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How do you create a software or program. Like all those SEO tools and submission programs for sale?

by Adam Roy
17 replies
How do you go about creating these programs and software that are for sale?

What if I wanted to create my own program or software for keyword research or something?

Market samurai, keyword elite, trend minder...How do you learn to create things like this?
#create #program #programs #sale #seo #software #submission #tools
  • Profile picture of the author theIMgeek
    Market Samurai (the only one of those I'm familiar with) is created as an Adobe Air application.

    It's most likely built using Adobe Flex. It is an interesting system that lets you make desktop applications with the same sort of programming you would normally use for websites.

    So in that case, if you know web programming (PHP, javascript, etc) it's not too far a leap to go into desktop software. Personally, I haven't made the jump yet so I can't say any more.

    -Ryan
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    • Profile picture of the author Tonio Smith
      Originally Posted by RJP View Post

      Market Samurai (the only one of those I'm familiar with) is created as an Adobe Air application.

      It's most likely built using Adobe Flex. It is an interesting system that lets you make desktop applications with the same sort of programming you would normally use for websites.

      So in that case, if you know web programming (PHP, javascript, etc) it's not too far a leap to go into desktop software. Personally, I haven't made the jump yet so I can't say any more.

      -Ryan
      Although this in fact is how they use it to develop application, I think the best bet is to stick to what you're good at. If you're a program developer do that, but chances are center asking this question, you are not a program developer. You are Internet marketer. So outsource the task.

      Clintonio
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      • Profile picture of the author Frank Wright
        If you have no prior programming experience, trying to learn a programming language like C#, VB.Net, Python from scratch could take you at least 2 - 3 months.

        But that won't make you an expert programmer who would be able to create applications for sale. You would probably need at least 2 years experience in writing code before you would be create such applications. There are quite a lot of factors involved in creating stable and scalable software that you would learn on the way as you write code.

        If you are really serious about developing commercial software, it's never too late to start learning now.
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        • Profile picture of the author Matt_L
          Agreed. Programming commercially viable software isn't an overnight task (probably not even 6 months of overnights).

          You can decrease the learning curve by taking on an experienced partner.

          I think Adobe AIR or Silverlight are both great platforms. (Flash 10.1 runs the same code in web, desktop and mobile).

          Both commercial development environments, Adobe's (Flash or Flex) MS (Visual Studio) - cost a bit unless you get in on MS's start-up program. (Which I'm not sure they still have going.)

          AIR or Silverlight will get you into the RIA market (Rich Internet Applications). RIAs kind of extend internet browsers and can give applications a "desktop" look and feel.

          If you want to learn how to code on your own, without a partner, HTML 5, PHP or JavaFX may be cheaper to get started with just because of the up front cost in a good IDE.

          Part of your original question was how one goes about creating usable software. Generally software shops are divided into at least two camps: the coders and the designers.

          Designers define the user interfaces and commonly study and focus on UX (User Experience).

          Coders wire up the design so that it actually does something with data, calculations, communications, etc ...

          The two camps aren't mutually exclusive but a lot of people find that they are more comfortable in one or the other.

          When you start learning, stay away from discussions about architecture and design patterns. These things will become extremely valuable to you eventually but, just go with the essentials first. Software developers are a smart lot, so they like to say . The layers and layers of abstraction you find can be daunting. Eventually it will make sense but, it can really put a do-it-yourself-er off and make software dev seem much more complicated than it has to be.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adam Roy
    Yea desktop software is what I'm interested in.

    I don't know jack be nimble squat about php or javascript.

    What are those programs you just told me about? Something I can buy from adobe?
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  • Profile picture of the author stma
    If you can handle javascript and ajax you can certainly handle making an air app.

    Pretty easy to learn and there are a few books out there.
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  • Profile picture of the author specopkirbs
    i would suggest learning vb.net as a beginner programer, its pretty simple and almost writes itself once you get to grips with the basics, you can create almost any net based app ie scraper, etc
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    • Profile picture of the author BrentHodgson
      Adobe AIR (+ Flex), on the whole, is a good platform.

      One of the reasons I like it so much is because it's entirely cross platform compatible - so you can run it just as well on a Mac or PC (or Linux - although it can require a few tweaks for Linux.)

