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

Re: Open Source Projects and quality...

Author:Ken Kennedy
Posted:8/26/1999; 7:30:46 AM
Topic:Opening Up Linux Journal and O'Reilly
Msg #:9933 (In response to 9916)
Prev/Next:9932 / 9934

> ...the quality varies depending on the quality of the people and

> their committment to excellence (that's why Perl is such a hacked up

> language and Python is so excellent).

Dave:

That's a pretty strong opinion there, tossed off without much of an explanation. I'm tempted to post at slashdot RE: this *grin*, but I really don't get into those Holy War type discussions...

To clarify; what defintion of quality does Perl fail, and Python excel at? In terms of "excellence of value or worth", are you saying that Perl is a failure? Do you really think that Perl is of no use; on the Net or elsewhere? Come on, Dave...

Or do you mean "quality of design" as in "prettiness"? Even that can be debated, but how relevant is that? I just feel like you're comparing apples to oranges here; Perl is a highly-used (understatement), well-liked language that Gets The Job Done. You may not like it; I do. To me, using whitespace for syntax is a pain when you're writing scripts to build scripts, INI files, etc. I don't see how the quality of Open Source software is called into question based on Perl!

As for Mozilla, I'd say it's a poster child for the "pain-in-the-buttness" of taking a HUGE closed-source project and opening it up, and expecting miracles. There has been quite a bit written on the mistakes made ( internal to Mozilla , and otherwise here (comments on preceding essay), and here (read down for RMS's comments) ,among others. The first point being that Mozilla wasn't something people could run "out of the box", to start working with! Not an Open Source problem, a mozilla.org issue ignoring one of the "first rules" of Open Source (see Cathedral and the Bazaar, Necessary Preconditions...(plausible promise)). Are you in disagreement with ESR's "Cathedral...Bazaar" essay in toto?

PS: RMS = Richard M. Stallman; GNU founder, president of FSF.

PPS: ESR = Eric S. Raymond; Open Source software maintainer, essay writer, etc.

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