We leave on Windows phone marketplace: from simple desire to real results

Introduction

If you are a seasoned programmer for the .NET platform and you are not interested in telling about the times of formation, and also find out how, for example, Yandex has a culture of .NET developers, and you are already registered in the marketplace, this article is not for you. If you are still the same seasoned programmer, but you are not registered in the marketplace and at the same time consider robbery to give ten percent of the profit to Softkey, you will be interested in the actual registration data at the end of the article in the “Registration” section. To everyone else: enjoy reading.

A bit of history

All my life I use in my arsenal the power of dot-net and development tools provided by Microsoft. I was always lucky with the requirements for the final product, so I was never limited in choosing technologies and development tools when, for example, in 2009 I was free to use WPF, although many at that time were still tied to Windows Forms. As if in gratitude to my loyalty, the company never let me down in the convenience and functionality of the products (and if it did, I always wrote about bugs, whether in dot-net or, for example, at the dawn of the formation of the 2010th studio) - it's me I realized back in 2005 when I was choosing between si sharpe, "pluses" or Java. Having run through the then first version of sharpe, I realized that this is “it is the most”: a wonderful intelligence in the studio, a developed “all in one” framework, what the books looked like played a huge role for me in choosing a language; apparently because in my soul I am a designer - I love and study that “designer” world: from layout, fonts and typography in general to the rules of composition and Photoshop tricks). what the books looked like played a huge role for me in choosing a language; apparently because in my soul I am a designer - I love and study that “designer” world: from layout, fonts and typography in general to the rules of composition and Photoshop tricks).

I am very lazy by nature (only the willpower that could plug this laziness deeper and saved my whole life by making me a pretty successful software architect), so I looked for software tools that would immediately give me the result (at least minimize implementation time; T-SQL was an ideal in this respect, being declarative to the "bone marrow", a la write what needs to be done, and not how to do it). Therefore, I cannot convey in words how I, at one time, was impressed with the same windows forms with the corresponding visual editor compared to the same “pluses” where everything had to be written in “pens”. Therefore, the same “pluses” immediately went into the woods without going further than the institute program. I realized that I like to solve real problems that are unlikely to be critical sometime within a few hundred milliseconds.

But in the spring of 2010, in the midst of one of my projects, which was simultaneously conducted both under the PBC and under the poppy, I began to be visited more and more often by the thought that it was time to start studying the objective C. I saw the scale of distribution, the convenience and lightness of the epp store, the beauty of oh-oh-es (although I have not been able to fall in love with the desktop version over the years, having a macbook at home that successfully updates up to the last “lion”, in parallel with the Windows device - “Seven” for me withstood withstand the onslaught over the years of resistance, and withstood all ten). I saw the future in tablets, I did not see success in this with Microsoft, which seemed to be stuck in its only desktop development and so shamefully merged Windows mobile to the level of dinosaurs. Therefore, I quite reasonably thought that after about five years I could stay with my trough (read:

I liked the WPF paradigm itself, I immediately fell in love with MVVM with all the fibers. Later I did not understand people spitting on silverlight. I was ashamed of the developers making brake applications reaching the masses (as well as, for example, ashamed of the miserable typography in advertising throughout the city). For those developers who did not read the documentation and, for example, easily taking the processor to an 80 percent load, only because a standard shader shadow was added to the root parent (which led to the obligatory redrawing of the whole tree, for example, with a blinking cursor in one text box ), instead of adding this shadow to an element that does not contain any “children” (it looked visually the same, but in this case only one text box was redrawn when the cursor blinked, and not the whole tree). All this lightness and the principle of out-of-the-box in dot-net could not (and cannot) lead me to the side of serious study, for example, web development (well, isn’t it funny: you make a website, but it looks different browsers are different; you remember about my laziness - so how can I get me to do the same thing five times - I still hope for some common standard with normal tools and common behavior) or towards the same objec si - comparing tools and languages, it seems that visual studio and dot-no in its modern form did ", not Microsoft."

