About "Richard Develyn Ltd" (QuSheet developer)

The Company

Richard Develyn Ltd began as a carrier company for my consultancy work within the UK government. When I decided to embark on product development I kept the name of the company the same for two main reasons:

1. I wanted to reject the anonimity that a company name gives you. Given that Richard Develyn Ltd has only one employee (Richard Develyn) and one product (QuSheet) I thought that it was only fair and reasonable for me to be willing to put my own reputation on the line based on the quality of my product.

2. Company naming has become rather a curious business these days.

And just to elaborate on the second point, not only are we now expected to come up with a name that nobody else is using, we also need to think of one that hasn't had the appropriate URL "carpet-bagged" by some opportunist entrepeneur.

Everyone always wants a company name using some sort of animal, as this automatically gives you a picture to use in your company logo. Even if the creature is a disgusting little creepy-crawly which has absolutely nothing to do with your business (apart from occasionally infecting its employees) customers will still point at the thing on your business card and ask you what it is and what it does.

Unfortunately pretty much every simply-named creature in the animal kingdom has now been used (apart from "Swallow" - guess why) and in fact I'm beginning to think that just about every noun in the dictionary has a web-site somewhere. Phrases are still possible. I could have called the company "Lesser Spotted Dogfish Software" or even "Scyliorhinus Canicula Software" had I felt mad enough to do so. I'm sure that as time goes by names like these will become considerably more popular than the animals they refer to. Maybe the search for animal-based company names will halt the reduction in the world's bio-diversity. Or maybe we'll just start breeding new creatures in order to provide future companies with interesting names and pretty pictures for their logos. You never know.

For now, though, I'll just stick with Richard Develyn Ltd.

The Developer

I've been writing software since I was 16 years old - way back in 1980. I actually had my own computer back then: a TRS80 Model I Level II - a "trish" as it was fondly known. Only three of us in the whole school had one, and it was quite a big school too.

I graduated with a degree in Maths and Computer Science in 1986 and spent 19 of the next 23 years of my professional life programming. I consider myself an expert, though I could easily spend another 20 years programming and still not be its master. Software Engineering is a complicated and underrated discipline.

I returned to programming after a 4 year break in IT consultancy in order to write QuSheet, a program which has everything in it which I believe makes good quality professional software.

I hope to spend the rest of my life involved in programming in some fashion - either doing it myself, or leading teams that do it, or teaching it, lecturing on it, researching it or providing consultancy on it. If you're interested in discussions on programming please visit my blog. Feedback is always wellcome.

The Product

What began as a simple program that not only made calculations but also showed you the workings-out has now become a sophisticated summary/detail presentation application with an embedded calculation engine.

At this moment QuSheet does not appear to have a direct competitor. I do not believe that this is because I have identified a new need - I think the requirement to produce information in a manner which allows the viewer to drill down into the details when they want them has been around for some time. I think that the reason that an application like this hasn't been written before is that it is too difficult a proposition for either a large or small company to develop "speculatively". Try to build a QuSheet output file yourself either by hand or with another application and you'll see the difficulties you encounter.

QuSheet works using a Rules-Based back-engine which processes all of your headings and calculations into a large data-structure which is then parsed several times to gather up explanation groups and format all the output. Notice how column data lines up across the different headings in order to make the whole thing look attractive - the only way any tool can do that is to calculate everything first and then format the output as a whole. No other application that I am aware of does that.

QuSheet's front end has everything which I believe a program should have in order to make your life, as a user, easier. I have not gone down "The Microsoft Route" just for the sake of following the leader. I like things like context-sensitve help, multiple tabs, navigation short-cuts and a comprehensive do/undo system. I also like to colour code everything (I like colour in general).

In the end I believe, and I hope you will agree, that QuSheet does a difficult job for you, with definate benefits to you, and that it does so cleanly and elegantly. I must admit that I have struggled a little in getting the balance right between power and ease-of-use but I hope that in setting up examples and templates (quick win scenarios) I have managed to find a compromise between those two rather difficult and incompatible goals.

Contact Me

QuSheet is a versatile product with many potential uses most of which I'm doubtlessly missing since I am no marketting expert. I'm therefore particularly interested in hearing suggestions relating to where QuSheet could be used - i.e. what sector of the marketplace I should be thinking about targetting. If necessary, I will produce Examples and Quick Win scenarios in order to support any promising pointers.

To contact me, please use the link from my blog here.

All the best

Richard

Links

Microsoft provides the operating system QuSheet runs on and the C# language that the front end was written in.

Amzi provides the excellent Prolog engine that the back-end of QuSheet is written in.

Icon Design LAB designed the logo and icon.

Aha Soft provided tool-bar and presentation icons.

Comodo provided the authenticode certificate guaranteeing to you, the buyer, that I am a legitimate vendor.

Instant Demo was the screen-capture software used to record the presentations.

AVS Audio Editor was used to record the sound for the presentations.

Ian Waring Green, through Voice 123 was the gentleman who provided the professional voice-over for the main presentation.

Host Papa hosts this web site.

Go Daddy forwards the www.qusheet.net URL, which holds the location of the QuSheet software ready for download.

BMT Micro handles sales.