Author: Oasis Digital

Crafting a Summer Intern Program

Inspired by Fog Creek’s summer intern program, for the last few years we’ve (occasionally) thought about a summer intern program at Oasis Digital. We’ll going to try it out this summer, with a single intern; a more substantial program is possible in the future.

Serious Work

When some people hear (or say) the word intern, they imagine someone who makes copies and fetches lunch. Perhaps in some work cultures that is helpful, but here we have in mind serious work. Our interns will work on serious work:

  • Projects that are helpful to our company operations
  • Exploratory programming, to try out ideas that don’t yet warrant commercial attention
  • Open Source programming, such as improvements to tools we use
  • Perhaps even a few bits of our real customer projects

The kinds of work could include…

  • writing software
  • testing software
  • reading and writing about software
  • marketing work around the software

Twofold Purpose

The purpose and goal of our internships will be:

  1. Educate and enlighten the intern
  2. Hopefully also create something useful to Oasis Digital and its customers

Paid vs Unpaid Internships

Many companies are eager to get free help from interns. But it’s clear from a few minutes research that a for-profit company with an intern working on potentially valuable project, must pay. Therefore, we will only offer paid internships.

Location

The internship work will be conducted at our at Oasis Digital office; interns must live in the St. Louis metro area.

Can I Apply?

Sorry – No. We’ve already selected an intern for our trial-run 2011 program. If we decide to continue and expand it for 2012, it will be announced in the spring (of 2012).

 

I Admire the Ruby Community

Over the last year or so, I’ve spent perhaps 50 hours rethinking what kind of business Oasis Digital should be. I’ve studied business models. I’ve made spreadsheets. I’ve looked around that numerous other consulting firms. The results of all that… are slowly emerging. Stay tuned. In the meantime, though, I noticed something very interesting: the firms that appeal to me most, in terms of web site content, community involvement, portfolios, marketing approach, etc., are disproportionately Ruby or Ruby-Rails shops. I admire the “vibe” of the Ruby community:

  • Strong focus on design, to the extent that some Ruby-centric development firms have web sites which could pass for visual-design firms instead.
  • Ruby developers seem unusually aware of the extent to which syntax and conciseness matter.
  • There is much discussion of craftsmanship, though I’d need to survey a broader swath of production code to determine whether this discussion has a basis in reality.
  • Seemingly contrary to the above factors, Rubyists also appear to be unusually pragmatic.
  • This pragmatism translates to real-world financial impact: many developers make a good living with Ruby, and many firms are very happy with their Ruby projects.
  • Ruby events are numerous, nationwide.

There are numerous Ruby- or Ruby-Rails-centric development firms, and Oasis Digital is not one of them (we are perhaps a 5%-or-so Ruby shop, with Ruby expertise to effectively attack automated sysadmin, integration projects, and so on). We aren’t going to become a Ruby-centric-firm, either; and there are some technical aspects of Ruby that don’t impress me. Rather, we want to bring some of the cultural qualities seen in the Ruby community, to other languages and tools. We care about design much more than most firms, and it shows in GUIs we create. We care about user experience, and we are obsessed with quality, working results.

Why Choose Custom Software?

To meet the software needs of your business, there are two main paths:

  1. Buy software “off the shelf”
  2. Build custom software (in-house, or with a development firm)

In most cases, off-the-shelf makes the most sense, and it should be your default choice:

  • Acquiring and deploying off-the-shelf software is usually faster than getting custom software developed. Even complex installation and configuration it typically faster than developing new software.
  • Off-the-shelf software is generally cheaper than developing your own. The development cost of an off-the-shelf package is distributed among multiple firms, possibly many firms worldwide. These many customers more than offset the extra cost of mass production and distribution. Comparatively, with custom software your business alone bears most of the costs.
  • Off-the-shelf software typically has years of testing and years of production use, as well as feedback and improvement, giving confidence that it actually works.
  • Off-the-shelf software may include a money-back guarantee in case it does not meet your needs.

For all these reasons, the option of designing custom software bears the burden of proof in your decision-making process.

There are good reasons, though, to consider custom development, especially in mid-sized or large companies. Under the right circumstances, these advantages can make the decision to develop software the best choice.

Exactly the Software You Want

With off-the-shelf software you start with the features the vendor chose, and then perhaps try to persuade the vendor to add additional features. You may or may not convince the vendor that the features you want are worthwhile and in their interest. Moreover, the features may turn out to be a mirage:

  • The features might not actually work.
  • The features might work but still not meet your needs.
  • The features might interact with each other badly, even though they work in isolation.

Custom software, though, is almost infinitely adaptable to your needs. A custom development firm will develop the features you request, and will make them interact properly for your specific needs.

Top Notch Support

An off-the-shelf package typically offers some level of support. Virtually every vendor will claim to provide excellent support, but you will not know about the quality of the support until you need it. At that point, it is usually too late to undo your purchase decision, leaving you stuck with a frustrating shortage of real service. Your support contacts might lack knowledge of your problem domain, of your specific usage of the software, or might even lack good English skills. An off-the-shelf vendor’s highest tier of support may prove insufficient for software that you use to run your business.

With custom software, you can generally get in-depth support from the team who creates and maintains the software. Such a team can offer in-depth expertise, and the ability to not merely work-around problems, but also enhance the custom software on-demand to solve them.

Change Happens

The needs of your business are likely to change and expand. An off-the-shelf software package might leave you stuck with features that no longer work well, and require a “forklift upgrade” to move forward.

Custom software, though, can be continually enhanced to meet you growing needs, incrementally, so that users are never forced to violently switch to an entire new system.

Custom Software can be Cheaper!

Off-the-shelf software is cheaper most of the time, but not always! Occasionally, custom can be less expensive. How can this happen?

  • The best off-the-shelf package still requires a great deal of customization.
  • The best off-the-shelf package requires a great deal of changes to your business.
  • The off-the-shelf package with the features you need, is prohibitively priced for a higher market tier.

More than once, Oasis Digital has created custom software for our clients which solved their specific problem at a lower cost than their off-the-shelf options. In one such case, our client needed a highly flexible rules-based system for calculating their sales quotations and product configurations. This sort of function is typically available in large Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. The ERP systems they found with the required flexibility, were high-end packages aimed at large enterprises, with a price to match. But they did not need such a system, they needed only the specific features for sales quotations and product configurations. Oasis Digital’s custom solution met their needs at an attractive price.

To Get Different Results, Use Different Software

If you are running a for-profit business in a competitive industry, you have an added incentive to consider custom software. With off-the-shelf software, you will end up using the same software that your competitors are using. Why play on a level playing field when you can develop advantages that are unique to your way of doing business? If you have proprietary ideas or processes in your business, custom software can capture those processes, amplifying your ability to operate more effectively or efficiently than your competitors.

Create a Corporate Asset

Custom software becomes a corporate asset. This can benefit you in several ways.

  • In the event of a company sale, your custom software adds to your unique operating capabilities, potentially giving you leverage to ask for a higher price.
  • Alternatively, your custom software might become an asset you can re-sell to others in your industry.

Choose Wisely

Two pages later, the point at the start is still correct: prefer off-the-shelf software. But once you consider all the factors, custom software might be the right decision for you.

(This article is also available as a PDF download: CustomSoftwareFoolishOrBrilliant)