How to Become an Independent Programmer in Just 1068 Days (2005)

gusmueller.com

100 points·thinkzig··5 comments

The lack of meta-discussion, combined with ~40 upvotes, speak to the simple and direct quality of this article. He says what needs to be said, and there is little for the community to add.

That said, here's my little bit: would this story be different if he weren't developing exclusively for OSX? Would the time cost to port between platforms outweigh the benefits of more potential customers?

1. would you want to develop for other platforms? it's a fairly different experience

2. the OSX crowd already pays more for a better product. if i wanted to make a pretty product for a dedicated fan base that isn't use to shareware and oss, then i'd go OSX. (as it turns out, this is true.) the only software i've spent money on are omnigraffle and superduper, which are OSX specific and totally worth the money.

EDIT: by "better" product i meant as a perception, not a truth. eit.

I would curious to see if this story would be different if he were developing for iPhone? We hear about the ultra hits and the utter failures, but are any indies running sustainable businesses like I image Gus does with Flying Meat?

I thought I read something on Reddit about this. It might have been one of these (in keeping with today's theme):

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9bxhw/i_developed_a_re... http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/9lla6/i_am_a_successfu...

he should make them bars available as an app online or something, I imagine other people would like to track their progress that way.

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