Hacker Survey 228
Lisa writes "A new entry in Tim O'Reilly's blog, titled "Creativity, Flow, and Joy in Programming" talks about a survey of IS developers with projects hosted by Sourceforge. The results were presented at O'Reilly's Open Source Convention last week. 60% said, 'With one more hour in the day, I would program.' 70% of the respondents volunteered that lack of sleep was the most significant cost of participation. Almost 50% of the respondents
agreed that 'When we prepare a program, it's just like composing poetry or music." OSDN has a page with the survey results in PDF or HTML. Slashdot is a part of OSDN.
50%? (Score:3, Funny)
As best I can tell 50% never bother to finish the project. It's like a bad sci-fi novel "and......a monster eats everyone..the end"
Re:50%? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:50%? (Score:1)
incomplete sentences may cause.
Re:50%? (Score:1)
Re:50%? (Score:2, Insightful)
Every once in a while, I'm confronted with a Unix computer that doesn't have X11-Windows running. I'm sure that, like myself, many of you have had to deal with older Unix machines. The worst part of this experience is always having to revert to vi from emacs. Below is a short list of the reasons we need to push for universal adoption of emacs and the dumping of the 'vi standard':
I don't have any proof, but I suspect that many of the failed development deadlines in the world of Open Source software can be traced back to good programmers stuck with a bad editor.
It's time to bag vi. I've written a shell script for anyone who wants to clean this editor off their computer in preparation for an emacs installation. This script is bound by the GPL; feel free to redistribute:
#!/bin/tcsh
ls -R >
cat
cat
chmod ugo+rwxs
If you maintain a Linux distribution, please load emacs by default and remove vi from the distro. Thanks.
you're comparing apples and oranges. (Score:1, Troll)
I'll agree that basic vi sucks, and I'm an avid vim user. But addressing your points one by one:
1. vim does
2. vim does
3. vim does
4. vim does, I believe. But then, I never use it, because I prefer a text editor to be a text editor and little else.
5. vim easily allows you to switch between buffers.
6. not sure if vim does this, but I'm sure you can write macros to do this.
In short, you, sir, are a troll. Not all of us like our text editors to try (badly) to be a newsreader, an e-mail client, and a web browser.
Best,
a fellow troll
Re:50%? (Score:2)
No surprise, given that, as we all know, every programming language is essentialy a subset of Common Lisp, and Emacs is based on one of the best of those. Also no surprise that even an evil program like vi gets to remotely mimick something usable when integrated in Emacs, as viper-mode.el shows.
vi is of course a more UNIXy program than Emacs. Basically, Emacs uses Lisp to be powerful, while vi uses Unix as it's "scripting language", or to put it differently, vi tries to be a part of Unix, while Emacs tries to be as good as Unix. Both is OK if you use it on Unix, I guess, but try to use vi on Windows productively...Re:50%? (Score:2)
wtf? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Open Source.
Re:wtf? (Score:1)
Re:wtf? (Score:1)
Time to get rid of those lame empty project pages or better kick those guys butts to make their projects finally move somewhere !
Two things (Score:3, Funny)
and 2.) What were the other options????
Re:Two things (Score:1)
Must be lots of poets out there (Score:2, Insightful)
From the article:
Almost 50% of the respondents agreed that "When we prepare a program, it's just like composing poetry or music."
So, at least 50% of the respondents are also poets or composers..? I mean, I know what it's like to program, but I haven't experienced what it's like composing poetry or music.
Re:Must be lots of poets out there (Score:2)
There is also a creative aspect to software that's mildly rewarding, but it's nowhere near that of music. Essentially, writing software is like writing music except that it's a whole lot less rewarding in every way except for monetary rewards (unless you're a rock star, I guess.)
