These days, everyone seem to be very careful about internet security and privacy. It seems like since it’s over the web, it has to be important. People tend to forget that their privacy is not only important on the web but also in all other communication methods. The phone is not more secure than email. Listening to someone’s phone probably does not require more effort than reading someone else’s emails.
I’m just surprised to see how much confidential information people diffuse while they are in public places. I hear people talking to each other, talking on the phone. I can see them taking notes or reading confidential data without even trying to read it.
When calling the bank or any other place that have a file on you, they usually ask for confirmation information. You have to tell them, no matter where you are. In what is your birth date or account number a secret anyway? Anyone stealing a wallet has those informations. I’m not trying to create a paranoia, I just feel people should calm down, the web isn’t that insecure. At least it’s possible to encrypt data and use a password without having anyone hearing or having it written somewhere on a card.
Have you ever heard someone saying there were two types of programmers: those developping libraries and those developping applications. I don’t thing things can be sparated that easily. I just can’t see the difference between writing an application to access a database and a library that handles the requests and write files or anything. In the end, your code will be made out of classes and methods, loops and conditions and a bunch of variables. What’s the difference?
The only real difference is that a library is meant to be re-used and will generally work at a lower level: closer to the system and architecture. System programming has complexities and particularities, it does require special knowledge of the context. So does buisness logic programming where the developper has to be aware of the structure of the organisation and work processes. Even interface design is not simple. Most applications have worthless interfaces that barely suit anyone’s need because it was created by a programmer, but a real good interface is made for the user.
In the end, all the different layers do is abstract the complexities of the underlying architectures to reach a fully usable application. In facts, much more layers can be required depending on the size of the application and no bold line can indicate the division between library and application. The different layers simply bring the technicalities of the system to the reach of the user. A well structured project would not have less programming quality in the upper layers and the documentation would be adequate at all levels. The fact that a library should have a better design or documentation simply makes no sense.
About every university course has it’s website where professors place their slides and all kinds of information. The wrong part is those asking you to visit their website frequently to read news and updates on the course plan. I don’t like the idea of having to visit a website daily. I do visit Slashdot every day, because if I don’t I’ll miss content, but I don’t want to be forced to visit a course website every day! Why don’t they simply put up an RSS/RDF/Atom feed so I can simply see when new information is available?
It might be too high-tech for them, but I can’t accept this as an excuse in a software engineering program. Even a mailing list would be better than having to visit a website.
I have heard a complaint yesterday about F/OSS developpers being rare and that basically, all of them were workaholics. I don’t know where those people hang around at, but I don’t feel F/OSS developpers are rare. I might just live in a weird world, but those people are all around me. There are millions of members of the community worldwide, of course they don’t all work full time on open source, but it sure isn’t rare to talk to a programmer and hear he’s working, or at least contributed, to an open source application.
There are many reasons why a developper would want to contribute to a community-driven project and I don’t really thing the lack of affection is one of them.
- Need the application: probably the best reason of them all
- Learning or self improvement: Facing real problems is probably the best way to improve skills
- Gain experience: It can’t be bad to see how other people solve problems
- Improve his curriculum vitae: A few extra lines are never a bad thing
- Simple interest for the purpose of the project: Being part of a project gives opportunities to gather knowledge
- Desire to help others: Why not?