Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: The Hype...

Author:Joshua Allen
Posted:9/16/2000; 7:27:08 PM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 9/16/2000
Msg #:21416 (In response to 21385)
Prev/Next:21415 / 21417

You do remember a time when managers would turn their noses up at Perl? At Python?

Also, today managers are realizing that the developers make the decision of what language to use and that managers have almost no say in that. In a very tight market for developer talent, developers are basically "volunteers". Us working where we do is usually more a favor to our employer than are we "lucky to have a job".

You do realize that there are businesses that will measure a language by how many books they find on Amazon?

Much of the focus on hyping "OpenSource" was born in demanding respect for this work -- for the acknowledgement that these tools were often better produced, better supported, better documented than their commercial equivalent.

Nobody wants to feel that something they spent years learning and promoting is now irrelevant or outclassed. In a volunteer economy where developers largely get to choose their tools, this adds to the diversity of options (I'm not talking about open source or closed source, this principle is I think agnostic about that debate). That's somewhat related to the "respect" you talk about.




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