4 ms·
If the author's open-source credentials are part of his argument, then he needs to make them part of the story he tells in his article. He shouldn't assume tha
by chwahoo 14y ago
If the author's open-source credentials are part of his argument, then he needs to make them part of the story he tells in his article. He shouldn't assume that people will connect the dots (he doesn't have the name recognition of a Torvalds or Stallman). Further, even with the context, I don't think the dots add up to enough of a picture to understand what he's arguing for/against.
To make a convincing argument, he should have made it clearer what he was arguing against ("the bazaar" is too nebulous and refers to many things, .com development refers to other things) and what he was arguing for (which was entirely missing, other than a reference to Brooks' book). If he doesn't have a clear vision of how development should work (or a "standard-bearer"), he should have at least provided some examples of things working the "right" way (or better).
He should probably also have left off a bunch of the insults and hyperbole: "clueless" / "hacks" / .com period a "disaster" for code quality. I'm frankly pretty surprised that ACM Queue would publish this.
- chrisaycock 14y ago> If the author's open-source credentials are part of his argument, then he needs to make them part of the story he tells in his article. PHK is one of the most prolific contributors to Queue. Most regular ACM readers know who he is. > I'm frankly pretty surprised that ACM Queue would publish this. Again, see above.
- Munksgaard 14y agoIn addition to what chrisaycock said, phks writings are typically very "lacking" and assumes a certain knowledge about whatever he has chosen to write about. He writes interesting stuff, a lot is implied and/or not very sufficiently explained.
- phkamp 14y agoOr maybe, just maybe I don't write for the lowest common denominator, but for people who can think for themselves.
- DanBC 14y agoI think Munksgaard is supporting you, and that there are some problems with different languages.
- Munksgaard 14y agoIndeed, it was not meant as an attack, merely trying explain his style. I enjoy reading his blog posts, but I readily admit that I often have to seek out some sort of elaboration, as it's not always evident what his stance is, or even what he's talking about (I often wish he'd provide some more context).
- 3am 14y agoI'm really grateful for you writing this. I don't know if I'd couch it in the Cathedral/Bazaar terminology, but I've had similar thoughts.
- mcguire 14y agoHe's also a little bit fond of personal attacks.
- DanBC 14y agoA bizarre feature of some of the developer mailing lists and Usenet groups is the absolutely hateful vicious toxic nature of them. OP's site bikeshed.org (http://bikeshed.org/ http://bikeshed.org/) has some nice proposed features for software that posts to large audiences. +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Your email is about to be sent to several hundred thousand | | people, who will have to spend at least 10 seconds reading | | it before they can decide if it is interesting. At least | | two man-weeks will be spent reading your email. Many of | | the recipients will have to pay to download your email. | | | | Are you absolutely sure that your email is of sufficient | | importance to bother all these people ? | | | | [YES] [REVISE] [CANCEL] | +------------------------------------------------------------+ +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Warning: You have not read all emails in this thread yet. | | Somebody else may already have said what you are about to | | say in your reply. Please read the entire thread before | | replying to any email in it. | | | | [CANCEL] | +------------------------------------------------------------+ Perhaps any forum software needs these, as well as buttons saying [really post this?] [save this angry version locally, and give you time to write a calmer version] etc.