Joel on Software

2002/05/07

Five Worlds: not all software development is the same.

PS. There is a large grey area between internal, consultingware, and shrinkwrap - the three worlds are often a continuum. Often products start out as internal products, then the business guys have the bright idea of selling it to other companies, but it is so brittle and makes so many assumptions about its environment that it takes weeks to install it at other customers' sites, which is how consultingware is born. (cf. Vignette StoryServer which started as c|net's inhouse content management system and now costs millions to get running.) Theoretically the software should then migrate towards shrinkwrap as the customer base grows, with increasing emphasis on ease of installation, but these companies get so addicted to their consulting revenue they don't see any benefit in making it easier to use off-the-shelf. And many internal developers have no prior experience with making software run in the wild, so it doesn't.

Work with me, here! Fog Creek Software has great paid internships in software development for qualified college students. They’re in New York City. Free housing, lunch, and more. And you get to work on real, shipping software with the smartest developers in the business.

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You’re reading Joel on Software, stuffed with years and years of completely raving mad articles about software development, managing software teams, designing user interfaces, running successful software companies, and rubber duckies.

About the author.

I’m Joel Spolsky, founder of Fog Creek Software, a New York company that proves that you can treat programmers well and still be highly profitable. Programmers get private offices, free lunch, and work 40 hours a week. Customers only pay for software if they’re delighted. We make FogBugz, an enlightened project management system designed to help great teams develop brilliant software, and Fog Creek Copilot, which makes remote desktop access easy.