s decided.
Finally tonight I’m getting on the blog-wagon. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do, but until I figured I had a reasonable belief in providing some content of any value I held off. Talking about something during work the other day with one of my colleagues prompted me into action so here I am.
As with most first posts, I figure it’s probably better to provide some kind of context and background. So first a tiny bit of background about me, why this site and blog, and what to expect from here in future.
By day I’m a C#/.NET developer within an agile team in central London, working mainly on web-based applications, and have been doing so for a few years. About 3 years ago (around when I was graduating from University) I decided that would start taking some of the stuff I’d be working on in my spare time (and posted on the CodeProject website, improve it, and sell it for a little bit of money.
The CodeProject articles were great for me, they provided an excellent way to test my (limited) knowledge of development and design, and provided a kind of instant feedback to a mass of developers that I would otherwise not have had. Although looking back now I can see large flaws in my thinking, or wince at the relative inelegance of the solution, at the time I was happy.
A few of my articles even led to people contacting me suggesting improvements, asking me to add features, alter the way things worked. I was glad of the response and welcomed the suggestions. So, it got me thinking that perhaps I could focus on building better quality, better supported, better working controls that I could perhaps sell. I touted this idea to a few people that emailed me to get an idea about the potential response and most was positive – that provided I could show additional value from the commercial code, developers seemed to be happy to pay.
And oobaloo was born. Don’t ask me where the name came from, I think it was just sound kind of sound I had in my head at the time I was trying to think up a domain name.
So, this site (and blog) will be where you’ll shortly be finding posts and information on upcoming controls. I’ll be approaching the work with a somewhat agile approach – centred around short iterations, user stories, regular releases, and providing far greater feedback. It’s something I’ve appreciated from ISVs as a professional developer, so I’m looking to provide the same.
In my next few posts I’ll hopefully cover more about the development process, as well as marketing/selling of products etc.
Until then, pleased to meet you, and hope you stop back again.