Therefore, you understand my feelings about the release of the new platform last year. After a week of reading the manuals, I wrote my simple application, having tried all aspects of the proposed mobile chips (useless for the end user, but giving a lot to study the pitfalls of the platform), learning about certain limitations (as a banal example: sin (90 °) is not was equal to 1). Last fall, I offered Yandex to write a free application for electric trains (then I often visited Zelenograd and therefore felt a special need for such an application, although I had an iPhone), but Yandex didn’t want to open an API (what’s called, and now there, like the availability, more precisely, the lack of an application). I even went in January, when they opened a vacancy, to them for an interview, during which, according to the interviewer's absolutely transparent revelations, I realized that the company has no dot-net culture at all and that the company hopes that Microsoft will nevertheless open access to the native code. After realizing this fact, the course of subsequent questions at the interview became obvious - since we couldn’t talk about the code (and all the technological chips implemented in previous projects could not be appreciated), we, of course, talked about sorting algorithms, their complexity and other things "on paper". I respect people who know all these things immensely (although, honestly, I have never met such people among tens of thousands of people, picking up developers to my teams for different projects), but this was not about me. If I need a quick tree search algorithm, I will ask Google, choosing the best of several ready-made options. If I need to assess their complexity, I just take and write a spike (as my old Denver colleagues called a simplified prototype model), which in numbers will clearly show performance and speed (which I did a couple of years ago, participating in the development of the system core for the American media giant Starz, choosing different ORMs, eventually dwelling on neither hibernate, nor on the entity framework, but on the Russian DataObjects.NET). The main quality in a programmer for me has always been confidence that a person will be able to find the right answer (after all, a pumped brain makes decisions, you don’t even need to strain - the main thing is to accurately formulate the problem), it will solve any problem in the shortest possible time (maybe because The software wasn’t critical for performance within milliseconds, although I have always honed my decisions on the profiler) and at the same time I am a perfectionist, but not fanatical. Well, again, the statement in the course of the interview that the company (Yandex) itself grows personnel, always starting from a simple developer (regardless of past experience), I did not like, because the prospect of the next two years (that's how many , according to the interviewer, he needed to get into team leads) in the status of an ordinary developer (with the appropriate salary) did not appeal to me. So, Yandex has not grown together. Although they still got people, judging by some, but Yandex.Traffic. the prospect of the next two years (that’s how many, according to the interviewer, it took him to get into team leads) in the status of an ordinary developer (with the appropriate salary) did not appeal to me. So, Yandex has not grown together. Although they still got people, judging by some, but Yandex.Traffic. the prospect of the next two years (that’s how many, according to the interviewer, it took him to get into team leads) in the status of an ordinary developer (with the appropriate salary) did not appeal to me. So, Yandex has not grown together. Although they still got people, judging by some, but Yandex.Traffic.

After until September of this year, I went into the head of one big project, leading product development at one small private company, which is used by many companies throughout the CIS (as one of the official examples, so as not to violate other non-disclosure agreements with both large corporations and and with small Russian branches of foreign companies, - a certain step in the selection of volunteers in Sochi 2014, the benefit of memorandum of understanding was concluded the other day and is officially in the press releases - only there with a bandwidth of hundreds he’s a man) and only in September did he appear at least one hour a day without harming his personal life (there is no need to say that before that I often spent more than 8 hours at work). And Microsoft’s entry into the Russian market just coincided with this, and I realized that it’s a sign (all the more, the idea seduced

Background

Do you know silverlight and have some free time? Do you have an idea how to make the world a better place? Congratulations: this is enough to start creating an application for the Windows Founder 7 platform today and get a reward for your efforts in monetary terms. Let it sound corny, but it really is.

registration

Even at the time of the online broadcast of the Russian event this fall with the SoftKey advertisement and an alluring offer to take all the trouble of communicating with the American and Russian tax on yourself for only a "modest" 10% profit, I realized that a lazy people who do not want to understand are going to breed not childish. But we are smart people and don’t like to give alms to people who don’t need it, right?
Therefore, I will tell you how to register and provide myself with the opportunity to withdraw money by talking about some pitfalls.

Create an account

Create an account at create.msdn.com. Tip number one: create a separate windows live account for this, having previously decided on the official “name” of yourself as an application publisher, etc. Microsoft still can’t transfer data from one account to another (therefore, for example, if you are a company, create a windows live-account for yourself, and do not use it from any of your developers - because he can always quit the company). It is also impossible to change the type of account from student to individual over time (update: in the comments they said that a year after the last activation in DreamSpark and in the profile on AppHub, the system will ask you to either confirm your student status again or purchase a subscription; however, the year - it’s a lot, isn't it?), therefore, if you are a last year student, it’s better to immediately create an individual,

Get EIN

You must receive an EIN in the US tax (for simplicity, you can associate it with our TIN). Since the tax is American, then, as in Russia, you don’t need to personally go to the place of registration (even if it’s at least 1000 km), fill out a bunch of papers, wait in line + 2 weeks to receive - one thing is enough, albeit a long one, but just a skype call. What needs to be done is beautifully described in this habr article. I will make only a few of my corrections and additions:

• you need to call this number: +1 267 941-10-99, and not what is indicated in the article, from three days to eight in the morning of Moscow time;
• I recommend that you send the form by fax during a conversation, rather than spelling it out (there are a bunch of online services that let you send several pages for free - that's what you need, because there is only one page in the form). One “but” that I ran into: if you fax it, then your signature should be: therefore, before calling on Skype, sign with a pen, then scan / photograph in normal quality for recognition;
• their fax number: +1 267 941-10-30;
• be prepared (morally and financially with a balance on Skype) to hang on the phone for an hour and a half (until you reach a free operator + the conversation itself and data verification);
• Do not be afraid, the most minimal English is enough;
• at the very end, the girl (in my case, the girl’s voice resembled the mistress of Tom from “Tom and Jerry”, without removing the smile from my face) will dictate your EIN several times to you, which you can immediately use. About a month later, you will receive a letter from the states with a physical document with confirmation, the root of which will need to be sent back when necessary, (a kind of triple handshake in real life).

