I have the very great honor of speaking at this year's EclipseCon with one of my heroes, Clay Shirky.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original blog entry at: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/see-you-at-eclipsecon.html
This is a companion discussion topic for the original blog entry at: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/see-you-at-eclipsecon.html
No, typically people who study a text have critically analyzed it. You just seem to unquestioningly praise it gospel. It pains you? Then why do you lock yourself in the Microsoft barrio?
No matter what you do, if you’re making software you’re making choices, and platform is just a choice. I’d love it if all software worked on all platforms, but I grew up and moved on. I can’t be good at everything, so I try to get better at what I’m good at to provide value for my clients.
How lame is it that years and years and years on the same people are still bleating about the same issues.
And it’s less about locking in or being myopic about change, but change for change’s sake isn’t right either. You get paid to develop software, and there is a tendency to continually throw the baby out with the bathwater. We’ve obviously gotten it wrong - programming is still such an f’ing hassle and is only getting marginally better as time goes on.
The windows platform is a really good platform to develop on. I can’t fault a person for using it to develop customer facing applications - especially when it’s their realm of ‘expertise’. (I use the term somewhat loosely but the intent should be clear).
Being aware and able to use other platforms and languages to develop is the first distinguishing mark. Actually using other languages regularly would probably be the next.
I work with people that are stuck in .NET world. One made the comment he’d never use Python because it was slow - or any dynamic language. And he’s a smart guy with some very good technical skills.
I’ve read posts by Jeff that explore when dynamic languages ARE the answer. This is at least one step above my work mate that refutes dynamic languages based on their speed.
So yes, I believe Jeff IS in a position to make the comment he did. Those that are a little more language-able shouldn’t be so critical.
Zeroth, you don’t get it. Your the kind of person Jeff was describing. FOSS is just as much a ghetto if you refuse to look at Windows, Mac, Solaris or other commercial products for political reasons.
This is one talk that can be skipped at EclipseCon.
It’s a comfort to learn that good programmers have diverse interests. I wouldn’t describe myself as a good programmer. Yet. But I’m interested in so much - art, philosophy, culture, dance, video, acoustics, fluid dynamics, chaos theory, programming, motion graphics, compositing, databases - that it means getting anything done can be pretty difficult! This I’ve seen traditionally as a problem - how can I call myself a programmer if I’ve not been locked away in a room doing it since I was 5? It’s nice to know that diversity is an attribute valued by the profession.
Thanks for the reading recommendation. : )
It pains me to see developers who let themselves get locked into some particular toolchain ghetto, without at least peripheral awareness of what else is going on in the programming world around them.
And it pains me that some people out there still think you can be a generalist in an ever increasingly specialised profession. I believe that you should be aware of factors that affect the current set of technologies you use unless you are a decision maker.
Good Luck with that Jeff.
And it pains me that some people out there still think you can be a generalist in an ever increasingly specialised profession. I believe that you should be aware of factors that affect the current set of technologies you use unless you are a decision maker.
You can specialize in a technology without having to close yourself from other tools. That’s not being a generalist.
A generalist is a programmer who knows a lot about basics and can learn new languages quickly. This kind of people can work really well in small proyects or in start-ups (which can’t hire one programer for every technology they use), but they are not as good to work in big critical systems or, for example, Videogame Engines. Most of his time is used reading documentation and technical manuals.
Ah… great!
I hope you may post a transcript of the talk here, or maybe as an external link.
First post. 
My honor.
here comes everybody… on it’s way to my kindle now (with hopefully a little kickback for jeff
To the few people that think I’m purely FOSS… I’m not. I’m pragmatic. I use what is best for the situation. Here, we have a guy that self-admits he uses pretty much Microsoft as his solution, going to a talk, to try to get those FOSS developers to see outside their ghetto. To me that speaks of someone espousing software for political reasons. 
I really wouldn’t have cared if he had just said, Hey, we’re going to talk about Web 2.0, how it can be used, how it can’t be used, and all sorts of stuff like that. instead of acting like he’s the savior bringing The Light to the poor huddled masses.
Next post =) Dr. Dobb’s has come a long way from that issue…
It pains me to see developers who let themselves get locked into some particular toolchain ghetto, without at least peripheral awareness of what else is going on in the programming world around them.
Glad I’m not the only one who thinks that. I think that statement applies to a lot of things in computing - including browsers and OS.
Jeff,
congrats. It is ironic that both Byte and DDJ magazines were at the center of important programmer communities from day one. Now they are practically non-existent. DDJ sort of exists but it is a shadow of its former self. Byte evaporated slowly, first becoming a digital edition and now it is absolutely irrelevant. And there is still no good (or better) substitute.
I just hope you know you yourself are stuck in a specific ghetto, Jeff. .NET, Windows, IIS, and so on.
At least the Eclipse people have a cross-platform IDE and language(well… kind of). Mono and Moonlight are not valid answers to that point either, as they are still a long way off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you advocate a program, language, or IDE that was cross-platform Jeff… but always Microsoft-centric.
Way to be an example of how not to be in a ghetto, eh?
Zeroth, did you not read the 2nd half of Jeff’s sentence? dude.