An old publication more relevant now than ever - The Cathedral and the Bazaar. A comparison of software practices in the early 2000s with some retrospective to how great software is built.

I think much of the writing can be applied to today’s federated content models.

In particular:

  • The Mail Must Get Through
  • Necessary Preconditions for the Bazaar Style
  • The Importance of Having Users
  • @j4k3
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    51 year ago

    Browsing post with phone in front of the book between my eyes and shelf ATM

  • @surely_not_a_bot
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    1 year ago

    But also this for balance:

    A Generation Lost In The Bazaar https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2349257

    I honestly read this every year. There are some deep lessons there that are so important for software and product development in general. It gets better every time I read it.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      This is an interesting article. I don’t know anything about kernel development, but I wonder if it’s still true?

      • @surely_not_a_bot
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        11 year ago

        It’s more true than ever! Not really just about kernel development, bit just development in general (see node/npm, etc) and the fact that you need someone to own quality as it doesn’t happen by itself.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 year ago

        He went from a let-and-let-live, free-loving libertarian; to a more “kooky” libertarian. IMO, he was more palatable 20 years ago than now; though it’s hard to top the fall-from-grace Stallman has had…

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          This is something that makes me sad. Stallman and Raymond were heros to me when I was starting out 20 years ago. I guess it goes to show that people are flawed no matter how talented.

        • @Ensign_Crab
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          11 year ago

          it’s hard to top the fall-from-grace Stallman has had

          Hans Reiser?