Mario F.

When I spend money on some book on software development, I almost always think I made the investment of my life. The knowledge within some of these books couldn't be priced. And yet it comes at a low $50. Then I think about direct development tools (some full-featured IDE or some awesome tool I'm drolling at). Very few things -- in the computer field -- give me more pleasure than acquiring a licensed copy of some well-deserving software.

And then I get into the disarrayed world of component development companies, and I immediately lose my boner. Confusing versioning choices, restrictive updates, overly expensive products, incomplete or downright wrong documentation, and shoddy business strategies pretty much, at least to me, define this bunch.

Take a look at Stimulsoft for instance. No complete solution. If you need to generate reports for both Windows.Forms and WPF you have to buy 2 full products. If you need to add ASP.Net, make it 3. Or check out the many companies forcing you into annual subscriptions of their software. If after one year you want to keep upgrading it, cough up some money ans shut up.

...

But nothing I've seen in all these years (since VB days and the horrid component companies that accompanied it) was like today. I'm going to withhold any names despite my urge to not do so. But there's enough hints for the curious...
This is the email I received from them today after I was forced to ask them for a quote to their component (which doesn't have a price tag on their website):

Excuse me!?
This was my reply.

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Originally Posted by brewbuck:
Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

bithub

This is very common. What they are trying to do is figure out how much you are willing to pay for their product. I hate this practice, and refuse to use any software that doesn't have a price model on the company's website.

I went through this with a company that sold debugging software (similar to valgrind). I went through the hoops of telling them about my company, and what projects we wanted to use their software on. Their final quote? $7000 per developer license. No thanks.

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bit∙hub [bit-huhb] n. A source and destination for information.

DavidP

Mario,

I'd be interesting in hearing their reply to your reply if you don't mind posting it (assuming they do reply of course)

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"Circular logic is good because it is."

Mario F.

Doubt I will get any reply. I don't think I fit their customer profile anymore. But will keep ya posted.

Meanwhile I'm taking a deep look at sqlite as a possible alternative. Essentially I need to store all the application external files in a single file repository and then, through a file system emulation, manage the files inside from within my application as if they were normal files.

Some months ago I was rereading Tree and Hierarchies in SQL for Smarties about generating and maintaining databases that map tree structures. Something that is not easy at all. And now I kind feel I can put that information into practice. (Meanwhile this is one of the best books on SQL ever written. I highly advise it).

With sqlite core already supporting storage and fast data access, I have the most difficult thing already done for me at no price. So with the knowledge in this book, all I then need is to create a wrapper to emulate the FS operations to be used by my code. So E. Corp can kiss my rosy cheeks.

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Originally Posted by brewbuck:
Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

Mario F.

Here's the reply:

I pretty much lost any interest on this company or their products. Clearly their sales practices leave much to be desired and their product is nowhere near the likes of much more complex software development solutions which are clearly priced and tagged on the websites marketing them.

After 3 emails I still don't know the price of their product. Neither they will give it to me until I talk about what I plan to do with it. They don't even mention exactly what "significant discounts" these are. Just a load of BS meant to, as bithub pointed out, price their product on a case-by-case basis... which incidentally (although irrelevant, I agree) is illegal around here.

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Originally Posted by brewbuck:
Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

jdragyn

I completely agree with you. If you don't speak with someone else who has purchased their product, you'll never know if the price they offer you is fair or if they are taking advantage of you. Even car salesmen show the price up-front.

After that e-mail exchange I would be highly suspect of their product, no matter how good it is. If it takes this much effort to just find out the price, imagine support!

I mean,
is quite contradictory all by itself! If they are in no way (I assume "they" should be "way", but if not then perhaps I misunderstand the e-mail...) interested in disclosure of your idea, then why would they hope you would tell them about the functions you will be using to access their software?

Now, after having quoted you the price and confirmed the sale (assuming you bit), I can certainly see them asking to help you out, if you want. They could explain ways in which they anticipate their software to be used (perhaps including examples of functions that call theirs or maybe small example programs). Then they could ask you if you would like to elaborate on your particular case so you can discuss your ideas with others who have obviously put a lot of thought into the subject and maybe provide you with ideas you otherwise might not have thought of right away. Of course they would probably put something in their License agreement that any code you share with them will be used to help them sell their product to others, or perhaps even to continue development of their product, but at least it would be something you would (should) have read about before ever showing them a single line of your own code.