Dobb's Programming Awards

NullPointer writes "Dr. Dobb's has given their 1999 Excellence in Programming Awards to Guido Van Rossum and Donald Becker" Congrats to both of you. For those in the dark, Guido is our favorite Python god, and Becker is our favorite Linux Ethernet god (besides fixing my broken laptop X key at ALS :)

Comments

Programming awards and the art of programming

[k_wayne]

hi,

How do closed source programmers get evaluated?

Surely these awards could only be given to programmers whose work is open sourced? How else could you evaluate their code?

It's worth making the point that the free software movement has been great for the 'glorifying' of the coder/programmer. The art of programming really enters a new phase if everyone can see your work. This is compounded further if the code is GPL'ed, as anyone who is 'better' than you can fork the project and improve it. Only the best people end up leading projects, no-one is held captive by one vendor - whether that is microsoft or some closed source shareware author whose product you need.

This is a great thing, the best people end up in the best jobs. I hope the free software movement can keep growing as is. (ie: GPL all the way).

It's ironic, that with the GPL you give the code freedom to exist independent of the vendor/coder. But this in turn ends up bringing attention (glory/fame etc) to the programmer if the code is sufficiently good and useful.

At the end of the day, 99% of the best code in the world is going to be GPL'ed, as anything less is a lame attempt to keep some form of control on the code. Whereas the genius programmer has no need for such low self-esteem tactics.

I wonder if Dr Dobb's journal is picking up on these ideas. I don't really see how you could publish a decent programming magazine in a world where everything is closed-source.

ta
wayne