It’s with mixed emotions I’m going to announce I’m ceasing development on my very first project: ASP Stats Generator.
This was a very hard decision but in the last month I realized I probably took this decision years ago without making an official announce. The ASP Stats Generator project was born more than 7 years ago and many things changed in this timeframe.
There are many reason behind this choice. I’m going to explain some in no particular order.
First, I’m no longer a Windows user and I haven’t been writing a single line of ASP code in the last 4 years. I happily switched to Mac OS X 3 years ago and it’s hard to code in ASP when you don’t have the native environment. I could have used a virtual machine but, hey, this is ASP… Microsoft killed ASP almost 5 years ago, while should I continue to work on it?
I started working on ASP in 2002. Since then I learned many other programming languages including Java, PHP and Ruby and I met the wonderful world of Object Oriented Programming language and, dude, nothing and nobody can convince me that ASP is still worth a single minute of my time.
Talking about time, I’m currently involved in many other open source and private projects. I’m going to launch RoboDomain until the end of the year and I have some exiting ideas I’d like to work on. Also, I’ve a full-time work and there aren’t any additional free slots for ASP Stats Generator right now.
despite all my love for ASP Stats Generator, I recognize that there are many other excellent alternatives out of there. I started ASP Stats Generator because I really needed it so I was its first user. IMHO, this is one of the most important key for a successful project: use the products that you make. We (programmers) always refer to this as dogfooding.
I’m no longer eating my own dog food since I moved all my projects to Ruby on Rails, including ASP Stats Generator website. Nowadays there are many other free alternatives such as Google Analytics and I encourage you to consider switching to a more powerful and flexible solution.
You can tell me “hey, but I can’t manage my data because they are hosted elsewhere”. You are right, but you can still programmatically access them through their API so, once again, consider switching to a more powerful and flexible solution.
Let me spend a couple of line talking about users. ASP Stats Generator is a really successful project. I still can’t believe that it has been downloaded and installed hundred thousand times. I’m really thankful to all the users and I can’t say how much I appreciate the donations I received in these 7 years. They didn’t help me too much with the development, but I was really happy to know someone else was so thankful to buy me a beer.
On the other side, ASP Stats Generator remembered me that the world is still full of nasty people. In 7 years I found at least 50 people who stole my free project, removed all credits and sold it to their clients. They were mostly small and medium web agencies run by people stupid enough to understand that someone else was spending his own time to develop a free application. Yes, ASP Stats Generator is a free application and you don’t have to pay a single bucket to download or install it. You can also offer it to your client but, of course, you can’t sell it just because… it’s free and should be free for everyone.
Unfortunately, the Italian justice is not ready for internet yet. I had hard time trying to manage the most significant copyright infringements and I just don’t have time for that. This is sad and somewhat unbelievable I have to pay to make sure a free project remains free…
So where do this project go from here? I don’t have any special plan for ASP Stats Generator. I didn’t sell it when I’ve been asked, thus it will probably continue to exist until it won’t take too much effort to keep the site, the forum and all the stuff online.
However, please know I won’t follow the development or the support forum any further. Also, any email asking about the code or the installation will likely to be ignored. I’m not trying to be rude, but I’d like to cut as much as I can.
So, thank you to all of you and goodbye ASP Stats Generator.
[...] Per chi non seguisse il mio blog inglese: da oggi termina ufficialmente lo sviluppo di ASP Stats Generator. [...]
Thank you for your response Simone.
I too had left a few applications in the limbo in the past, but there is a way out of this problem of leaving behind some code that we will no longer commit our time to it.
If you already know that people will use it, adapt it to their own environments, or just scrap it in case they can not figure out how to adapt it to their own circumstances; then, you can sell the rights to use the code in their other projects as they will do it anyway. Most programmers will prefer to pay a small fee for using other people’s code in their own applications than breaking any copyright laws.
Since your application does not really run as it is, or, it stopped running who knows how long ago, as it is now it does not work at all, and so, because of that, I do not really know the full extent of the application nor I can guess all it’s features and benefits. Will it actually work as expected? Has it been completed? Code, (in any language), has some true value if it really works, and I mean it should work right now, not in the past. It is taking me more time to read your code and understand it; than what it should take me to install it and use it, so, I am also spending my time on it; and as much as I appreciate the time you’ve had spent in designing and coding your project in the past, I would also like you to think about the time and effort that other people are putting into it “to make it work”, or to adapt it to their own circumstances.
Your application looks pretty nice; however, it did not run at all. I’ve been trying to fix it, convert it to current ASP standards and MS T-SQL, and it is taking me tons of my time, believe me, and certainly, if Active Server Pages stays a little longer, maybe I could think of selling the final product to others, but that would be possible only if you allow it, otherwise, it will remain only in my computer, and for my own sites only.
You could put some money in your pocket and let others do what they need, or what they want.
I hope my opinion has some meaning to you.
Thank you anyway for providing the startup model to what it could be a good web stats application in the near future.
Congratulations,
Pedro Jaramillo
PS: If you would like to see your project adapted to my environment, please visit: http://www.radiojamon.com/myasg