On Tue, Apr 09, 2002, Yehuda Drori wrote about "open source - is it that good..???": > I would like to raise a point about OPEN SOURCE.. > I think there are a lot of human resources getting wasted with OPEN SOURCE > projects. >...
The problem with this point of view is that it is too utilitarian, i.e., assumes that the only purpose people write software without being paid for it is for somehow filling a void in application-space or doing society a favor. <NOSTALGIA> I know that when I was younger (oof, I'm beginning to sound like an old guy... I'm just 27...) and had a lot of free time, I loved to experiment with programming. I enjoyed learning new programming languages, new programming techniques, new algorithms, new operating systems, and so on. I wrote a lot of useless software for myself, such as (to choose a few silly examples) an interpreter, the game of Yahtzee, and a VGA font-editor. I never made any of these projects "open source" (at the time, I didn't even have a network connection most of the time), and these never made any impact on anyone except me and perhaps a couple of close friends. You could say that I wasted hours upon hours (man-years, even) on these unproductive activities. But these activities were actually productive: they taught me how to program well (at least, I'd like to think so ;)). They drove me to want to learn more about computers and computer science. When I sometimes look back at programs I wrote in the 80's, I see how much I've improved since then from all this "unproductive" experience. Every "useless" project taught me new ideas and techniques. "Working" alone (and not in teams on some huge open-source software) and on user-less programs meant that this could remain a fun hobby and not a chore - if some projects bored me I just left it lying (sometimes for a year) until I got back to it (or not). </NOSTALGIA> So don't underestimate the value of programming as a hobby to a person's development as a programmer. Not all programming must be for some grand purpose (money or social revolutions). So if somebody wants to program the 10001st clock application to learn about xlib, let them, without questioning the "utility" in that to society. -- Nadav Har'El | Tuesday, Apr 9 2002, 28 Nisan 5762 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |Microchips: what's left at the bottom of http://nadav.harel.org.il |the bag when it reaches you. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
