TITLE: Is It Really That Hard?
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: September 24, 2014  3:54 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
This morning, I
<A HREF="https://twitter.com/wallingf/status/514792644451393536">
   tweeted</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Pretty sure I could build a git-based curriculum management
 system in two weeks that would be miles better than anything
 on the market now.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, I know that it is easy to have ideas, and that carrying an
idea through to a product is the real challenge.  At least I
don't
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2010-12.html#e2010-12-01T15_45_40.htm">
   just need a programmer</A>...

My tweet was the result of temporary madness provoked by yet
another round of listening to non-CS colleagues talk about one
of the pieces of software we use on campus.  It is a commercial
product purchased for one task only, to help us manage the
cycle of updating the university catalog.  Alas, in its current
state, it can handle only one catalog at a time.  This is, of
course, inconvenient.  There are always at least two catalogs:
the one in effect at this moment, and the one in progress of
being updated.  That doesn't even take into account all of the
old catalogs still in effect for the students who entered the
university when they were The Catalog.

Yes, we need version control.  Either the current software does
not provide it, or that feature is turned off.

The madness arises because of the deep internal conflict that
occurs within me when I'm drawn into such conversations.
Everyone assumes that programs "can't do this", or that the
programmers who wrote our product were mean or incompetent.  I
could try to convince them otherwise by explaining the idea of
version control.  But their experience with commercial software
is so uniformly bad that they have a hard time imagining I'm
telling the truth.  Either I misunderstand the problem, or I am
telling them a white lie.

The alternative is to shake my head, agree with them implicitly,
and keep thinking about how to teach my intro students how to
design simple programs.

I'm convinced that a suitable web front-end to a <TT>git</TT>
back end could do 98% of what we need, which is about 53% more
than either of our last two commercial solutions has done for
us.

Maybe it's time for me to take a leave of absence, put
together a small team of programmers, and do this.  Yes, I would
need a team.  I know my limitations, and besides working with a
few friends would be a lot more fun.  The current tools in this
space leave a lot of room for improvement.  Built well and
marketed well, this product would make enough money from
satisfaction-starved universities to reward everyone on the team
well enough for all to retire comfortably.

Maybe not.  But the idea is free the taking.  All I ask is that
if you build it, give me a shout-out on your website.  Oh, and
cut my university a good deal when we buy your software to
replace whatever product we are grumbling about when you reach
market.
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