π•―π–”π–”π–’π–˜π–ˆπ–—π–”π–‘π–‘β„’Mar 10

Good morning! Today I’m hosting a Mastodon interview with Brent Simmons / @brentsimmons.
Brent is the creator of NetNewsWire / @NetNewsWire and a long-time voice in the RSS and open web community.

I’ll be asking a series of questions here in this thread and we’d love to hear form you.. Brent will reply whenever it’s convenient for him.

Follow along using #interview.

Let’s begin.

Show threadπ•―π–”π–”π–’π–˜π–ˆπ–—π–”π–‘π–‘β„’Mar 10
Hello, @brentsimmons, thanks for joining us for today’s interview. Over the course of your career, what beliefs about software development have you changed your mind about?
#interview
Show threadAlan is @cogdog πŸ‡¨πŸ‡¦Mar 10
@Doomscroll I am curious to hear @brentsimmons share the spark story for NetNewsWire, what spurned him to create the first version? What were you doing with RSS at the time? I recall before seeing his app I was using Bloglines.
Show threadBrent SimmonsMar 10

@cogdog @Doomscroll I was working at UserLand Software, on Frontier. I was lead developer of the blogging system Manila. Dave Winer, UserLand owner and CEO, was an RSS and blogging pioneer, and I was along for the ride.

Once I left, in early 2002, I wanted to do something with RSS β€” there were, due to our efforts, thousands of blogs then with RSS feeds.

I also wanted to write my first Cocoa app, and that ended up being MacNewsWire, which was a tiny thing which led to NetNewsWire.

Show threadπ•―π–”π–”π–’π–˜π–ˆπ–—π–”π–‘π–‘β„’

@brentsimmons @cogdog Did MacNewsWire start as a serious product idea, or was it more like a small experiment that unexpectedly grew into something bigger?

#interview

Mar 10 at 5:21pmWeb
Show threadBrent SimmonsMar 10

@Doomscroll @cogdog MacNewsWire was practice and I knew it was practice at the time.

It grew into NetNewsWire, which I knew would be my first commercial app β€” and I expected it to be unsuccessful, but I was obsessed with it, so I had to do it first before going on to the apps that I thought would actually make some money.

I never got to those other apps. I don’t even remember what my ideas were at the time. πŸ˜€

#interview