From: Markus <markus@...>
Date: 2004-10-15T04:04:44+09:00
Subject: Re: Eating sandwiches in the park

On Thu, 2004-10-14 at 11:45, Jamis Buck wrote:
> Markus wrote:
> >>>     Why the rabid objection to people putting broccoli on their
> >>>sandwiches if they like it?
> >>
> >>Because people are putting sandwitches everywhere, and a lot of us are
> >>forced to eat other people's for a variety of reasons.
> > 
> > 
> >      But this is exactly the point I don't get.  Who is forcing you?  Do
> > they have a gun?  If I write something you find distasteful, and even
> > post it on the web, are you required to use it?  Even if millions of
> > others like it a start to use it, you don't have to if you don't want
> > to.

> No guns, but something just about as scary: the risk of losing my 
> employment.

     Bingo.  I think that was the step I was missing.  I feel quite
dense.  I "took charge" of my career years ago, and have quite forgotten
what that feels like.

> Now, I don't do Ruby for a living. But I *do* write Java code, and we 
> use many different open source libraries. I *do* have *some* say in what 
> libraries we use, but I do *not* have absolute say.

     I'm the opposite on almost every point: I do use ruby for a living
(even though I'm supposedly semi-retired); while I don't have absolute
say I am a part owner and the head of the technical side.

> There are some libraries we are using which were mandated upon us. My 
> life would be a lot less stressful right now if I could choose an 
> alternative, but that's not the case, unfortunately.

     My condolences.  That bites, no matter how you get there.

> >>Many of us are working with a lot of open source code here; we end up
> >>working with code from a lot of other authors, and any feature that
> >>makes that code harder for us to comprehend witll get in the way.
> > 
> > 
> >      So don't work with code that you find to hard to deal with.  One of
> > the fundamental tenants of Open Source (at least, as I see it) is that
> > you are never required to use someone else's code if you don't like it. 
> > Maybe you don't trust it, or them, or think it's bloat, or buggy, or
> > just don't like their choice of identifiers.  Whatever the reason, you
> > are free to decline to use it if you'd rather not.
> 
> Unfortunately, that's a rather naive view of things (and I don't mean 
> that to say that YOU are naive, only that you have apparently never been 
> in a situation where you've been forced to "eat someone else's 
> sandwich"). Many times, especially in our own pet projects, we have 
> ultimate say over what we use and don't use. There are also times, 
> however, when we do not have that freedom.

     We differ on this.  I would say using code you don't trust just
because you want the functionality is the naive (albeit more common)
point of view.  I am actually more likely to use random things "just to
see how they taste" in my pet projects than I am professionally.


    -- Markus