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OpenOffice, once the premier open source alternative to Microsoft Office, could be shut down because there aren't enough developers to update the office suite. More like ShutOffice, amirite?
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Another success story of Oracle...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Oracle have optimised Microsoft's old strategy of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
1. Embrace.
3. Extinguish.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Better than that they only have an "Ex".
EX-TER-MI-NATE!
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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Or just, Terminate!
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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It seems to be a trend with Oracle: inherit an open source project from Sun, start running it in a hamfisted manner, and then watch in astonishment as most of the developers fork the project and continue it under a new name.
So far, it seems to work out decently for the projects. Jenkins has done well since splitting from Hudson, and the transition from OpenOffice to LibreOffice has seemed pretty seamless (at least from the perspective of an end user).
In the cases of both Hudson and OpenOffice, Oracle threw in the towel and donated the projects to the Apache foundation, but it was too late as the developers had already moved on to the forked projects. They seem to be putting more effort into MySQL, at least, but even there the forks of the MySQL (MariaDB and Percona beings the most prominent) seem to be where the innovation is happening.
I know there are many critics of open source software (some make decent points, some don't), but I think that these examples indicate open source projects (popular ones, at least) aren't necessarily doomed by malice or incompetence on the part of their corporate stewards.
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Isn't is possible that Oracle threw in the towel because the source code of those projects was a mess? Every bit of source I've seen from Apache makes me recoil in horror.
There are amazing open source projects; very few, if any, are under the Apache umbrella.
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Definitely. The code doesn't look bad...just big and complex. Here's a file I chose arbitrarily. One out of thousands. It looks clean enough, so the project probably has decent coding standards...but it's definitely a non-trivial project to maintain and improve.
I think there's a good chance that they threw in the towel because they didn't see any business value in continuing to support the project, which is a perfectly good reason for them to drop it and move on.
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The ribbon in Microsoft Office is irritating, but the damn suite pretty much always works, unlike OpenOffice which seems to selectively work. (Then there are the "extra" apps in the OpenOffice suite which totally suck.)
Incidentally, is this the right time to opine that most Apache software is unbelievably bad and badly written? They truly give open source a bad name.
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Researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison have finally created what nanotechnologists have only been able to dream of for decades: a carbon nanotube transistor which is almost two times faster than its silicon counterparts. It's all a series of nano-tubes
modified 4-Sep-16 13:50pm.
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The company will pay researchers up to $15,000 for critical vulnerabilities found in these software development platforms. You were already going to find bugs anyway, might as well make some coin for it
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Project Ara, Google’s lofty vision of a modular smartphone with a vibrant third-party hardware ecosystem, is no more. No LEGO phone for you
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There's a common expectation when looking for great developers that they need to be "passionate" about coding, which is often equated to coding long hours. "It's half past midnight, passion"
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It helps to be able to be passionate about it sometimes. It's great to get into a state of flow where you're able to turn thoughts into code effortlessly.
Passion tends to let you down when things get difficult, though. Some of the best developers I've worked with weren't particularly passionate most of the time; they were stone cold professionals who were able to buckle down and power through the grunt work...which involved, more often than not, fixing other people's bugs.
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I've worked with both passionate and passionless developers. The passionless developers viewed development as purely a career. They worked 9 - 5 and didn't make much (if any) effort to keep up to date with current technology as it didn't interest them. If you want a developer who's sole purpose is to fix bugs then they are probably ideal.
A passionate developer will (sometimes) work longer hours (though that's not always a defining quality) and make an effort to keep their skills up to date as they are genuinely enthused and excited by technology and current trends. They are better suited to working on more innovative / green fields projects as they will need to research the area to come up with appropriate solutions.
If you want someone who will churn out bug fixes then passion is not necessarily required. If you want to innovate in a new or emerging technology then you probably want someone who is passionate.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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I think there's a difference between passionless and apathetic.
Yes, I've worked with people who haven't been bothered to update their skill-sets since the days of VB6 but I'd put that down to lack of professionalism rather than a lack of passion.
There are many of us who do enjoy what we do and do take an active interest in new developments but would never describe ourselves as being passionate about code. It's what we do when we're working and we like to do it well but we're not going to be up all night contemplating the inner-mysteries of some database engine or other.
Passion, to me, implies a lack of detachment and as den suggests, passionate developers can often become somewhat one-eyed and evangelical, frequently over-committing to particular concepts or ideas.
To my mind, the best developers tend to be somewhat dispassionate. Open-mindedness and pragmatism are probably the best qualities that someone can bring to the table.
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PeejayAdams wrote: Passion, to me, implies a lack of detachment and as den suggests, passionate developers can often become somewhat one-eyed and evangelical, frequently over-committing to particular concepts or ideas I think a fixation on a particular technology and passion are independent components. Maybe what you and the author are conflating is passion "for a particular technology" versus "passion for technology in general".
When you are passionate about a single technology, then this may certainly cloud your judgement leading to a single-minded approach to your work. However, when you are passionate about technology in general, then this is a far healthier approach.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
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I take your point that passions can be broad but I still think that technology can be part of a balanced diet.
A developer's job is broader than the technology that drives it - it's about business, communication, requirement gathering, documentation, collaboration, mentoring, internal politics and all sorts of things. Yes, the tech aspect is obviously important but I'm just as likely to take an issue pertaining to one of those other elements home with me as a technical issue.
Is it possible to be passionate about one aspect of your job (albeit a major one) without it having a detrimental effect on the other aspects of it?
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Some of us are sensible enough to put our family life as a priority too. That is indicative of a better work-life balance. I spend some free time keeping up to date with technology, but am limited in how much this is possible.
Too many tech companies seem to assume that you have nothing better to do than work all possible hours. That's a good way to burn people out and can actually be viewed as abusive. I finally got round to addressing this when one particularly extended stressful period resulted in so much stress I started to hallucinate.
Simply put, if the only way you can keep on top in a project is to work ridiculous hours, the project is being horribly mismanaged.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Passionate developers often tend to strongly attach themselves to some kind of language / platform / library / OS / coding style to the point of being unable to work under different circumstances or taking personally any change to what they did or tought. Not to talk about flame wars and religion wars...
Of course some amount of passion is needed, developing is partly a creative job, but it is also a technical science - there passion is less important than the right frame of mind and knowledge.
BTW: most these half-baked frameworks and tens of new languages doomed to die horribly in months are created by "passionate developers" for "passionate developers". Also jumping from a technology to another without rationality is a common trait of the so-called passionate developers, while in many scenarios it would be preferred a more rational, non-emotive mindset and solid grounding in pure engineering skills.
A good developer can work 9-to-5 and be as productive or more productive than a extremely passionate developer working 18 hrs a day.
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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den2k88 wrote:
A good developer can work 9-to-5 and be as productive or more productive than a extremely passionate developer working 18 hrs a day.
In other words, a good developer is more productive than one who's sh*t.
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I prefer stronger words, such as "driven", "determined", and "tenacious".
"Passion" sounds like you should be leaping around in a field of flowers, petting unicorns, or trying on a pretty new spring dress.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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or the proverbial sword and mounds of flesh...
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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imho: to frame the question of what programmer "greatness" is in terms of "passion," is to bootleg a confusion of productivity (a sine qua non) and temperament.
«There is a spectrum, from "clearly desirable behaviour," to "possibly dodgy behavior that still makes some sense," to "clearly undesirable behavior." We try to make the latter into warnings or, better, errors. But stuff that is in the middle category you don’t want to restrict unless there is a clear way to work around it.» Eric Lippert, May 14, 2008
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