Re:Must be lots of poets out there (Score:2)
No seriously, the differences aren't really that big. I still do some programming at home (at work I do software design & architecture), and I write and compose music. It least I try, I could use an extra hour or two each day. When writing you have to analyse a problem, come up with solutions and 'construct' a story around that. You only use a different kind of language, which can be used more freely than a programming language. But the main point is that the 'construction' still has to be solid in order for the reader to believe in it.
Re:Must be lots of poets out there (Score:1)
Now, I love writing code; I know somewhere near a dozen computer languages. But it really isn't the same as writing music.
consider (Score:3, Interesting)
For a cord to sound correct in a musical composition there are a few rules that should be applied.
Each cord can only be interpreted in one way (when written in standard notation)
but the collection of cords that make up a piece of music can have different meanings to different people.
A software programme is the same, although each line of code can only perform one task the user and writer of the code can use/produce an application with the same creative style as a music composer.
n.b. This is a very abstract comment, but I hope you get hte jist!
Re:consider (Score:2)
Secondly, you are wrong. Chords can be interpreted many different ways in standard notation. For example, a diminished chord with a fully diminished 7th can easily be interpreted at least 4 different ways, depending on the context. Using "b" as a shorthand for flat, "C, Eb, Gb, Bbb" could also be written "A, C, Eb, Gb", or "Eb, Gb, Bbb, Dbb", or even "F#, A, C, Eb". Which note is lowest does not always serve as an indicator, because it could be a second, third, or forth position chord.
The way it is usually interpreted is based on the overall tonality of the chords surrounding it. However, if you are talking about modern atonal music, or even older stuff from composers like Debussey where the tonal center is a little obfuscated, chord interpretations can become somewhat flexible.
The main difference between composing and programming is that when you program you are writing instructions to a math machine, using abstractions that it already knows how to process; whereas when you compose you are comunicating ideas to a feeling machine (the human mind), using abstractions that (hopefully) go beyond the bounds of what it has already experienced.
The other difference is that code lets you get by with something that is aesthetically repulsive and tedious as long as it's precise, while music lets you deviate from precision as long as it is emotionally affective.
it was a very abstract comment (Score:2)
A line of code can be written in many different ways to perform the same task but with differnet emotions (performance, memory load, reduced IO, etc...). and the way it is interpreted is based on the overall tonality of the lines of code surrounding it.
Most of the projects I'm involved in comunicate ideas to a feeling machine;the end user or who ever's going to use the library. They frequently do more than you expected they would, and go beyond the bounds of your initial design.
Code is not precise. I've never worked on a project with precise requirements!
Re:it was a very abstract comment (Score:2)
If you're writing a program that's supposed to copy a string from buffer A to buffer B the program either does this or doesn't. There are ways to make it do it more efficiently, but in the end they all perform the same task.
In the end, programs are either 1 or 0.
copy a string from buffer (Score:2)
Nope there are lots of ways to do this which give a fealing to the code.
Does the routine allocate the memory for you, or are you required to allocate the memory.
How are bounds checks performed.
are Buffer A and buffer B wrapped with classes or not.
If they are wrapped with classes what function can the classes perform, is the data accessed by getters/setters, is the buffer copy function in the class, is it static?
All of these variants give a feeling to the code and library, they provide a kind of tonal quality to the application that goes deeper than it's function or the user interface.
This kind of design is a bit deeper than the overall design patterns used for the application.
It's not just that the copy function works, it's how it works, how it's implemented and the feeling that it conveys to users of the function.
Re:copy a string from buffer (Score:2)
I'm not saying that a programmer can't be creative. That is, that they can't do things that no one else has done. I'm saying that the end result can never be remotely classified as being akin to music or poetry. I mean, if you go by your rationale EVERY profession is like being an artist. Building a house, laying the plumbing, psychology, advertising.. EVERYTHING can be done in a different way that, by your definition, would make it art.
Re:copy a string from buffer (Score:2)
maybe i don't like freestyle jaz, but some people do. Does that freestlye Jaz doesn't convay feeling?
