Are Single-Programmer Software Projects Doomed?

Posted by Dr Andus
Apr 12, 2014 at 09:09 AM

Garland Coulson wrote:
>I think more business users are getting like I am - willing to pay more
>for more features and support. So I am worried that this might be
>sounding the death knell for innovative single programmers to get
>traction against the larger software companies.

I don’t think one can generalise from such a specific case (project management software, collaboration features) to the entire software industry.

It depends on one’s needs. In the category of outlining, writing, note-taking, and PIM, large companies tend to dumb down their products, as the high-end user base is too small. At the same time it may be worthwhile of a small developer’s time to service such niches.

It’s just a fact of life that software projects get eventually abandoned. It even happens with big companies. The key thing is that the software keeps working for the task you need it, long enough for it to be worthwhile to learn to use and get temporarily locked into.

Also, there are other models as well to the one-man band vs. large development team dichotomy. There are open-source software developed collaboratively (e.g. Freeplane), or ones developed by universities (VUE, CMapTools), or large companies providing the platform, and individual developers providing the customisation (e.g. Google Chrome with its apps and extensions, or Google Docs etc. with its add-ons).

My needs currently are for outlining and writing tools, and almost all the software I use on a daily basis have been developed by one or two developers (ConnectedText, Workflowy, Gingko, WriteMonkey) or open source (Freeplane) and universities (VUE).