Interview: Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater

by Anthony Cole • 10/23/2007 at 07:12 AM

Daniel Jalkut is the guy behind Red Sweater Software, creator of such apps such as MarsEdit and Clarion. He agreed to sit down with us and do an interview.

MT: So like some of us here at Macteens, you originate from Santa Cruz. How did growing up there or going to UCSC influence your approach to software?

DJ: I didn’t realize some of you are from Santa Cruz. Cool! First of all, some of your readers might not know that the town has a reputation as a free-thinking place. Lots of liberal politics and actions, but also just about every other possible point of view. Growing up in that environment, it’s easy to get in the habit of challenging assumptions. So I consider my creative thinking to be very much inspired by growing up in such a thought-provoking place.

MT: What was it like working for Apple back in the day? Why did you leave to go solo and start Red Sweater?

DJ: I first worked at Apple in 1994 and joined as a permanent employee in 1996. At that time, the company was sort of entering one of its historic low periods, but almost everybody I worked with was brilliant, and the company seemed to be overflowing with brilliant ideas. I looked around and thought there was no way the company could just go out of business. Something big was in store. I had no idea it would be something like the iPod or iPhone (or even iMac!) but my assumptions about the intrinsic innovation power of the company have continued to be proven.

I worked on Mac OS X, in the Core Services group, from before the first public release through 10.2. I knew the operating system had a long way to go, but I felt like it was a good “jumping off” point. The transition from OS 9 to OS X had been a success, as far as I was concerned, and I knew if I stuck around I’d get focused on some new multi-year ambition. I was around 25 at the time and I like to joke that I was going through a mid-20’s crisis. I had enjoyed my computer science training in school, but also wanted to learn more about music. So I quit Apple in 2002 and went back to school for a 2nd BA in Music. While I was working at the degree, I just sort of fell into indie development.

MT: What are the advantages of being an indie developer over working for Apple or a larger company?

DJ: There’s something really powerful about having complete choice over your hours. At a company like Apple you’re liable to have a lot of flexibility in your hours - in exchange of course for working long nights when the pressure is on! But as an indie developer, you literally run the show. It’s all about satisfying clients or customers, and you decide how best to do that. While many companies are flexible with hours on a day-to-day basis, it’s far less common to find a company who will let you pick up and leave town for a few days, if you decide you’d rather work from a cafe in New York, for instance. These aspects of day-to-day freedom are what most separate indie development from working for a larger company.

MT: Indie Software, such as MarsEdit, has been a driving force in the Macintosh community. What is it like being a developer? What is your inspiration?

DJ: Being an indie software developer is rewarding because you’re sort of mainlined to the customer’s reaction. Everything you do either succeeds or fails with your name on it, and you take feedback directly from the people. This sounds cheesy but it’s true that my inspiration comes directly from the positive feedback I get when something I’ve worked hard on totally clicks with customers. When I released MarsEdit 2 the reactions in public and in private were extremely gratifying and rewarding. The inspiration is to keep getting feedback like that with future product releases, and to keep
blowing customers’ minds with amazing products and support.

MT: What’s your opinion of the “Delicious Generation”? Are you planning on doing anything special with Core Animation on any of your projects?

DJ: Delicious Generation is a term my friend Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba came up with, to sort of distill what is an obviously changing trend in software design. For years the prevailing wisdom on the Mac has been to put consistency and simplicity ahead of almost everything else. The standard tools from Apple make it easier to stick with conventions, and a document from Apple even documents how applications should look and behave. This is a great approach from a usability point of view, but sometimes it’s not very sexy. What many so-called Delicious Generation applications are doing is fixating on the lack of flashy appeal in some visual designs, and trying to remedy that. Because it’s a fixation though, I think they sometimes err too far away from usability.  In summary what I think will happen in the longer term is great applications will be those that adopt a healthy dose of both the standard UI conventions and the flashy-appeal encouraged by these “delicious” apps.