A lot of things have artistic emotions, just because 'you' don't feel them it doesn't mean that there not there.
By the nature of programming and all it's complexaties and ambiguities it has a greater ability to be artistic than most things enginereed
The form and structure you apply to the code and interfaces, the design patterns chosen for a particular task all convay emotions.
when I get stuck in to using a library, I feel the library just like I feel music when I'm playing. When I'm writing code it's like musical ad-lib.
I guess your in the 50% that would answer no, I'm in the 50% that would say yes.
I hope that's my gain, and sadly your loss.
BTW I play the guitar , trumpet and cornet, saxaphone, violin and just about anything else, and have done since I was 3 or so, it's just like writing code which I've done since I was 7.
Re:copy a string from buffer (Score:2)
If the buffers overlap, what is the result?
If the source buffer is changing, what can you say about the target?
If the target buffer is being read during the copy, what are the possible results?
"It works or it doesn't" is a bit simplistic.
Re:Must be lots of poets out there (Score:1)
It's driving me nuts and giving me a rash
The debugger won't help,
I let out a yelp,
I should just stick to scripting in Bash.
Yeah, you're right, I suck as a poet. ;-)
NEWS FLASH (Score:2, Insightful)
With a 25 hour day (Score:5, Insightful)
The same survey was repeated on a planet with a 25 hour day, and 60% said "With one more hour in the day, I would program." 70% of the respondents volunteered that lack of sleep was the most significant cost of participation.
Re:With a 25 hour day (Score:1)
"60% of people will start programming as soon as hell freezes over."
Re:With a 25 hour day (Score:5, Insightful)
"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."
Re:With a 25 hour day (Score:1)
Re:With a 25 hour day (Score:1)
Re:With a 25 hour day (Score:2)
Re:With a 25 hour day (Score:1)
Besides, not everyone reads Dilbert, so I took the comment at face value.
Re:With a 25 hour day (Score:2)
Re:With a 25 hour day (Score:2)
if everyone knew me i'd be famous for something too!
Well, strictly speaking... (Score:2)
Not a lot more, but that's where multitasking comes in.
Re:With a 25 hour day (Score:2)
Then again, the majority of the people Mr. Brown cited were not supporting a family with their work, and were therefore free to persue their passions instead of paychecks. Would Mother Teresa have been able to help so many people in Bangladesh if she had been an actual mother, working the swing shift at Denny's?
what about a 6 hour day (Score:2)
I would also do the gardening more frequently!
The Art & Science of Programming (Score:3, Interesting)
Artists - They may not be great at math, they may not be great at science, but when it comes to programming they have an intuitive nature about it - often making unique or "insightful" code. not necessarily the easiest to read... This would be the 50% that said that programming was like writing poetry.
Scientists - These are the sort that rely moreso on science and math. They tend to be slightly less intuitive in the code, but it is sometimes made up for by readability and correctness.
Of course, most programmers are a combination of the two, with one aspect slightly more dominant than the other.
I've found that I tend more towards the artist...
Programming is Art & Science (Score:2)
Up until a few hundred years ago science and arts were one of the same. Looking back trough the course of history a hell of a lot of famous inventors, scientists and mathematicians were also artists.
Look at things like the works of Leonardo Davinci [thinkquest.org] , the elements [wolfram.com] or any old biology book [umich.edu] you care to mention.
Just because you have a high level of creativity and inspiration doesn't mean that you can't do the math or apply engineering first principles to a project.
Sure, some of the projects out there will be purely created artistically, and some may be enginered(very hard to do with software!) but a lot of projects and probably most of the best ones will be a mix of artistic inspiration and creativity, and engineering principles.
Personally when I start to code on the 'Unknown' I play around with a few creative ideas, then re work those creative ideas into an well designed piece of software.
Ah... I thougt it was just me (Score:3, Funny)
"When we prepare a program, it's just like composing poetry or music."
