Nick Bradbury Interview · 1503 words posted 01/15/2004 04:58 PM
One-man software company Nick Bradbury is the creator of the popular web authoring tools HomeSite and TopStyle, and recently released the RSS newsfeed reader FeedDemon. Nick started his career as a cartoonist, but switched to programming after discovering that he liked to eat regularly and have a roof over his head.
Nick’s company, the aptly-named Bradbury Software, can be found at www.bradsoft.com.
since1968: Your previous programs, HomeSite and TopStyle, have become industry-leading tools for writing, respectively, HTML and CSS. How do you compete with the large software houses?
Nick Bradbury: Being a small player means that I can get something to market much faster than a larger company, even if they already have plans for a similar tool. But primarily I serve markets that are initially too small for larger companies to target, yet which I believe will grow substantially. Or I simply look at markets that are being ignored by the larger companies for political reasons.
For example, when I created HomeSite, companies such as Microsoft were focusing on being the first to create WYSIWYG authoring tools, and they hoped to use them to persuade developers to support their platform over a competitor’s. The market for a code-based HTML editor was being ignored not because it was too small, but because it didn’t serve the needs of the larger players. Ironically, in the last couple of years we’ve seen tools such as FrontPage and Dreamweaver develop a much more code-centric approach.
When I developed TopStyle, no one was really serving the demand for help with creating style sheets. The use of CSS was certainly growing in leaps and bounds, yet even existing HTML editors weren’t offering CSS tools. After TopStyle took off, it became obvious that another need wasn’t being served: the need to create standards-compliant web sites. So, I took TopStyle to the next level and made it a full-blown HTML editor that focused on standards-compliance.
The market for an RSS reader is a little different in that it’s already quite sizeable and some larger companies are showing an interest (albeit a limited one). I initially conceived of FeedDemon a long time ago, but left it on the drawing board since I was nervous about supporting two popular applications. Now, of course, I wish I was sooner to market with FeedDemon, but I think I’m still getting in on the ground floor with RSS.
since1968: Every year we hear about the imminent death of packaged desktop software. Still, you appear to be gainfully employed. Will we be reading blogs in desktop apps three years from now?
NB: Rumors of the death of desktop applications are greatly exaggerated :) The line between the desktop and the web will continue to blur, but for the moment desktop apps simply provide more of what customers want.
There are some distinct advantages to web-based apps (the ease of synchronizing data between different computers being the biggest, IMO), but the web as a platform for UI-rich apps is still too limited to compete with the desktop.
since1968: Why not consume RSS with Flash or Java instead of with a desktop app?
NB: So far, neither Java nor Flash have proved themselves to be competitive on the desktop. Macromedia has been making some interesting moves with Flash lately, such as Central, but they’ve still got a long way to go to compete with native desktop development tools.
That’s not to say a Flash or Java RSS reader wouldn’t be good, though. More often than not, it’s the design rather than the development tool that kills a program. A well-designed Java RSS reader could certainly be competitive.
since1968: Why don’t you develop for Mac?
NB: Simply because the first company I worked for used PCs, so the PC is what I learned. Once I started developing shareware, supporting more than one platform didn’t make sense – it would take too much time for too little payoff.
I have to admit, though, that after looking at OS X, I now wish I had the time to develop for the Mac.
since1968: During the FeedDemon beta, I recall requesting arrows that expand or collapse the various grids with a single click – and then being blown away when you added them in the following revision. How do you decide which features get included in new versions of your software?
NB: With TopStyle, I’ve had a "feature vote" before each major version. Basically, I collect the most popular feature requests, then create a web form where customers can rank each one. The outcome determines which features go in.
Of course, in some cases a feature request is such a no-brainer that I’ll implement it as soon as it’s suggested. In other cases, I’ll add a feature that nobody has suggested simply because I believe it will be popular. And I have to confess that I’ve added a couple features just because I needed them (it’s good to be the king!).
since1968: You sold HomeSite to Macromedia several years ago, and it hasn’t changed much since. What sense of ownership do you still feel over it? Do you still use HomeSite?
NB: HomeSite is like an old girlfriend that you no longer keep in touch with. I haven’t been involved with HomeSite for several years, and I stopped using it after adding HTML editing to TopStyle.
since1968: Both you and Brent Simmons, creator of NetNewsWire, plan to require that Atom feeds are well-formed XML. In other words, FeedDemon will generate an error instead of attempting to parse malformed XML. I understand your reason for taking this position, but if a non-technical end user encounters an error message in FeedDemon or NetNewsWire, whom does he contact or blame: the aggregator? The content author?
NB: Just to provide some background, the issue is whether aggregators such as FeedDemon should accept Atom feeds that aren’t well-formed XML. Most aggregators – including FeedDemon – have already been forgiving of invalid RSS feeds in order to be backwards-compatible. The end result is that we’re faced with a similar problem that plagued HTML: different tools interpret coding errors differently, resulting in a bad feed looking right in one aggregator but like a ransom note in another. This forces everyone – not just developers, but also blog authors and their readers – to be aware of the problem. I address this situation more fully in my blog at:
http://nick.typepad.com/blog/2004/01/feeddemon_and_w_1.html
Atom is a new format, so there’s some hope that we can get it right this time, resulting in far fewer invalid feeds. The problem of how to handle invalid Atom feeds when we come across them is something I’m still thinking about. I obviously can’t just throw up a cryptic XML error, since that would be meaningless to all but a handful of end users. But if I accept a bad feed without any indication that there’s a problem, we risk getting back in the same boat we’ve been in with HTML and RSS. Stay tuned on this one.
since1968: I use MovableType for blogging. When I remember to do so, I provide a summary of each entry in the "Excerpt" field. This means that my <description> tag in the RSS feed says exactly what I want it to instead of lopping the blog entry after the first x characters. On the other hand, some bloggers like Anil Dash include the entire blog entry in the <description> tag, which has the advantage of showing the entry in the FeedDemon newspaper pane without sending the user to the browser to read the text of the blog entry. What’s best practice?
NB: The best practice is what serves your needs and your visitors’ needs. If you generate revenue from ads on your site, you obviously want to get people to visit your site so you don’t want to put everything in your feed. The trick is putting sufficient content in your feed to get people interested enough to click on to your site to read the rest of what you have to say. If you do this, it’s a good idea to use a link such as "[Read More]" at the end of your excerpt, so readers can continue reading with a single click.
since1968: You’ve posted about your problems with software piracy: there are more pirated copies of TopStyle in circulation than licensed copies. Were you surprised by the number of responses that told to, in essence, to get over it?
NB: No, I’ve been doing this long enough that it didn’t surprise me. There will always be a large number of people who will justify their copyright infringement and treat developers who wish to get paid for their work as though they’re whiny robber barrens.
It is ironic, though, that so many of those who have popularized the Internet seem so ill-prepared to deal with the concept of bits as property.
since1968: Thank you for your time.
NB: No problem, Marc. Thanks for the interesting questions!
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