ATTN: IoT Smart Device developers. Quick questions please?

  1. Oh please no not another software trying to do it for me. There are so many little packages that are supposed to make things easier by taking away all the need for technical knowledge, even Arduino is an example. But as a rule they end up pigeon-holing a guy like me that knows how to figure out code. Most of the time there is already an API somewhere and some software trying to hide that from me just gives me another layer of stuff that I have to figure out how it works before I can get down to the business of making my project work. Maybe if I'm doing one of the few thing that they were thinking of when they designed the tool then it becomes trivial, but as soon as I am out of that box such tools get in the way more than they help. The secret to good development is to understand what is actually going on in your program, not to have all those detail hidden away by some helper program.

  2. Not a dime. Don't build your business based on people paying for your code. It will go down in flames every time. You're not Microsoft writing Windows for the average dumb computer user. You're writing a tool to be used by people who have the ability to write that tool themselves. Guaranteed that whatever you design and try to charge for will be copied into a free version that does the same things and doesn't cost a dime. After that you don't make anything. You have to find a different profit model. There are plenty out there that work, but the pay for the code model is dead, at least in this sector.

  3. Again, there you are with the how much would you pay. I won't pay anything. I'll see what your program does for me, reverse engineer it, write my own, and then give it away to everyone. This isn't how you make money in software dev these days.