Any programmers want to write a program?

[geminilee]

I will give up all creative and future commercial rights to what I think might be a lucrative program, in exchange for a working version. I have told several people who know programming about my idea, and they all agree that it would be a very simple program to write, but alas I know nothing of writing programs. PM me and I will send details.

[Troberg]

Programming is a wide field. It might help if you could give some hints about the project.

As a side note, I'm considering setting up a site for such orphaned ideas, where people will be able to post them and other people will be able to use them. I'm thinking about calling the site onepercentsolutions.org, as the nominal fee for using the idea would be 1% of the profit made from it.

[CSGirl]

I'm pretty busy, but I'm curious. Any constraints as to what language it has to be written in?

[geminilee]

My machines are running Vista, so my version would have to work with that. Other than that, it wouldn't matter to me. I know absolutely nothing about programming, and only as much about computers as I have needed to know so far.

[CSGirl]

Originally Posted by geminilee

My machines are running Vista, so my version would have to work with that. Other than that, it wouldn't matter to me. I know absolutely nothing about programming, and only as much about computers as I have needed to know so far.

Well PM me, I'm interested. Like I said, I'm pretty busy, but I don't get to do much straight programming these days, so it would be kinda nice.

[ElectricBarbarella]

I wonder if you will allow a hijack with a question:

I have a program idea for a homeschool tracker program--basically a computer based lesson planner/gradebook. There are a few on the market but the biggest complaint is that they are too clunky or don't do what is needed.

Basically, my question is: how does one go about finding someone to write the program that is in your head (as a design) when you have no money to pay them up front? What is the protocol or steps one must take in order to do this?

[CSGirl]

EB- I'd say it depends. The IT market is pretty good in most places right now, so you may have trouble finding someone to do a significant amount of up-front work for free. What were you planning on doing for payment? Installments or something? Feel free to PM me too, depending on what kind of scope/timeline you want, I may be interested.

[geminilee]

Originally Posted by ElectricBarbarella

Basically, my question is: how does one go about finding someone to write the program that is in your head (as a design) when you have no money to pay them up front? What is the protocol or steps one must take in order to do this?

Well, I tried offering to give up rights in exchange for a copy, and it seems to have gotten some interest so far

If you want to keep rights, you could probably draft a contract where the programmer gets either a set fee, or a percentage. You could even possibly get one to accept payments, especially the starving college student-type (they may be willing to exchange home-cooked meals for a down payment, in fact.) Try posting your number at a college if you have one nearby, near the compsci building.

[ElectricBarbarella]

Actually for payment (remember I have no clue how this actually works, so I'm using books as a guide), I was thinking they'd get paid when things sold. But again, I have no clue how this actually works.

This program won't be as simply as Gemini's, at least I don't think. I can see what went into the one homeschool program I have and can imagine it was a lot of work. So I'm not trying to scimp out on paying anyone at all!

This isn't a rush program, it's probably going to take some time to develop and make. And as I said, I am clueless as to where to start, who to approach with this idea, etc... I have the idea on paper how it should work, but I don't even know if that's the right first step.

I can PM you my idea, maybe then you can tell me where to start? But for reference, to get an idea of what I am talking about, go to www.homeschooltracker.com and see the screens. I'm basically using them as a base.

[ElectricBarbarella]

Gemini--the idea is for me to make the money. However, I'm willing to "pay the piper" as it were, since all I came up with was the creative design and idea and they did the programming work.

[CSGirl]

I would be a *little* leery of asking college students. Some of them would do a greta job, I'm sure. But there are also a lot of straight-up computer science majors that may be good at writing code, but not so good about creating an wholistic piece of software, and working with a client to fit their needs. Some programs are better about teaching software design than others.

[CSGirl]

EB- based on the link, the actual code for a system like that is pretty simple, it's the GUI (graphic user interface, the screens you see) that would be more complicated. So I would mention that as a specific skill you'd be looking for.

[ElectricBarbarella]

hmmm..... I'll send you a pm with the fancy details because I'm not sure if those details would change that "pretty simple" or not.

GUI--how does that work?

