Open Source Project Management Lessons

cpfeifer writes "Paul Baranowski takes a moment to reflect on Open Source Project Management in his blog. His reflections are based on the first two years of the Peek-a-booty project." Interesting comments on media coverage, choice of programming language, when to release a project, and more.

Comments

C/C++ no longer viable languages?

[pfleming]

Interesting that viable languages weren't named, just ones the author decided weren't viable for him.

In no way do I believe that open source distributed developement should all take place in perl/java/php/whatever. Code should be written in the best language for that particular code. The Linux kernel is coded in C(or is it C++?), maybe someone should tell Linus that C isn't a good language for an OS project.

Re:C/C++ no longer viable languages?

[omibus]

Neither does the author. He is talking about application development. Application development is different that OS development.

And as far as application development goes, C++ is a bad choice.

Point one: Applications dont care about squeezing every bit of performance out of their code. Niether do you if you use STL, so why not use a language that is actually easy to use overall.

Most windowing libraries that I've seen for C++ have a 6 month learning curve. I learned VB in 2 weeks, Delphi in 3 weeks, and C# in 1 week (posted in order learned). In both languages I was creating Windows applications in an hour. I've been using C++ for years and still cant create a decent Windows application in under 2 weeks.

Point two: Applications care about features.

Point three: Applications care about getting it done. And the faster they better.

Most applications are written in VB, Delphi, or Java these days, and .NET will quickly overtake them. Welcome to the real world.