Proof of the existence of God

Finally there is proof that God exists. The proof has come in the guise of a product named Balsamiq. Balsamiq allows you to create mock GUI when specifying an application. Rather than having graphics that look like real forms etc it uses a pencil drawing lookalike approach.

Here is my reasoning.
  1. It does nothing you can't do for free in the IDE you undoubtedly already have.
  2. The result looks far worse than a mock up you can create in your IDE.
  3. Once you have the mock up you can't do anything useful with it except export it as an image or print it. You can't, for example, actually use that for a real form later in the project's life cycle.
  4. The result looks crap. Not poor, crap! It looks like a 7 year old has drawn it with a wax crayon....a blunt one.
  5. Balsamiq brought in revenue of over 100,000 US Dollars in its first 5 months.
Now the way I see it is this. Lots of people are sending money to a guy to buy software that does something they can already do much better for nothing. The only possible conclusion I can reach is that the developer must have sold his soul to the devil. Taking into account that we now have conclusive proof that Satan exists it is logical to conclude therefore that it is an absolute certainty that God also exists.

I rest my case.

Comments

Craig said…
Even though this post was only half serious I think you have missed the point of Balsamiq. The point is it is not meant to look like an actual GUI, but just a sketch. That is a feature, not a bug.
Max said…
I love Balsamiq for the exact reasons you hate it (I would though love to have the mockups be linkable)

btw. which IDE do you use that are as fast as Balsamiq to create mockups ?
Ved said…
You have lost an excellent chance to keep your mouth shut.
Unknown said…
Hello Peter, this is Peldi, the creator of Mockups. I have enjoyed reading your review, thank you! :)

Now, to address your points:

1. many of my customers are not developers and don't know what IDE stands for.

2. The results look nothing like the final product on purpose, otherwise people will think that "you must be done!" with the coding part as well.

3. Once you have a mockup image you can share it more easily than a drawing on paper or on a whiteboard. Collaborating and getting feedback is a huge part of why the app exists (the other being helping you think through your ideas). I added some text about this here recently: http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

4. Again, that's on purpose, so that people won't think you'll get offended if they give you their honest feedback. This, in fact, my best idea yet.

5. Yup, that's a fact.

As for selling my soul to the devil...I'm not religious, but I loved your conclusion! :)

I would love to donate to you a license of Mockups for Desktop if you'd like to try it in full, just email me.

Peldi
Anonymous said…
Don't Peldi, as a .NET developer he'd never understand...
Hi Peldi

Thanks for posting. I'm pleased you took my post with the humour that was intended :-)

Your offer of a license is a kind one. I wont take you up on it just yet though as I don't think I have a use for it.

I must however give you full credit for your success. A simple idea that has been accepted very well. If someone had proposed I wrote this app I'd have said "Nah". I'm not too good at predicting future trends though, you should have heard how stupid I thought Bill Gates was back in the 80's :-D
This is the best proof of the existence of God I've seen. And believe me, I've seen many.
According to the Hitchhikers' Guid To The Galaxy the Babelfish proves the non-existence of God.

The fish was so complex that it couldn't possibly have evolved by accident so proved conclusively that God must have created it and must therefore exist.

It then suggests that God exists through faith alone, and that with conclusive proof there is no longer any need for faith. As a consequence God spontaneously disappears :-)
Anonymous said…
Very entertaining. I agree - and could add a few points of my own. But fundamentally, it works for capturing the essence of what is needed for a team of developers - that is how we use it.

Having used Visio (decent), OnmiGraffle (best) and even PowerPoint (sucked) - Mockups was the "ah ha" moment that stimulated our entire coding team. As a guy who spends a lot of time laying out interfaces for customers, Mockups keeps it simple and straight forward to show the core interface with some annotation - the styling of the interface can be completely separate (and should be).

Balsamiq Mockups is definitely NOT perfect. I have a list of things I would personally love to see. I hope Peldi picks up on some of the bigger things I see/need with the tool at some point (he has a history of listening to customers very closely).

He has created something that solved a unique problem - one that I was certainly pissed off about. We wanted it immediately after we saw the first video of it on-line.

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