My friend Mike Riley, a Marine vet, started his own company back in 1990, and created a product unlike anything else I’ve ever seen: ZilchWorks. It’s a personal debt management application, and helps people get a handle on what they owe and helps them plan their way until they owe…zilch.
The product has over 16,000 users and has been featured on Good Morning, America. There’s a version for both Windows and Mac. Definitely go to the product’s web site for details. Mike’s recent blog post on the latest release is very much worth reading, providing an illustrated history of the product.
One reason I like and admire ZilchWorks is because it was originally written in Turbo Pascal for DOS, and later in Delphi, with the recent major release being compiled with Delphi 11.3 FMX. As a Pascal guy since 1980, I’ve endured all the nervous slander from C bigots calling Pascal a “kiddie language.” And yet I know of a fair number of sophisticated software packages written in Delphi, and not for kiddies, heh. (I know of a few written in FreePascal/Lazarus too.)
Mike credits me for getting him started learning Pascal, of which I am proud, as I’m proud of helping anybody get an initial grip on programming. I’ve helped him here and there down the years, and I have the highest respect for his skills. Maintaining and selling a software package for 35 years—with no end in sight—is no small thing.
If debt is an issue in your life, consider Zilchworks. Message Mike at rileymj@zilchworks.com.
Thanks Jeff. I remember when I met you in person at Diana Gruber’s house in Las Vegas. I was kind of awe-struck looking over and seeing you sitting there. I remember you putting me immediately at ease. I think you said something like, “Don’t think that way. I put my pants on one leg at a time just like you.”
I also remember calling you as I got very close to having a finished product. My next step was releasing my software to the shareware community. I thought I was in copyright violation because I had used some of the routines from your book. I remember asking you if it was okay that my code included some of the examples from your book. You told me, “Of course it is. That’s why I wrote the damn book!”
Thank you Jeff (written with a smile on my face)
I wish the programming world had followed the Pascal/Delphi path instead of C/C++. After decades of security bugs and unnecessary complexity, programmers (including many of the top C/C++ evangelists) are switching to other programming languages.