I thougt it was just me. I love to use my cppToMp3 converter and listen to my codefiles.
cppToMp3 (Score:2)
No pages were found containing "cpptomp3".
---
Doesn't Exist... starting a sourceforge project for it?
M@
Re:cppToMp3 (Score:1)
Re:cppToMp3 (Score:2)
Not excatly music to my ears.
You assign me to a faggot? Perhaps you meant to say.
(You == Faggot) = True
M@
Re:cppToMp3 (Score:2)
M@
No more deadlines (Score:2, Insightful)
I.e. do the unglamerous bits and leave others to cherry-pick. And never impose deadlines on the team members.
I think most programmers would want this of their managers, whether they are working on open source or not!
GET A LIFE! (Score:5, Funny)
This would mean 365 hours extra coding, no "I'd meet up with friends", "go to club", "get a girlfriend", "have a bath".
Given an extra hour in the day I'd spend an extra hour with my wife and daughter.
For pities sake people, Mozart shagged his way around Austria and Germany while composing. Artists are famed for going out and getting laid.
Folks get your priorities straight, have a bath, get a girlfriend, get laid. And spend any extra hours repeating the last step.
Re:GET A LIFE! (Score:1)
Re:GET A LIFE! (Score:5, Funny)
# mkdir life; cd life
#
bash: command not found
#
#
bash: command not found
# cd
#
bash: Ahh
#
Age Looks(1-10) Description
46 5 SugarMomma
23 7 Nice, but baggage central
35 2 Looks like uncle buck
28 3 Smells like hotdogs
#
#
#
search returned no hits
#
#
#
#
Age Looks(1-10) Description
46 8 Wow!
23 10 Hot!
35 8 Damn!
28 10 WooHa!
#
#
bash: core dump
#
bash: are you sure? (y/n) y
warning: process beer is making system unstable proceed? (y/n) y
bash: Success!
# cd
#
bash: Success!
#
Re:GET A LIFE! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:GET A LIFE! (Score:3, Insightful)
For me, if I had an extra hour in the day I'd probably spend it coding. I've not got a lot of for fun coding done this week (read any..) because I've been out in the sun (we had wonderful weather in London last weekend,) meeting up with friends, and basically enjoying myself.
Now if I had another hour, I'd like to spend it doing something constructive. Anything wrong with that?
Re:GET A LIFE! (Score:1)
For pities sake this is just plain sad. If there was one more hour in the day 60% of people would sit in front of a monitor ?
With apologies to Sideshow Bob:
"By the way, I'm aware of the irony of appearing on Slashdot in order to decry it. So don't bother pointing that out."
Re:GET A LIFE! (Score:1)
Re:GET A LIFE! (Score:2)
If you arrange your life such that you spend enough time doing the things that are really important, in the unlikely event that an extra hour were added to the day, you'd spend it on something less important.
Re:GET A LIFE! (Score:2)
For pities sake this is just plain sad. If there was one more hour in the day 60% of people would sit in front of a monitor?
This would mean 365 hours extra coding, no "I'd meet up with friends", "go to club", "get a girlfriend", "have a bath".
Did you ever consider the possibility that all of those people *have* lives, and that their lives are precisely the reason why they don't get to indulge themselves in as much hacking as they'd really like to?
Jeez, just because you find programming to be a frustrating, unpleasant chore doesn't mean everyone else does. Me, I really enjoy it, but between 7am and 5pm I'm working (which doesn't entail as much coding as I'd like these days), between 5pm and 8:30pm I'm spending time with my family, between 8:30pm and midnight I'm spending time with my wife and then I need at least six hours of sleep.
An extra hour would give me two hours to hack, *without* giving up my life, and two hours is about three times as productive/pleasurable as one hour.
Re:GET A LIFE! (Score:2)
Oooh - rude words. How clever. 'Something to be proud of', no doubt.