Core Animation is not particularly on my radar because I’ve been focusing on features for 10.4 users. With 10.5 coming out, I’ll be looking at areas where animation can improve the usability of my applications.

MT: In your opinion, what are the best pieces of software that you can buy on the market today? (Besides anything from Red Sweater, of course).

DJ: It depends so much on what you’re trying to do. There are too many great examples in too many fields. If I’m sounding like a politician who won’t answer the question it’s partly because I’m frustrated by the idea of having to pull a few pieces of software off the top of my head. Let’s just say we’re really sort of spoiled on the Mac. There is a lot of great software and it’s getting better quickly these days, thanks in part to the great technology Apple keeps giving us developers.

MT: Let’s talk about MarsEdit a bit. You have the red sweater blog that’s updated regularly, so your blogging has obviously had an impact on the direction of the software.

DJ:It’s true. I’ve been a MarsEdit user for much longer than I’ve been the MarsEdit developer! So when I got my hands on it there were definitely some things that wanted to start working at immediately. My pet peeves, combined with some vocal feedback from the public, were basically what made the priority list for the first several dot-releases, and the 2.0 upgrade.

MT: Have you used any of the competition such as Journler or Ecto? What do you find the advantages of MarsEdit over those or a web interface to be?

DJ: I haven’t used any of them on a regular basis, but I have taken a look at every comparable desktop product I can find on any platform. I think it’s healthy to look at similar work, just like an artist probably gets inspiration from going to an art museum.

But I don’t think of them so much as competition. Does that sound ridiculous? The reason is that compared to the web interfaces for blogging, all of us desktop blogging clients are just tiny blips on the map. As far as I’m concerned the web interface is the only competition worth tackling. Calling each other competitors would be like describing the people in your town as “competitors for oxygen.” The oxygen is everywhere and free for the taking. The blog systems have no particular incentive to discourage or compete with desktop clients, so they make ideal competitors. They even help us out by improving their remote editor interfaces!

The story is the same for all desktop clients: “How can we get more web interface bloggers to see the value of desktop blogging?” I don’t have any interest in pursuing the thousands of customers who use
desktop “competitors” when there are literally millions of web interface users who can be convinced of the value of MarsEdit.

MT: Where do you see MarsEdit in a year? Are you planning on adding anything big to the application?

DJ: MarsEdit is really taking off as the number of bloggers takes off. Especially as people get more into managing more than one blog at a time, the benefits of desktop blogging are multiplying.

The list of priorities for MarsEdit is always changing, partly because the blogging universe is also changing. But some big things on the horizon are the Atom Publishing Protocol, which was recently ratified as a proposed standard. This is pretty meaningless to most users but what it means is there is an improved interface that many blog systems will start supporting. This interface will make it easier for desktop clients like MarsEdit to achieve better performance and increased features. So I’m excited to get MarsEdit ready to take advantage of that.

Another thing that always looms as a desirable feature is the notion of WYSIWYG editing. Many MarsEdit users would just as soon remove the word “HTML” from their vocabulary, but they still need to stomach at least a little bit of it to add bolding or italics to their posts. I definitely see a “rich editor” in MarsEdit’s future, though my crystal ball is not clear enough yet to see if that’s in a year’s timeframe or not.

MT: Is there anything at all you’d like to tell those of us who are just getting into development? Are they any real pitfalls to developing software full-time?

DJ: There are occupational risks with full-time software development. Sitting in a chair with your eyes glued to a screen for 8-12 hours or more a day is not very healthy. I would recommend that everybody getting into the field try to establish healthy habits while you’re still young. Get up and work a sport into your daily activities. Or run errands throughout the day instead of all at once. Any excuse you can get to move around and diversify your life will help your body and your mind.

MT: You’re in a courtroom. The People of Mars vs. Red Sweater Software. MarsEdit. Copyright infringement. What do you do?

DJ: I ask about the price of renting office space on Mars. I’m sure we could reach an amicable agreement.

Thanks to Daniel Jalkut for allowing us to interview him, and tune in later for a review of Red Sweater Software’s MarsEdit 2.0.