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Ask Slashdot: Dedicating Code?
First time accepted submitter The_Buse writes "This week I lost my grandmother and after returning to work (as a web developer) I find myself looking for some way to dedicate something to her memory. Unfortunately, I'm no author so I can't dedicate a book to her, and I can't carry a tune so penning a song in her honor is out of the question. What I can do is write one hell of a web app, and after nearly a year of development my (small) team and I are nearing the release date of our next product. My question is, have you ever dedicated a project/app/code in honor of someone? What's the best way to do it: comment blocks in the header, tongue-in-cheek file names, Easter eggs? Or is this a horrible idea all together?"
A simple "in loving memory of X" or "decicated to X" should do.
If you have an 'About...' item or a slash screen this seems like a good place to do it
You spent several manyears in coding an app, and just before release you consider implementing an Easter Egg?! How about the splash screen with the name of the app and "dedicated to my grandmother", that should do it.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
A web app that will be forgotten by everyone including you in 5 years.
Technology and software changes too fast to get any sort of meangful duration dedication out of it like that.
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnump3d/dedication.html
Sorry to seem harsh, but this is probably not the best idea. If it's fun little web app, then you could pull it off. Anything that will deployed in a professional environment should not have something like this present. I think the only time I've ever seen this in practice was in the "Help -> About" section of a proprietary DB app used in automotive shops. I think it was addressed to the office pet (a golden lab) for the small office of coders that wrote the app.
Why do you feel compelled to draw attention to the loss of your grandmother? My condolences for this loss, but there are probably more appropriate ways to commemorate her memory. Pay for a spot in the obituary in the local paper, so that the people in closest proximity (and are likely the largest demographic which may have been affected by her actions) would know. It's always a shock for people to learn years after the fact that a local pillar of the community or old friend has passed away. It might do some good to make sure all the people that knew her are aware of this.
I hope this helps.
Whatever it is, it probably has an expected life span of a few years.
If you tie a tribute to your departed grandmother up in it, you're going to be even more bummed when your project's life ends.
My grandfather died slightly over a decade ago. Nothing I was working on then is still in use in any meaningful way. Both facts make me sad, but having them tied together would be worse.
Find the local park district and buy a little plaque on a park bench if you want something. Or a brick in the humane society sidewalk, or whatever people do wherever it is you are.
Or better yet, honor her memory by doing something with your life that would make her proud of you. You probably had a hard time explaining to her what you even do, why would you memorialize her with it?
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Either a comment block in HTML or a paragraph in humans.txt
Planting a tree is easy to do and provides many years of enjoyment.
First, I'm sorry for you loss.
While it's nice to dedicate work to someone, you might want to rethink the method. Certainly don't put in easter eggs or change file names. That not only gets in the way of functionality, but will also prevent most people from seeing what you have done. (Plus it'll depress the people who do see it.) If you are going to dedicate your coding work to someone I recommend doing so in the release notes or release announcement. I've done this before, dedicating a single release to a family member or friend or sick person who could use some kind thoughts. But note the difference, it's not something in the product, it's not hidden, it's a clear, up front dedication which people can see without affecting your development or functionality.
Another thought: After losing someone there can be a strong urge to _do something_, anything. You want to mark that person's life and their meaning to you and that is great, it is. However, it's usually a bad idea to mix business and your personal life. Consider writing a poem, or donate money to charity in their name. These approaches will not only maintain a healthy barrier between your personal life and work, but it will probably mean more to people in a wider audience.
As usual with all other topics, check out what Debian has been doing for more than a decade.
Pretty much every release this century has some dedication to devs who died since the last release.
Sad, but true, that anytime you get a thousand or so people together in a group, even if they're mostly young and apparently healthy, you're gonna lose one every year or so.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Nothing in the actual app itself. If you have a credits page, put "In loving memory of..." at the very bottom of the page. No one reads the credits unless the know of the the developers anyway, and those folks will probably be pleased to see a note of dedication to a grandma at the bottom.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Since you're a web developer, why not create a simple memorial website for your grandmother? Then her friends and family can use it to share photos and stories about her life.
Steve Jobs named one of his Apple computer versions after his daughter, Lisa.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Plant a tree in her honor. You can put a small plaque in front of it. Or as another poster suggested do something in the park like donate a bench. These tend to have an impact far beyond just the app itself, which is a pretty short timeframe.
What if you left the company or it got shut down? Or if you changed departments. If it's a larger project, someone else could take it over 5 years from now and decide to re-dedicate it to their grandmother...
However, the bench and the tree will still be standing.
I consider myself a cynic, but I teared up when I read about your plans to honor your grandmother. I think you should do it. It's a simple, harmless way to show your affection for her. It doesn't harm anyone or anything but it allows you to respect her memory.
What does he win? Peace of mind.
It's called grieving, dumbass. Even animals do it. Psychologists point out that funerals are not for the dead, they are for the living. It's how humans (and some animals) deal with a loss. We do it for ourselves. It's normal and healthy. If this seems silly to you, then that's an indication there is something wrong with you, not others.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Nobody gives a shit about your dead grandmother
This gets modded up? Is Slashdot really so anti-social? Dedications aren't for other people or the dead. They're for the grieving. If it makes him feel better then that's what it's for. I never understood why so many smart people can't figure this out. You don't have to feel the way other people feel, but if you think you're smart at all you should be able to at least recognize that most humans have emotions and a grieving process.
if the programming contractors did this one any of my projects, I'd have them fired and terminated immediately.
Fired AND terminated? I think you're a bit harsh of a boss if you think it is within your disciplinary power to take someone's life because of a disagreement with something in your software...