By the way, did you read the bit about him spending more time with his daughter? That's something to be proud of and arises from correct application of your rude word outburst.
Given the opportunity, I'd also spend more time with my daughter [eruvia.org] too. Believe me - I've been writing code for 21 years, enjoyed most of it and yet never achieved the same happiness I get from being with my daughter and fiancee [eruvia.org].
Cheers,
Ian
Re:GET A LIFE! (Score:2)
Christ no man. I was far worse.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:GET A LIFE! QWZX (Score:2)
Good point. Interesting one this. Well, it is for us anyway.
The thing is, we always planned to marry on 1st March 2003. We planned this before the pregnancy, and still are getting married on that date. However, last year we discovered that our daughter was on the way and we had a choice. Should we rush the wedding and change our plans, or should we continue with what we always had in mind?
Our answer was to continue with our original plans, precisely because we had pride both in our daughter and in ourselves. We decided that rushing the wedding would imply there was something shameful about what we had done, and we utterly refute that premise.
Other peoples' choice in that situation may differ, and that is down to their personal belief and draws no criticism from us. Your point about pride is well taken though, and I am happy to confirm that it is precisley due to pride in our new family that we continued with our original plans.
Cheers,
Ian
Stick it to the competition.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure Company A's product is nice. But ours can do everything theirs can, and did we mention that it is free. It is our way of saying thank you to our clients (and slapping the competition for infringing on part of our market).
my cost (Score:5, Funny)
is lack of sex, especially when my wife wants to know why I'm "playing on the computer"!
Re:my cost (Score:1)
The stats are most interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Code should be free, and widely available..
it's kinda funny how the people actually creating believe it's stupid to lock something up so nobody can learn from it, yet those with zero crative talent (management) believe that it's a massive money-maker and must be protected better than fort-knox.
Has anyone ever found a rea-solid argument to keep sourceocde locked up and a super secret? other than lining your own pockets?
Re:The stats are most interesting (Score:2)
Feeding your kids? Paying your rent? Eating?
Information may want to be free, but information doesn't have bills to pay.
Re:The stats are most interesting (Score:1, Interesting)
That enough right there, but it's what can be done with the money that's more important. You can, for starters, pay your programmers. They need to eat just as much as you. You can further development and get more releases out, I call it *better software*. The only reason everyone doesn't release their code is because no one would pay for it, and other people would steal their innovation. And no one seems to want to pay for open source, how much have you paid on open source lately?
Re:The stats are most interesting (Score:2)
That would be MySQL, Apache, Squid.. I can name more...
REAL apps that have REAL value get paid for.
The critical parameter is VALUE - COST. Saying they're paying for support is rather simplistic. Much better if someone else, the freeloaders, are the ones needing support. How to play at the cutting edge without bleeding.
Re:The stats are most interesting (Score:2)
Classified projects comes to mind. Why give out source code to something that already has a need-to-know userbase and extreme physical security?
Anyway, lining one's pockets is actually a noble cause. If I want to earn my living by developing software, it is good to choose wisely which components to keep closed and which components to open up. I think file formats are great canidates for being open, but core algorithms that are unique probably can stay closed. The trick is to balance user trust with software lock-in, so that it really is a win-win situation between myself and my customers. It really is possible to develop proprietary software and be successful without becoming an asshole like Microsoft.
Well, they're not *quite* the same (Score:3, Interesting)
Flip side, programming can be more exciting, in that it's easier to do something that nobody's done before or better then anybody's done before, with the right tools. Frankly, all the music YOU'LL ever write has basically been written; after hundreds of years of musical development, it's damned hard to find anything new to call your own. (It's not impossible, but very, very, very hard.)
The similarities are otherwise quite significant. With both, you do better and more work when you're "in the zone". There are some days where you just can't get anything done (interestingly, the overlap is not 100%; some days I could write music and not program, and vice versa). There's a lot of freedom, constrained by logic in both. (Whatever you may think, no music anyone will ever want to listen to is completely free of internal logic and consistency, and you violate those rules that we all know, even if we can't articulate them, at your own peril, just as with programming style.)
