Ciao Paul,

It is disappointing to hear that we are not getting more involvement here from developers in the industry. I can't help thinking that this might not be anything to do with the desire of the developers themselves but more to do with the policies of the companies that they work in; I have experienced this.

Not sure if this helps, but I would think that there are more than a few factors that could influence this, as follows:

Companies exposing talent to the open market

These competitions offer an amazing opportunity for the developers themselves; as well as the self learning nature of these events, the developers enter the world of expanding their networking=> in building up a relationship with other developers and creating an awareness of all the other possibilities that they might not have thought about.

From the companies perspective: after investing many years in their developers working in a specific domain, it might be a scary thought of exposing talent to the public like this, even though having a technical representative for their company at this level has an enormous advantage with marketing and offers a huge learning curve with hands on experience including direct contact with the developers from the Studio team.

Company policies

Sharing is good but surprisingly some companies don't see it like this :-) It could very well be that the policies for some companies have restrictions in this respect that don't permit their developers to share their code; and/or there is a vague nature associated with it that enforces a sort of unsure or not sure what code can be shared... The developer simply doesn't want to risk possible confrontations of that nature with their company.

Developer awareness

The developers are simply not aware of the competition, whether this is a problem related to the companies they work in or developers not following the forums... I have seen some developers in companies that work with the Studio API but have never connected to the OX forum. Some developers might very well have everything they need from the SDK and API and never need to ask a question or follow up with the forums; as strange as that seems... the API is pretty complete and there are some pretty good examples available from the SDK

Developer Involvement

I must admit that when I first started working with the Studio API it was a bit unclear to me how to get started, simply getting over that first hurdle with understanding how to implement the interfaces etc... this was back in 2010; I think I must have been one of the first developers to get involved (seems like forever ago now :-) ). Anyway, most developers from the our industry, even though they have studied Computer Science and have degree's in their area of expertize, this does not automatically assume that they are at a level that permits them to start using the Studio API without a sufficient learning curve.

I think the first impressions are the most important in that respect; you need to cater for the extremely adequate and other extreme as well if you want to get the most out of it. It's then up to the developer if they have the desire to commit to a more adventurous involvement or not.

The Studio API is not the easiest that I have ever worked with, but the dedicated OX forums along with the example projects, ensures that developers 'should' have all the tools they need to create their own solutions.

The easier the API is to understand and work with = more involvement from the community = more competiveness = more idea's and marking for SDL

Location and Expenses

Amsterdam is an amazing city; lived there for over 3 years (when I was single) & would highly recommend anyone to go visit :-) (btw: my wife would never go for allowing me to travel there now on my own hahah)

You have to consider that travelling to a new destination like this might be intimidating to some people, including the cost of travelling and staying there for a few days might not be financially feasible for all developers.

hope this gives you some idea's as to why,

ciao,

P.

Ciao Paul,

It is disappointing to hear that we are not getting more involvement here from developers in the industry. I can't help thinking that this might not be anything to do with the desire of the developers themselves but more to do with the policies of the companies that they work in; I have experienced this.

Not sure if this helps, but I would think that there are more than a few factors that could influence this, as follows:

Companies exposing talent to the open market

These competitions offer an amazing opportunity for the developers themselves; as well as the self learning nature of these events, the developers enter the world of expanding their networking=> in building up a relationship with other developers and creating an awareness of all the other possibilities that they might not have thought about.

From the companies perspective: after investing many years in their developers working in a specific domain, it might be a scary thought of exposing talent to the public like this, even though having a technical representative for their company at this level has an enormous advantage with marketing and offers a huge learning curve with hands on experience including direct contact with the developers from the Studio team.

Company policies

Sharing is good but surprisingly some companies don't see it like this :-) It could very well be that the policies for some companies have restrictions in this respect that don't permit their developers to share their code; and/or there is a vague nature associated with it that enforces a sort of unsure or not sure what code can be shared... The developer simply doesn't want to risk possible confrontations of that nature with their company.

Developer awareness

The developers are simply not aware of the competition, whether this is a problem related to the companies they work in or developers not following the forums... I have seen some developers in companies that work with the Studio API but have never connected to the OX forum. Some developers might very well have everything they need from the SDK and API and never need to ask a question or follow up with the forums; as strange as that seems... the API is pretty complete and there are some pretty good examples available from the SDK

Developer Involvement

I must admit that when I first started working with the Studio API it was a bit unclear to me how to get started, simply getting over that first hurdle with understanding how to implement the interfaces etc... this was back in 2010; I think I must have been one of the first developers to get involved (seems like forever ago now :-) ). Anyway, most developers from the our industry, even though they have studied Computer Science and have degree's in their area of expertize, this does not automatically assume that they are at a level that permits them to start using the Studio API without a sufficient learning curve.

I think the first impressions are the most important in that respect; you need to cater for the extremely adequate and other extreme as well if you want to get the most out of it. It's then up to the developer if they have the desire to commit to a more adventurous involvement or not.

The Studio API is not the easiest that I have ever worked with, but the dedicated OX forums along with the example projects, ensures that developers 'should' have all the tools they need to create their own solutions.

The easier the API is to understand and work with = more involvement from the community = more competiveness = more idea's and marking for SDL

Location and Expenses

Amsterdam is an amazing city; lived there for over 3 years (when I was single) & would highly recommend anyone to go visit :-) (btw: my wife would never go for allowing me to travel there now on my own hahah)

You have to consider that travelling to a new destination like this might be intimidating to some people, including the cost of travelling and staying there for a few days might not be financially feasible for all developers.

hope this gives you some idea's as to why,

ciao,

P.