hi,
i see on multiple forums, some users requests specific controls or tools
it’s great if we have a thread for resume all requests,
developper say, i can made this control “A” for the plateform “B” for 200$ , who are interessed ?
or
users each gave 30$ (by example) to have such tools or controls for specified , you can develop this ?
interesting concept… Like KickStarter.
I am quite willing and able to build custom cross-platform controls, just private message your specs
No sure there is a lot of people ready to pay for custom controls, and on the other hand, $200 for such seems not a lot for custom development.
The idea of a crowd funding is intriguing, though.
Would that not already be possible in the contractors adds, or even in the add-ons channel ?
Well, a reasonable developer will easily charge $100 per hour.
A non trivial control may take at least 10 hours to code.
plus testing, examples and documentation.
And once it’s done, you still need to sell it to continue development and fund more hours to fix bugs and improve it.
Not to mention all the support emails you get.
And the people who hate you because you missed one specific feature and have no time to add it in a second.
[quote=255477:@Christian Schmitz]Well, a reasonable developer will easily charge $100 per hour.
A non trivial control may take at least 10 hours to code.
plus testing, examples and documentation.[/quote]
Even within the EU there is a huge variation in salaries, the average monthly salary in Luxembourg is EUR 3149 whilst in Bulgaria it’s EUR 356. A Bulgarian/Romanian/Lithuanian/Latvian/Hungarian developer may think EUR 180 for 10 hours work is a reasonable return. Spain has an unemployment rate of > 20%, in Greece it’s nearly 25%, who knows what talent is going to waste there? It might not be worth your while but others elsewhere in the world may find it an interesting proposition.
So you guys are going to argue about wages for tasks that don’t even exist, and for which you may or may not have a future interest in contributing to? Seriously… I doubt very much if that was the intent of the OP
Well, go and start a new thread with a wish and make an offer.
Someone may take it.
Getting more third party developers would help the platform.
A developer who for whatever reason does not charge enough, is doing himself harm, and to the programmer community as well.
Sure, in Europe or elsewhere there are underdeveloped countries. That is no reason for everybody to starve.
[quote]i see on multiple forums, some users requests specific controls or tools
it’s great if we have a thread for resume all requests,[/quote]
This is a good idea for controls that don’t already exist.
It would be a bad thing to re-invent the wheel and undercut someone’s existing work at the same time.
(ps… we dont need another date control!)
Those who are concerned about people charging too little for a NEW control, perhaps weren’t interested in creating such a control anyway.
Let’s not shoot the idea down before it has a chance…
Not shooting the idea down, just introducing a bit of reality. Some controls are easy to make and some aren’t. But that’s only part of the equation when it comes to the controls market.
For me, the real deal with a control is a) can I get the source if the developer disappears (happened before multiple times) ? and b) are they going to support it both short term and long term?
I can say from experience that b) will ‘cost’ me much, much more as a developer than the initial development of the control.
Not about the control per se. More about the developers themselves. I have seen too many unexperienced programmers being taken for a ride, and in the end, been robbed of the just retribution for their work. To me, offering $200 for a custom control created from scratch is simply not a honest proposition.
It’s an interesting idea to do a “kickstarter” kind of set up for this BUT there are other issues with this besides pricing
WHO is creating it - reputation plays into it
IF it’s Christian creating it I’m sure lots will say “no problem I’ll buy this with or without source” since they do that now with MBS
Any one else there will be doubts about skill, longevity etc (this relates to Bobs issue with not sticking around)
is the funding an incentive to build it etc ? (ie/ kick starter)
willingness of people to take this on (esp if they just get undercut by others - exactly how many date controls do we have access to ???)
who decides “the spec” and who gets to sign off when “done” ?
Not sure exactly your point here?
Are you saying inexperienced programmers trying to sell a control they wrote for $200, and it not being well done?
or are you saying a Veteran Experience Programmer taking advantage of a Noob by over-charging them for a simple control?