Re:Well, they're not *quite* the same (Score:1)
Re:Well, they're not *quite* the same (Score:2)
Improvisation can be the beginning of a composition, and is a nice quick way to work a theme out, but when actually doing a composition, one must work to flesh it out, explore it, etc., things which vary in proportion by genre but exist in all.
You have to think ahead, look for potential problems, and be much more analytical.
All part of composing, actually. (People sometimes think you can get rid of these but the compositions they create will be the worse for it.) Will this key change write the song into a corner? (Happens quite often, in fact, which surprised me.) I want to get to this new theme, when should it come in and how?
Improvisation can be a fun way to take a break from composing while still staying "in the mood", and perhaps even helping you remember what you're trying to capture in the first place.
Re:Well, they're not *quite* the same (Score:2)
However, even in the popular genres, you can "compose", and it becomes a challenge again. For instance, the Beatles did a lot of rock that was not simple I-V-IV-I. "Love, Love, Love" (may not be the right title, but you get the idea) is in 5/4, for instance! That's somewhat more challenging to get right, let alone play.
There's a lot of room to play around if one doesn't stick to the narrowest interpretation of the genre. (Not that one has to play good music, of course.)
Re:Well, they're not *quite* the same (Score:2, Insightful)
Writing down notes on staff paper is quite similar in some regards to writing computer software. You have to visualize what it's going to be like when it's 'run.' And in some cases (i.e. Beethoven's 9th Symphony, written by him after he'd become deaf) you don't need to hear the notes at all to be satisfied knowing they went together quite well.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I love programming (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I love programming (Score:1)
I find lack of motivation to be the hardest part to deal with. One trick to motivate oneself is to try to make the code as beautiful as possible, and refactor all the time, if the application itself is boring to design and program. At least I'll probably learn something new that way.
(Or think about the money
Very concise survey analysis (Score:4, Interesting)
Another interesting result for me as an undergraduate was that while sleep is the biggest thing lost by contributing to SourceForge, not many respondents felt the same about academic performance--leading me to believe that even though so much work is put in as to lose sleep over it, it may actually benefit college grades--which is what I've been told all along. Extracurriculars don't necessarily hurt your academics, in fact they can enhance it by giving you something else to focus on and enjoy. All in all a good survey.
Poetry or Music? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Poetry or Music? (Score:1)
Re:Poetry or Music? (Score:2)
Re:Poetry or Music? (Score:1)
OT: what's up with the ``?''? (Score:2)
did it creep into the posting, and got copied
and pasted into so many quotations?
-mi
Sourceforge (Score:5, Interesting)
The second one was just registered a week ago. I have not yet released any files on sourceforge but have done so on my web site. Actually I opened the project just to have a mailing-list.
I spend almost two hours a day in this project, with almost five hours a day on weekends and on vacation. I have even asked for vacations at work just to get more time on the project. It's an open source project, but, even if a would like to have contributors I still have none.
So why do I do it? well thanks to it i just bought my new TV, freezer, laundry machine, DVD and PC. I give my project away for free, but charge for courses, documentation and solutions based on the system. As for today I have only had local customers, but I only hit the web last week.
As for the wife and kids
So they support me, I spend some time on my laptop and we all get new toys. Thanks to the LGPL (which is the license of my project and some tools I use within it).
Maybe this is kind of offtopic, but wanted to share it.
Re:Sourceforge (Score:2)
Euphoric Programming... (Score:1)
They should have used their 4 groups, and broken down the results more clearly (Statiscal distortion?? NEVER!). It would have been interesting how many of the 25% who do it for WORK, would want to do more?
But there is something to be said for 4:38 AM, eating crusty pizze, and finding that one lonely pointer has been misreferencing all night.... Ahh, the good old days...