      But it's also very simple.

      The technologies you're running on AIR can be the same as the technologies that you use to create a web page.

      In fact, if you really wanted to, you could create a webpage as your product - and use AIR to plug into it.
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  • Profile picture of the author affilorama-portal
    There are lots of courses online that you can sign up for to learn programming skills. Go for a course that covers basics like "introduction to programming" or similar if you are a newbie. After picking up the basics, go ahead and pick a programming language that will suit your needs and preferences.
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  • Profile picture of the author Manfred Ekblad
    What is your goal? To have a software to sell, or to create it by yourself?

    If you want to create an application yourself such as Market Samurai, you will need to invest a lot of time in learning how to program, not to mention tech stuff such as protocols, proxies, databases, networking and so on. A lot = a couple of years unless your some kind of genius. After you learnt all of that, you will need to apply your knowledge and build your application which could take a couple of months/years. You also need to learn how to make intuitive user interfaces, optimize for performance, maintain quality code and such (if you plan to build a business around it).

    Or, you could write down a list of features that you want in your application and post it on one of the many freelance sites such as rentacoder, scriptlance, getafreelancer and so on. Outsourcing might be tricky but it's nowhere near as complex as doing all that stuff I mentioned on your own, with no prior knowledge.

    Outsourcing is a fun and easy way to get a quick ROI on time and money - when u know how to do it. Learning to create software is fun as well, check out this to get some additional information about whats available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...ming_languages
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  • Profile picture of the author chuawenching
    it will be good if you have programming basics, coz you like to create a good program that is easy to maintain for new editions, able to scale, secure, etc.

    learning from tutorials will do, but will take some time. When i learned coding at the first time, it took me some time to compile a basic Hello World.

    you can consider .net as it is easy to learn. Adobe Air seems okay too, notice few twitter clients using it ... at the end, it really depends on the platform your customers are using .. they are many languages - vb, delphi, tcl/tk, python, etc
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  • Profile picture of the author green_agent
    yeah C# or vb.net would be the best programming language start with, mostly if you prefer developing desktop applications
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  • Profile picture of the author LynxSI
    I would agree with those warnings against diving into this for commercial reasons without prior experience. However, if you want to do this for personal reasons, go for it!

    IMHO, C# is far superior to any other desktop language. It is easier and faster to write than lower level languages like C/C++/MFC; equal in dificulty to Java/Delpi; and more explicit than VB.net for understanding program flow/logic. Plus there is tons of example code out there.

    Microsoft has a built in WebBrowser control for C#/vb.net that allows you to automate a "Web browser" from your desktop application in order to automate forms/sign-ups/etc or build a scraper or similar.

    So C# all the way! (you'll soon realize this is a subjective topic - every programmer has their own preference :-)
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    • Profile picture of the author jminkler
      Originally Posted by LynxSI View Post

      IMHO, C# is far superior to any other desktop language. It is easier and faster to write than lower level languages like C/C++/MFC; equal in dificulty to Java/Delpi; and more explicit than VB.net for understanding program flow/logic. Plus there is tons of example code out there.
      Beg to differ .. Adobe Air you can write in HTML ... can't get any simpler than that
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  • Profile picture of the author ellistev
    You could enroll in a software engineering course at your local university.

    Takes a while, maybe four years, but in the end you'll have a nice iron ring, and the knowledge to program pretty much anything.
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    • Profile picture of the author Harrison Ortega
      Originally Posted by ellistev View Post

      You could enroll in a software engineering course at your local university.

      Takes a while, maybe four years, but in the end you'll have a nice iron ring, and the knowledge to program pretty much anything.
      Actually, that is exactly what I was going to suggest him; but I would recommend him going to Harvard instead :p. At the end, there isn't much difference then telling him to go and learn a programing language anyway.

      On a serious side. OUTSOURCE it. That is how the majority do. And if you want to learn it, install a copy on your machine, buy a dissection tool and start dissecting and researching every bit of code on that baby. You'll learn faster and easier than buying dozens of books about programing.

      Just lay out your project, then go to Elance or Odesk and find out how much would cost to have it done.
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