In both cases its “Buyer Beware”… never buy a “pig in a poke”, make sure you see a demo, get some documentation, and if it makes you more comfortable, see what kind of “rep” they have on this forum (and I hope mine is a decent one 
)
And remember, its is possible for a Noob programmer to have the ability to create an awesome control with little experience (possible, not highly likely). And if a Noob programmer thinks buying a piece of code for a specific price is “worth it”, than so be it. Again… its “caveat emptor”
Dave you miss my point. Precisely, inexperienced programmers tend to underestimate their talent, and often sell themselves too cheap. This is detrimental to them, as well as to other developers. I did that a long time ago, and lived to regret it, spending three weeks on a project for a few hundred dollars. I have since learned better.
About crowd funding, Norman is quite right. The would-be contractor reputation is extremely important. As well as his probable durability, and his ability to provide service. Although it is not infrequent here to see reputable programmers abruptly leave their customers dead in the water. For instance the makers of Web Essentials, or Elastic Window.
I understand your point about inexperinced programmers under-estimating their talent… and it is determental to them financially perhaps, but it does provide a good life lesson. but worse it the inexperienced programmer with an ego, the one who believes he is much more talented than he really is.
As to abandonment, it happens… sometimes the developer has a kick-a** program, but he failed to realize it was more niche than expected, and the work exceeded the revenue stream (regardless of the actual price). and then there is the more tragic reason, the developer got hit by a bus. Which is why Bob indicated he will only invest in source-code available projects. Which also provide a risk to the original developer, in that the how and why are exposed, and a nefarious purchaser, could easily re-engineer small portions, and then claim it as a new competive product at 1/2 the price.
So no matter what, there is no right answer, in the end it STILL boils down to “Caveat Emptor” [Buyer Beware]
At last for my country(Greece),i know developers with salary per hour 15 euro without insurance, just part time.The company hire 5 Part time persons for make the job like control,database,or ios app on specific time and then the rights and app belong to the company…
so if we put 5 with salary per hour 15 euro and 8 hours work and 5 days for the final result =3000 euro.After that 1 developer just for bugs and updates…
I don’t speak about developers that is individual and do job’s from home,that is worst from part time…
free ios app in app store from home developer to sell it only for 1500 euro,app with Facebook,twitter sharing maps,gps location and others…
Contracting to build a control is very different than selling a control you created.
I am very unlikely to ever do the former as I would not be sure how long it would take and how well it would come out…
But I have done the latter. Once I created it and got it to work acceptably (IMO of course) only then did I offer it for sale. It grew out of something I needed.
When a control is created under contract by a professional earning their living, the price needs to be high to cover the time.
If one is selling it, making it worth while depends on on the combination of price and (expected) sales volume. In this market doing it mostly only makes sense for someone who needs the control for their own work and is creating it anyway…
Pricing a control for sale is a whole other question.
The Xojo market for add ons is relatively small and price sensitive. I think that those that are successful sell packages with a lot of functionality/controls rather than individual ones.
In this market, unless it was something both unique and in very high demand, selling a single control for $200 would likely not earn the author much…
That said, I initially offered an encrypted version of my control for either $45 or $35 (I don’t recall which anymore) but the only sales I got were for the source course version which was (and is) $125 … which kind of surprised me… but should not have, because I really don’t like using encrypted classes myself.
I don’t know if I set the price “right” or or was shortchanging myself… but initially I was worried that I might have set the price too high,
When I originally started selling it, I needed the money because I was out of work (which is why I started selling it). I never counted on the income from it but at that time anything would be better than nothing.
It’s been over 5 years now since I first offered it and I have been able to update it for changes in Xojo and it is still around.
If someone made “Crystal Reports” for Xojo I’d expect it to be expensive
It was when I used it with VB long ago & far away
But worth every last cent
That is exactly the point I, Bob and Norman were making. Bespoke has to be paid the just price for the work. And even more with the source code.
When I place RubberViews encrypted at $99.05 and source code at $149.95 my hope is to sell enough to cover the development time on the two-three years coming. That is a totally different proposition. Yet, as you quite rightly said, the Xojo third party tools is rather limited, so one has to hope and shoot for the mid term.
It gets even worse for general public software, in the MAS or the iOS App Store for instance, where price means less and less, both dollarwise and qualitywise. It is not a single control but an entire app that ends up tagged at $0.99.