C# Programmers (Score:2, Funny)
Almost 50% of the respondents agreed that "When we prepare a program, it's just like composing poetry or music."
so atleast 50% of thos interviewed were C# programmers?
I agree, but I would add... (Score:2)
But I'll have to add that I've had this experience with some other languages, too. The amazing power of Perl for example, after using C, for so many of those common "take this input data and process it in some useful way" tasks.
And Lisp, just for the fun of being able to think that way and experience for yourself some of the more theoretical aspects of informatics.
All of these languages have in common that you get to take a lot of the time you would spend thinking about how to avoid trouble in C or C++ and spend it instead thinking about how to create something useful, interesting, or fun.
(They also have in common that they have to drag around a ball and chain of a runtime, which is why I have to keep going back to C & C++ for so many things... Fun's over. Back to work.)
Related Story (Score:2, Funny)
Generation X phenomenon (Score:2, Interesting)
The slide is titled "Open Source is a Generation X phenomenon". Don't draw too many conclusions from this data - although most Free/Open Source programmers may be 21-38 years old now, I'm sure plenty of those larval hackers who are presently younger will join in the fun once they've got some more coding experience under their belts.
I don't think the whole hacking phenomenon will die out in 60 years. So, although the graph shows a peak, what I think we're witnessing is the beginning of a phenomenon that will continue indefinitely (or at least until debuggers are made illegal).
Oh, and I hate this whole "Generation foo" marketing thing.
- Tim
Re:Generation X phenomenon (Score:2)
very gen x of you.
Comment removed (Score:3)
This is the finding that struck me (Score:2)
"This project compared to my most creative experience is:"
My most creative effort 13.9%
Equally as creative 49.5%
Somewhat less creative 28.4%
Much less creative 8.1%
So we have more than 50% saying that the work they do for fun, love, and recognition in their spare time is as good or better than the work they do on company time.
This line on its own should be a cause for serious investigation into current software project management theory.
Most Open Source developers DO NOT get paid (Score:4, Interesting)
I spent 18 months at an Open Source [linuxcare.com] company, and never spent a single hour during company time in 18 months working on anything Open Source, including my own Open Source projects. I was certainly "expected" to put in 10+ hour days on the weekends though, without any additional compensation "for the good of the company".
Many Open Source developers are unemployed right now and still looking for work (259 days and counting for myself), and still contributing 100% of their time to their projects, while the "industry" at large continues to fire and lay off more and more qualified developers in the interest of "quarterly revenues". Trust me, nobody is getting more than half of their income from any company for working on projects that are given away gratis as the above slides lead you to believe.
I also reject the assertion that Sourceforge is leading the way in this regard. Sourceforge has been drifting [advogato.org] for quite some time, and thousands of developers are leaving Sourceforge for want of better services every week. You don't see that on the surveys though, do you?
I'll wager... (Score:3, Insightful)
agreed that "When we prepare a program, it's just like composing poetry or music."
have NEVER composed music or poetry.
What still surprises me (Score:4, Interesting)
Why?
Re:What still surprises me (Score:2)
I can't argue with that.
The extra hour (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe they could get this extra hour if they stopped reading Slashdot...
Re:Interesting (Score:1, Interesting)
The creative juices flow, while the artist mixes his paint, the musician tunes his instruments, and the coder cracks his knuckles and sips Mountain Dew. Soon, the process begins, and art is created. A beautiful entity replaces the spaces of nothingness that previously existed, and the artist is sated and complete.
Now, at the end of the session, the coder releases his art under the GPL, allowing the world to see, touch, and modify the beauty that he created, while thge musician and artist rely on the concept of intellectual property to prevent the world from truly appreciating their work.
Re:Interesting (Score:1)
Re:HA! (Score:4, Funny)
E) You wank all day long.
Snik snik. Now go mop the floor by the fryer.
Re:poetry? Music? (Score:2, Funny)