I lost two friends and my father this year. I dedicated this release of cerowrt ( http://cero2.bufferbloat.net/cerowrt/credits.html ) to them. Most of the machines we have are named after someone that has passed, for example our main build box is named after http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Huchra It helped a lot to channel them all as we struggled to get the releases out. And, surprisingly, making ice cream, with liquid nitrogen as the coolant, has got to be a healing ritual, around here.
FreeBSD 9.0 was dedicated to Dennis Ritchie.
Terrorist, bomb, al Qaeda, nuclear, yellowcake, kill, assassinate. Carnivore is dead... long live Echelon.
Yes, funerals are for the living. Not for all of the living, but for the living that knew and cared for the dead. The problem that we are facing is the increasingly common practice of trying to force all of the people that didn't know the dead to acknowledge and grieve for them. It is understandable why one might rationalize putting a "In Memory" tag at the end of a movie or TV show that was about the dead, or the dead worked on. This is because the person seeing it has a direct tie to the dead.
In the case of putting "in memory of" on software for people that were totally unrelated to the project, I would say it is in poor taste. It is in line with the piles of garbage that people leave by the roadside when someone dies. Poor taste. Before you assault me about being a monster for calling those piles 'garbage', take the old adage "One mans trash is another mans treasure." It is equally true that "One man's treasure is another mans trash." I fully recognize that those piles are not trash for the people who knew the dead, but for just about everyone else they are.
GNUALMAFUERTE isn't a dumbass. The_Buse invited GNUALMAFUERTE to express his opinion on the matter, and GNUALMAFUERTE did. This is another reason why public displays are a bad idea for death. It is fine for The_Buse to mourn his grandmother, but it would actually The_Buse who is the asshole if he has a problem with complete strangers not caring. It would be The_Buse who is an asshole if he is offended that someone answered his question.
Remember, GNUALMAFUERTE did not seek out The_Buse. The_Buse came to GNUALMAFUERTE for advice.
So, my advice is don't put a memorial in the software. Have a funeral. Invite her friends. Invite her family. Invite those that you think might want to be there because they are your friends and family. If you want something more permanent, commission an oil painting that can be hung in your home. Inviting random strangers (particularly ones that have a reputation of being harsh) into a personal, important, and fragile part of your life is a HUGE mistake.
.... should be positive ones. Inside jokes, cultural references, maybe a rewritten song lyric, or something else that lightens up the task of writing production-quality code.
(e.g. a class in our code base, for instance, has a function called YoDawg() whose responsibility is to recursively instantiate itself.)
Keeping your work life separate from your personal life is extremely important. You should not be bringing your grief into your professional work. We've all lost parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, friends, past lovers, former co-workers, and some of us even lose our spouses and children. It's really f-ing difficult to deal with, even years afterwards. If we all brought that grief into our professional lives, we'd all be professionally miserable. It's not healthy, and it's not fair to others who don't share your grief.
If you have an 'About...' item or a slash screen this seems like a good place to do it
A slash screen? Now I'm imagining a desktop application that starts up with a painstakingly-rendered airbrush-style image of Picard and Riker locked in a passionate kiss.
And now you probably are, too. I'm so sorry.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Yeah it's for those who are alive.
I personally think honoring someone after they're dead is a waste of time. Visit people while they are still alive, not their gravestones. I'd rather people do nice stuff for me while I'm still alive. After I'm dead, don't waste time and resources on me, there are billions of other people still alive to do nice stuff to.
BUT the thing is, many of the other people who are still alive might like people to visit the graves of their beloved dead ones, etc. And so if I visit graves or attend memorial services, it's to make the living happier or at least less sad. It's doing nice stuff for them.
Psssh. After firing and terminating them, I'd can them, downsize them, and let them go.
Then, if they'd *really* pissed me off, I'd give them a pink slip. LIKE A BOSS!
I'm Mitt Romney, and I approve of this message.
Nobody has said what your web app is, or who actually owns it.
1) First question: What does the app do?
Is it something that is appropriate for an in-memorium quote? It may well be; authors, artists, musicians have a long history of dedicating important works that they've poured their heart into
2) Second question: who owns the app?
Is this a startup venture? An open source opus? Maybe a work for hire?
If someone is paying you to build the app, is it really yours to put a dedication into? And how would your customer feel upon seeing it? I'm not saying don't do this if you don't own it; I'm just saying it is important to get the owner's consent so they're not surprised at their next industry conference by their biggest client asking, "So who is 'Grandma Smith' anyway?"
3) Third question: how do your co-developers feel about giving a nod to you grandmother?
Observation: if for whatever reason the web app you're mentioned isn't appropriate, consider letting this inspire to you create something that is.
If you started some open source project, or even a commercial project, you could name it after your grandmother and put it in the About section.
Or maybe there is a book idea you've been sitting on for a while now...
*shrug* It could be a very nice gesture, or possibly crude or inappropriate. Like so many things it depends on the details.
There are precedents. For instance NetBSD has dedicated releases to its deceased developers a few times.
From NetBSD-5.1 releases notes
NetBSD 5.1 is dedicated to the memory of Martti Kuparinen, who was the victim of a traffic accident in June 2010. Martti's technical contributions are too many to list here in full. He created and maintained numerous packages in pkgsrc, updated two packet filter solutions distributed with NetBSD and improved several hardware drivers. Beyond that, he was always helpful and friendly. His example encouraged users to contribute to the project and share their work with the community. Some of these users later became NetBSD developers themselves thanks to Martti's efforts.