[CSGirl]

Originally Posted by ElectricBarbarella

hmmm..... I'll send you a pm with the fancy details because I'm not sure if those details would change that "pretty simple" or not.

GUI--how does that work?

Basically, you could have an entire program do what you want, and the basic input would be via, say a DOS bos. Not user friendly at all. So all of the individual screens you see (say, showing student averages, or assignments) have to be designed. There are software packages that programmers use that can make that simpler, but you do still have to lay out how the code interacts with each screen, which is more time consuming than most of the code.

For example, the code to calculate student averages is very straightforward, and could probably be written in a few minutes by someone who knows what they're doing. But then you need to create a grid to display it, and decide how big the grid needs to be, what displays where, etc.

[ElectricBarbarella]

alright, let me start school and I'll pm you the idea.

[Squirt]

For things like that, it may well be easier to program as a website that people purchase subscriptions to, rather than a package that people purchase and install ( although that limits it to people with the internet available ). There already seem to be a few of those about, although I don't know how good any of them are.

[SoToasty]

Seems like all the programming ideas are coming from FL.

EB. If you idea is anywhere close to what is in the homeschooltrcker.com program, that will take quite some time to develop. You might have a tough time finding someone to take the project on. But if you are serious, and willing to spend the time, I would suggest you start small.

1. Design the screens how you would like them to look. Let the programmer figure out how the back end should work.
2. Start simple and small. (Teacher/Student Creation).
3. On something like this. Make sure the programmer knows databases.

If I can think of something else I will let you know.

[ElectricBarbarella]

Originally Posted by SoToasty

Seems like all the programming ideas are coming from FL.

EB. If you idea is anywhere close to what is in the homeschooltrcker.com program, that will take quite some time to develop. You might have a tough time finding someone to take the project on. But if you are serious, and willing to spend the time, I would suggest you start small.

1. Design the screens how you would like them to look. Let the programmer figure out how the back end should work.
2. Start simple and small. (Teacher/Student Creation).
3. On something like this. Make sure the programmer knows databases.

If I can think of something else I will let you know.

I do have sketches I've done based on the homeschooltracker program where I've tweaked it to look like how I want. They are not complete, lacking details, but I can definitely make them complete.

Squirt---there is one website that I know of, that does basic tracking for homeschoolers. It allows grade, student, and lesson input and that's it. I want something that's a bit of hybrid between the actual program and the web one.

[CSGirl]

Originally Posted by SoToasty

Seems like all the programming ideas are coming from FL.

EB. If you idea is anywhere close to what is in the homeschooltrcker.com program, that will take quite some time to develop. You might have a tough time finding someone to take the project on. But if you are serious, and willing to spend the time, I would suggest you start small.

1. Design the screens how you would like them to look. Let the programmer figure out how the back end should work.
2. Start simple and small. (Teacher/Student Creation).
3. On something like this. Make sure the programmer knows databases.

If I can think of something else I will let you know.

I would even say that if you're not paying up front, you may be better trying to get a team of people. That's actually a pretty major piece of software- you're talking a lot of coding, a lot of GUI design, and an absolute ton of testing, especially if you're talking about distributing it to other people.

Plus, part of the problem is maintenance. Depending on what it's running on, and like SoToasty says what database, there are going to have to be updates to keep everything compatible, plus some type of support, if other people are going to use it.

ETA: If you're talking about web support also, you get into web hosting, which costs money too, and probably even more support.

[Troberg]

Originally Posted by ElectricBarbarella

I wonder if you will allow a hijack with a question:

I have a program idea for a homeschool tracker program--basically a computer based lesson planner/gradebook. There are a few on the market but the biggest complaint is that they are too clunky or don't do what is needed.

Basically, my question is: how does one go about finding someone to write the program that is in your head (as a design) when you have no money to pay them up front? What is the protocol or steps one must take in order to do this?

What I would do is to find some open software that's pretty close to what you want. Then, you start providing valuable feedback to the developer(s) in a friendly manner. If it's sensible, chances are that they'll listen and even be inspired, and your improvement will arrive in the next version.