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It is funny this kind of came full circle. Damien Katz, the original CouchDB author was working on Lotus Notes as some point in his life It's definitely intere

by omh 13y ago

It is funny this kind of came full circle. Damien Katz, the original CouchDB author was working on Lotus Notes as some point in his life It's definitely interesting. I can remember people in the Notes community wondering why IBM didn't either take CouchDB and use it as a new Notes backend, or alternatively push the existing Notes bits as a mature document-based database. The end quote from Katz's "Formula Engine Rewrite" post[1] is interesting: "But ultimately IBM killed Iris. In late 2001 IBM folded Iris Associates and converted all the employees to IBM. All the energy the Iris building had was seeping out. Really it was more pushed out by the BS that IBM management kept trying to sell us..." [1] http://damienkatz.net/2005/01/formula-engine-rewrite.html http://damienkatz.net/2005/01/formula-engine-rewrite.html

markc 13y ago
Damien's writeup is well worth a read, esp. by programmers who want to know what it takes to get to a high level of proficiency. The Iris work appears to have been a critical experience in preparing Damien to write Couch. Anyone who wants to become a great programmer should read this and emulate his example. I was at Iris around that time too, and went through the IBM slow-death. I really felt like we had to spend at least one whole day per week (maybe more) dicking around with HR stuff. Career objectives, self-eval, performance reviews, peer reviews. Facilities and IT systems were a horror show too. I spent 2 whole days registering with various internal websites, filling out forms, getting permissions - just trying to get rid of an unwanted monitor. At Iris you'd just put unwanted stuff outside your office and it would be gone the next day. Funny, losing the amazing Iris tech-bubble perks kind of sucked, but it was really the daily "being an employee" overhead and red-tape that made IBM unbearable.

by omh 13y ago

markc 13y ago

Damien's writeup is well worth a read, esp. by programmers who want to know what it takes to get to a high level of proficiency. The Iris work appears to have been a critical experience in preparing Damien to write Couch. Anyone who wants to become a great programmer should read this and emulate his example. I was at Iris around that time too, and went through the IBM slow-death. I really felt like we had to spend at least one whole day per week (maybe more) dicking around with HR stuff. Career objectives, self-eval, performance reviews, peer reviews. Facilities and IT systems were a horror show too. I spent 2 whole days registering with various internal websites, filling out forms, getting permissions - just trying to get rid of an unwanted monitor. At Iris you'd just put unwanted stuff outside your office and it would be gone the next day. Funny, losing the amazing Iris tech-bubble perks kind of sucked, but it was really the daily "being an employee" overhead and red-tape that made IBM unbearable.