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On Competition, NIH and Good Software
.NET OSS developers *can't* have it both ways. They can't complain about Microsoft 'reinventing the wheel' and not make it about a competition. It is the same thing, when it boils down to it.
What is the complaint otherwise? That Microsoft shouldn't come out with something that mirrors OSS efforts unless it is 10 times better? 10 times better according to whom? You? The OSS police?[...snip...]
Your own and Jeremy Miller's own blogs about 'building a better CAB in an hour' *reek* of 'it is a competition.'
I do not doubt that you do not intend it to come across that way, but it certainly does, in spades, and I don't see how you could think otherwise.
Let me start by saying that I believe that it is a poor mind that can't argue against itself (and win). I most certainly can have it both ways. I can complain about MS reinventing the wheel when they aren't providing as much value as existing stuff, because they are in a position where people will follow them blindly. This means that they have the responsibility to be just as good as the existing things out there.
I think that you missed an important distinction here, it is not about OSS, or using something other than MS, it is about not having to deal with a half-assed product. I would rather have nothing from Microsoft than something that doesn't do everything that I expect something in its category to do. The reasoning is very simple, if I have nothing from Microsoft, it is much easier to build / buy something else. If there is something from Microsoft, but it is not up to par with the established standards, that is bad. It is bad because "you don't get fired for buying Microsoft" way of thinking.
And yes, this is a big issue to me. I would much rather do actual work than have to argue politics about "But we are a Microsoft shop and they have a really cool presentation".
Pointing out things that I don't like, or consider overblown is not something that I would consider a competition, I do much the same for a lot of other things, including my own.
Comments
If you see, I followed up the previous comment I made at 2 am with a little more clarification/questions, but you beat me to it. Go figure.
I would ask similarly (you quoted but didn't answer a similar question), 'half-assed' according to whom? Who judges that, how is that input judged, measured, and addressed?
How would that actually work in a way that a public company like Microsoft which doesn't and shouldn't open-source its main software be able to take code contributions from non-Microsoft employees?
I certainly understand NIH and why it (can) be bad (it isn't always), and why arguing politics can be frustrating (though only the most idealistic/unrealistic person would think this can be eliminated).
And I still don't understand why 'competition' is bad.
According to the users. MS Test to NUnit is half-assed by impartial assessment of knowledgeable peers. There are other products with the same response (Entity Framework without persistence ignorance, etc).
I have a dream...
As well as a nasty attitude when such things occurs :-)
I am talking about competition for the sake of competition. A product built on the sole premise of "I am going to show those stupid hackers at M$ and their monopoly" is not a good idea.
I would press the question. According to which users?
MS Test is quite good. VSTS on the surface didn't have CI or scheduled builds out of the box, for instance, but were easily enabled, since it is very extensible. Most criticisms I've seen were pretty 'half-assed' but I'm not that good, so I'm sure I'm wrong.
I agree it would be dumb to try to motivate oneself to 'beat' MSFT and those 'Stupid hackers' (except for the fact that that is the motivation for many/most OSS developers in the non-Microsoft realm). But who cares? If that was your motivation for doing your Hibernating Rhinos Event Broker video, as opposed to whatever motivation you actually had to do it, so what?
If you can take a minute to do so, look at it from my viewpoint. I've only stumbled across your blog in the last 3-6-9 months or whatever it was. I find it incredibly valuable to me in terms of learning as a developer.
But who are you as a user? Or your peers? Why should Microsoft care that someone like me thinks you are killer? Maybe I'm an idiot and can't judge anything.
Why should Microsoft care that a bunch of rude people commented about the Entity Framework without persistence ignorance? It turns out that they did, because at least one of the persons at CodeBetter decided not to be rude, and work with them. Scott Guthrie isn't a punk or a jerk either.
There's a lesson there. The blog name 'Ayende' might mean something to me, and to any/many others who read blogs.
But what does it mean to the people who can make changes within the development of Microsoft products? What did you do today to make it meaningful?
Not that you have an obligation to do such a thing. But neither does Microsoft have an obligation to satisfy your criticisms that what they do is 'half-assed' just because you say it is so, and others agree with you.
Even if I agree with you.
Well isn't that the final objective, "I would rather have nothing from Microsoft than something ..." and don't forget to pay a licensing fee. It's the new framework based on the Ether# language.
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