Get the form W-8

Having received the EIN, you send the “W-8BEN” form to Microsoft (this is so that the Americans not only understand that you are a foreign citizen, so 30% of their taxes should not be levied from you). How to do this is well described in the same place , only the address for sending another:
Windows Marketplace for Mobile
Attn: Finance Department
29011 Commerce Center Drive
Valencia, CA 91355
USA

It’s also worth noting the fact that at one time somewhat spoiled my nerves: “Microsoft” in your profile will write that it did not receive the W-8 form from you - this is normal (by the way, now, it seems, they no longer write - apparently got a support); the form is immediately “found” as soon as Microsoft is ready to send you the first amount of money (that is, when your profit exceeds the minimum payment threshold). The main thing is to send a letter with tracking to them to be sure that the “Russian Post” will not lose it.

IP

If you are not an IP, do not rush to become one. If your profit is small, it’s much more convenient to simply receive money on your regular card and pay taxes once a year (this is not a big deal).
To be an individual entrepreneur with simplified taxation is beneficial only when you are already untwisted, receiving a stable profit. So that you understand why, I’ll tell you: among other things, you will have to open a separate legal account in a bank, and the bank, only for what you have, will take an average of 4,000 p. per month (update: judging by the comments, there are also not snickering banks - google; for example: “Sber takes 490 rubles a month from me, I have a current account and a foreign currency account (plus it, of course, transit), plus Internet banking” ) Also, having IP status is also not free: you will constantly have to pay a minimum minimum wage (more precisely, taxes from it), etc., as in the well-known video: "+ Delivery + taxes + for beer." So, as soon as the profit is, for example, more than 100,000 per year, then it is already possible to get confused, in the sense that being an individual entrepreneur will really become profitable, despite some inconveniences.

Conclusion

As you can see, there’s nothing complicated: call once, send two letters once, pay an annual subscription, absolutely no hemorrhoids with taxes, if you are not an entrepreneur (although in this case the devil is not as terrible as he is painted) and there is no need to pay for life 10% of some third company.

Cons of the platform in everyday life

As a bonus for those who do not yet have a Windows Phone.

• while there is no way to immediately select several photos and delete them with one button (you have to either connect to a computer or delete one by one on the phone);
• while there is no way to select and immediately delete several SMS (you need to delete one by one, or immediately all correspondence with the contact). However, it should be understood that the same ah-o-es suffered the same a year and a half ago - everything will be;
• The phone does not support synchronization of several Google calendars. More precisely, this feature was added to the mango and by some shamanism it can also be turned on for Google (as a hint for a search: you need to shamanize with a desktop computer, disable javascript in the browser, change the user agent to ios, manually set the calendars for the phone on the site Google and re-create an account on the phone - calendars will appear). True, even in this case, they say it’s better not to add entries on the phone - otherwise there will be duplicates in the calendar (I haven’t checked it myself, I use the calendar on the iPad);
• Microsoft guys write all about typography, but on the phone keypad, unlike the same iPhone, there is only a hyphen (there is no dash “-“, nor in n-dash “-“), there is also no way to increase tracking for letters (tracking, like leading, appeared only in the 5th cervelat and then only under the desktop), although they themselves make them use the guidelines, not realizing that the stuck HELLO (and even more so, something twice as long) - it can not be read (hello MINZDRAVUPREDUPREZHDAYUSCHEMU) and does not cool as opposed
  by «hELLO» (of course, using two ra and the smaller space);
• I have a Lumia 800 (the only real device on WP7 that I wanted to buy, and I held Mozart, and radar, and other fraternities) and the camera seemed like complete shit compared to the fourth iPhone (to which, by the way, I return I don’t want: iPad + Lumia - they live together perfectly, charging once every two days), until I understood the trick in setting the “night” mode when shooting indoors. But autofocus still sometimes walks as before + enrages that tap-to-focus immediately takes a shot (although I may not like it, but then to remove this bunch of bad photos in a human way is impossible - see the first paragraph) . Yes, the idea is good, but only if the camera worked perfectly. It is also surprising that when you take a frame, colors and brightness often at the last second change in some unimaginable direction from what is displayed on the screen.
• regarding the device: yes, for example, in titanium, the camera is even better than iphone 4s, but, in my opinion, the Lumia 800 is ideal in the ratio of price-quality-design (you remember that I used to choose a programming language including how correctly the maunals are made up? A joke, but it should be clear why shovels are not my choice). Yes, there is no front camera (but I always have an iPad with me), yes, there is no gyroscope (again, there is an iPad + I even used it all the time in the starry sky application, and I do not indulge in other augmented reality, and I don’t know the good and necessary applications in this sector, but playing with a gyroscope, to me personally, is inconvenient). Otherwise, there are no complaints, although the device, of course, is not perfect (and the sharp edges are a feature, the phone is on my desk all the time, but not lying).

PS To be continued (pitfalls and limitations of mobile silverlight on the example of my application, passing certification and, most pleasantly, making a profit).