It feels like the kind of thing I always wind up saying to someone who "want's to learn about computers." .. You need a reason that you really care about, or odds are you probably wont make it that far. Leading a horse to water thing. Or else, you dont have a reason but by golly you can learn and do anything, you can learn the particulars of some code and not have a clue how you or anyone else would use it.


Like you say, you need to be invested.. either in the long time-scale curve of 20-years r&d beats 15 years by 5 years of the t^2 curve of tech value (or whatever.) 

Or .. system programming isn't taught outside of grad-school ? I remember being shown CPP in vo-tech but the curriculum going straight into API, ignoring whatever else was taking place, people that care about YACC and LEX and such things are either grad students or not in school at all- and what are the troff guys that keep posting in here working on anyway that you all want plan9 to deal with printers? :") Just curious, and rambling as well. 


And ..  an abstract computer problem is way more interesting than ... trying to cram all the widgets onto an infinite canvas before a post-API programmer has a chance to muddle it up .. sounds like fun at first.. . ()

On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Calvin Morrison <mutantturkey@gmail.com> wrote:
On 18 March 2012 22:16, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>> Agreed - people do tend to perform better when working on a project
>> they are really invested in.
>>
>> But if that was true enough, wouldn't tons of people be stepping up to
>> support plan9 development?
>>
>> If not, then obviously it's not worth anyone's time.
>
> your argument seems to me to be an all-or-nothing logical fallicy.

But in the context of GSOC, it's all or nothing. People willingly
contribute small stuff, and hobby stuff. I see GSOC as a time where a
project can get a lot of work done, pay the developer, and make sure
they do it well.

I regularly contribute to a few small Open Source projects. If I could
get paid to do it, I would be spending a lot more time with the
project :-)

> i don't think the fact that the plan 9 community is small is an indication
> that it's not worth spending time on.  if that were the case, i'd be looking
> for a new job right now.  as it is, we're hiring.

I agree with this. In the linux world I help out with Trinity Desktop
Environment, a KDE3 continuation. I often see "small" being a bad
thing. Personally I love it.

Sorry for being misleading, sort of just rambling

Calvin




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