Can you say "troll?" Open source == bad programmers? Some one actually believes this? I will not dignify this nonsense with anything more. Alan On Fri, 24 May 2002 16:36:08 -0800 T wrote: ...at least, according to this article it seems to... http://www.worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/asparticles/buzz/bz05222002 .asp A May 2002 news story from News Corporation’s Australian IT website illustrates how the open source method of software development for Linux is vastly overrated for business customers. According to a story on May 21, 2002 titled "IT Workers poorly skilled: report" by Karen Deane “Internet Business Systems chief executive David Brykman said he was shocked to find many candidates with university degrees and years of experience couldn't pass a simple skills test. The Melbourne-based company has been seeking Visual Basic and SQL programmers over the past six months to handle its business in industrial strength applications that run through a browser or over the web. ‘In the past two months we've reviewed about 500 resumes, and out of those we’re lucky if we can distil one or two people who are what we would call qualified,’ he said.” It is a grim statement on the state of software programming, but you might ask: “What does this have to do with Linux and open source?” Okay, think of it this way: What makes open source the secure, stable and elegant software panacea open source cultists claim it is? The Linux crowd point to the “thousand eyes” in the vast and benevolent Linux community that view the code and the ability to reuse this secure, stable and elegant code in numerous projects. These thousands of eyes are supposed to be able to spot weaknesses in the code and fix them immediately without bureaucratic hassles found in corporate software development. Because of the General Public License that virtually all Linux/open source apps are subject to, Linux/open source programmers are within legal rights to cut-and-paste pieces of code from any other open source app into their project. For example, say you are the IT director at a bank and you buy into the Linux is stable, secure and bulletproof hype. The bank’s CEO mandates that all loan officers to have a custom software package to track customer credit ratings. Your main applications programmer tells you that he knows a perfect piece of code he can use on SourceForge (an open source code clearinghouse website) that will drastically cut development time and costs. You can legally cut-and-paste this code into your credit software and supposedly make your system “stable and secure.” What do business people involved in software development think of this approach? David Brykman lamented that most software programmers have become lazy due to the prevalence of open source development methods. “Unfortunately we find people try to look up existing code and then want to copy and paste it, rather than being able to do the task themselves.” Brykman said. “[P]eople still need those skills.” The attack on Brykman’s views from the Linux crowd will be: “He’s working with Microsoft tools like Visual Basic that are inherently too closed because of Micro$oft’s monopolistic bullying. If Brykman worked with open source tools, he wouldn’t have this problem.” Such an attack is pointless because it doesn’t address the business aspects software development. If Brykman could use a “free-as-in-beer/free-as-in-liberty” piece of code to accomplish his business goals for almost no cost, he would. Brykman's business is creating browser-based Intranet software - Usually that business segment prides itself on being “platform independent.” Wouldn't Brykman prefer open source development methodologies due cross-platform nature and its ability to use/reuse code for “free-as-in-beer/free-as-in-liberty?” Linux cultists are so fond of saying there’s nothing in the GPL keeping businesses from charging for code (a semantic gymnastic feat to prove to anyone with half a brain), so why wouldn’t Brykman welcome programmers whose method is to cut-and-paste snippets of open source code? No, the problem is that even these supposedly skilled programmers who “hack” couldn’t get a functioning application out of the millions of lines of code floating out on the Internet. If they could, Brykman wouldn’t be complaining about the lack of programming skills found amongst most job applicants. Businesses in the post dot-com-bomb era will need real programmers, not spoiled lazy kids stealing from true geniuses. The Microsoft .Net framework is poised to be the formidable computing platform in the next few years; mainly due to the innovation required in the C# programming community and their commitment to intellectual property rights. The Java cross-platform programming language has been around for almost a decade and Sun has never been able to work it into their “the computer is the network and the network is the computer” strategy. Maybe it’s because so much Java code is used and reused? JBoss anyone? Does IBM’s “Jikes” ring any bells? Notice all the Java code on SourceForge? See the press releases from Sun trumpeting their alliance with Apache “to make the Java platform even more open”? Welcome to the lazy, cut-and-paste world of open source “innovation” where people who should be smart enough to know better still think you can get something for nothing. It would be humorous if it wasn't so pathetic... Email me with your opinion ________________________________________________ See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn't post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail. PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss