Start-up ideas for software development

Things you wish your favourite IDE vendor would invent 2018-07-16 #startups

Following on my earlier explanation of why start-up company ideas are cheap, I recently published some more start-up ideas for app developers. If you’re more interested in software for programmers, rather than software for normal people, here are some ideas for improving the developer experience (DX). After all, developers are people too.

IDE enhancements

IDE plugin and fragrance dispenser to generate real code smells, e.g. musty to fresh according to code age, and bad smells.

Like Prezi but for editing code - an IDE that renders a codebase in one canvas, showing module structure when you zoom out.

IDE with separate indentation preferences for display and saved files, so you can be whoever you want to be.

IDE that automates randomly changing map to flatMap until it compiles.

IDE that displays comments in the margin, with an avatar, as in Google Docs.

Programming languages and platforms

Custom Scratch blocks for Salesforce integration.

Consultancy that advises enterprise development teams on which language and stack to use instead of Java EE.

Like Google Translate but for programming languages, now there are so many of them.

Library like Apache POI but without the obfuscated API naming and empty API docs.

Memory Allocation As A Service.

Software documentation

Chat bot to check and maybe delete existing code comments by posting them as questions in Slack and counting reaction emoji.

Like Kickstarter but for open-source software documentation.

Service that generates professional-looking software documentation deliverables from the team’s Slack channel.

REST documentation tool that gives your docs a rating for how completely they describe your API (most Swagger docs score zero).

Simple wiki (à la GitHub) for self-hosted internal docs with amazing search, to showcase ElasticSearch. Exit: sell to Elasticsearch.

Maintainable code

Consultancy that builds JavaScript apps without any external dependencies, for massive productivity gain from never waiting for npm.

Big posters of code examples that demonstrate good coding style with beautiful typography, to decorate the office.

Domain-driven design

Keyword extraction service for Wikipedia pages that suggests domain language terms for the topic.

Custom Duolingo languages to teach domain languages to software development teams and business users.

Agile software development

Sell decks of reusable Impediment Cards that have the usual impediments printed on them, and with lots of spare ‘Product owner not available’ cards.

For more occasional start-up ideas, follow @PeterHilton on Twitter.

Writing by Peter Hilton