NStatic

As I am mentioned in my post on Static Analysis, I am working on a static analysis called NStatic, which behaves more intelligently than most code analysis tools out in the market. More details in upcoming posts. I have already registered the domain name, “NStatic.com.”

This isn’t actually the main product of my software company, but one of a series of small “smart” products that are based on some of technology of my main product. In keeping with the various “NProduct” family of products, there will a very functional free version, but also a commercial version to fund my endeavors.

My main product is a smart wordprocessor-like desktop application that will enable people to write documents ten times faster through AI. The software is like a “soft person,” a ghost writer (an agent in AI parlance) that deals with the mechanics of writing, while the users concentrates on ideas. The product focuses on content rather than presentation and layout, which is the emphasis of current wordprocessors today. A wordprocessor that thinks of a document in units of discourse (such as sentences and paragraphs) instead of meaningless characters can allow users to “pivot” and manipulate unstructured text. Hopefully, the generality of my approach will wipe out the current crop of specialty content-oriented wordprocessors and template software.

I see various benefits from releasing NStatic and other spinoff products, despite the delay to my main product.

• Release experience. By clearing all the obstacles to shipping a product—development, testing, web design, marketing, ecommerce, and customer support—I gain the experience of shipping my own product.
• Early revenues. Software revenues create a positive feedback loop for my future software development.
• Real world testing. I get early testing of various technologies before releasing my main product.
• Internal development benefits. In addition to testing my own product, the products opens up source code to tools. For instance, I can convert C# to XML and back again to support metaprogramming and allow code to be easily scanned or manipulated with scripting languages.

I will try to get an incomplete version out at the end of this week before vacationing at my parents’ home for the Christmas and New Year holidays. This version will be in limited beta; if you are interested in testing it, please drop me an email. This version will only read C# files.

The user interface is mostly complete now, and I will eventually post a screenshot after I have fixed the graphics. The user interface for the free version will include a Visual Studio-like start page, which points to http://NStatic.com, which will most likely be a NStatic-specific blog site.

After NStatic, I have some options. I could quickly build a code converter from the NStatic codebase. The code converter would also share the same user interface. I would then have two products generating revenue, but the second tool would not directly advance the testing and development of my main product. It would be about a two-weeks incremental investment of time in development and testing to implement the code conversion tool to and from C#, VB, and a few dynamic languages; a one-way conversion to C++/CLI is also possible. I personally need a converter from Perl to Ruby. I have to weigh spending time building another quick revenue-generating tool versus delaying my future product.

Comments

[Drazen Dotlic]

Two weeks is nothing. Especially consider how long has it been (and is still to pass by) until you ship your main product.
I say, if it's really two weeks, just ship it. But I am a bit suspicios about the part where you aim for C#, VB "and a few of scripting languages" - all that in two weeks?

[Wesner Moise]

If I already parse the code in my code analysis tool, then printing it out isn't going to take long.

I am just wary of writing every tool that pops into my head.

[Ioan Bizau]

I suppose a any-to-IL converter is also possible. Now *that* would be a nice move! But not as big as your final product :)

[Drazen Dotlic]

>> I am just wary of writing every tool that pops into my head.

Again, if it's that cheap to develop, it's a low risk thing. Unless you expect to get a lot of support questions that might distract you, but assuming the target audience is an educated developer, that should not be a big problem.

[Philipp Schumann]

N-Static...

Did you consider, for a code analysis product, the names "N-Alice" or "N-Eliza"?

I like them... :)

[Larry O'Brien]

A friend once said "If you want to make money with software development tools, follow the data." If you've got unique tools that are really robust in combining syntactic and semantic analysis, database translation, optimization, integration, etc. are acid tests.

[Martan]

Alea iacta est