Who is the true creator of a software product ? Designer / Developer / Entrepreneur

CiMPLE is a our visual programming language product for children to program robotic kits.

Who created this ?.

This is a very tricky question.

There are three entities involved in this

a) Entrepreneur

It was our founder Gagan who came up with the mandate to make a visual programming language for kids. Lego the market leader has a VPL for programming robotic kit and we need to offer a compelling competitor to it. Can the Entrepreneur say that he’s the creator of the software. Why not ? If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be employees and thus by extension there would be no software. Hence you could say he’s the creator of the software.

b) Designer

Nikhil is our Product and Usability Designer. He spend weeks observing, understanding current workflow and techniques using which children program our robotic kits. End result three design concepts mocks. One of them became CiMPLE. Kids in India get exposed to a programming as part of curriculum in standard 8th-10th for the first time. Mostly C++/Java. If you take a look at CiMPLE you will realise that unlike Lego Mindstrom, scratch, scribbler we are a mix of Actor model and procedural programming. This hybrid suit them well as it maps line by line to textual C++/C code. In no way whatsoever is it a rip-off or influenced by any VPL out there, and if you compare CiMPLE with other you would find it different that others. So it is fair to say if it wasn’t for Nikhil this product wouldn’t have been conceptualized the way it’s. So isn’t he the true creator of the software ?. Take a look at Nikhil’s selected paper on Designing for children that he presented at Indian Design Center to understand what goes inside the head of a Designer.

c) Developer

Hello people, if it wasn’t for C++ code that the developers of this product wrote (which include me), it would be just that concept, vapourware, on paper, perhaps in your dreams. May be the designer could create a flash video and show the concept in motion. It’s the developer who puts life in the concept and makes it a reality. The Intel inside runs binary and that’s where we come into picture. Hence it’s the developer who is the creator. And lets not forget compiling to all fancies of the designer. That includes changing color codes again and again, making widget spacing and sizing acurrate to the pixel.

So who’s the creator. No brainer – The Team. Spoken like a True Manager . It’s univerally acknowledged that manager have nothing to do with creation of solutions.

Entrepreneur vision -> Designer’s concept -> Developer’s code == Product Creation.

Yes when it comes to total share in creation let us accept the developer has the major share …

Why am I writing this ?. Coz some Manager dude @ a conference was going gaga over how he is responsible for creation of three products at his company. This post is for him.

It’s We not I.