I haven't posted anything bad about sourceforge, had missed the controversy they referred to. I totally agree with everything the author said (and thought she said it very well). However, I have to admit that when I saw the title of the article and the domain name (before I read the article) I could feel myself gearing up to get angry at sourceforge and defend github.
I can totally relate to people who root for one technology to win and trash another, because I totally root for technologies all the time. I get really annoyed when a "bad" technology comes out with a good feature I wish the technology I was rooting for had. Which is kind of insane when I think about it. This post was a good reminder about how irrational that rooting and fanboyism is. I will have to be more mindful of that stuff, because it really makes me blind sometimes.
I think it is only natural to have favorite technologies, whether it's an OS, editor, language, or even automobile brand. I think it is also fine to point out advantages of one solution over another because it helps others when they need to make a choice. I think all of this can be done in a rational manner without fanboyism.
I would like to see more rational discourse, not only in the realm of technology, but also in politics. It is seldom a question of A is awesome and B is crap. Often the comparisons are complex, and the right choice may have some dependence on circumstance. Or in the case of politics, party A may have a good position on some issues, and a bad position on others.
People have a tendency to choose a side and fight all-out for their side as right and all others as wrong. We used to do this with race or religion, and now we're doing it with other things. However, to successfully deal with the problems in our world, we need to rise above such simplistic thinking and realize that in our big complicated world, there is often a need for multiple approaches. And even if one alternative is truly superior to another, we have to realize that the superiority might not be clear to everyone, so we need to learn patience with those who may for whatever reason make the inferior choice. We also need to have the humility to admit that there might even be something we can learn from the other side.
I get really annoyed when a "bad" technology comes out with a good feature I wish the technology I was rooting for had. Which is kind of insane when I think about it.
It's not that insane if you think about long-term consequences. For example, a killer feature in a program that uses some crappy architecture makes that program more popular, which might make the crappy architecture more popular too.
I can totally relate to people who root for one technology to win and trash another, because I totally root for technologies all the time. I get really annoyed when a "bad" technology comes out with a good feature I wish the technology I was rooting for had. Which is kind of insane when I think about it. This post was a good reminder about how irrational that rooting and fanboyism is. I will have to be more mindful of that stuff, because it really makes me blind sometimes.