PEP Parade

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Roy" == Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> writes:

Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:

    Roy> as we discover imcompatabilities between whatever version I'm
    Roy> using to develop on and whateve they're running on their
    Roy> boxes.

    >> So you standardize locally.

    Roy> It's one thing to say "so you standardize locally", but the
    Roy> fact is, even requiring just that is an impediment to
    Roy> adoption.  A typical scenario goes like this:

    Roy> Me: "Hey guys, I wrote a great new program, called foo.py.
    Roy> It's in CVS, under tools."

    Roy> Co-worker: "Neat, but when I go to run it, I get a syntax
    Roy> error"

    Roy> Me: "Let me see.... Oh, you've got python 1.5.2!  Do you have
    Roy> any idea how old that is?  You need to upgrade to 2.1.2"

And I say, "Roy, what are you doing programming for 2.anything if the
people you're trying to sell to are running 1.5.2?"  I didn't mean
"make _them_ standardize" (you already made your point, I was
listening!), I meant "_you_ comply with the de facto standard (least
common denominator)."

Marketing is about two things: convincing others to buy in to the
pain, and absorbing as much of the pain as you can yourself.  Most
people seem to think that it's only the first part.  One of the things
the Microsoft is really good at is postponing pain until the customer
is already locked in.  But that cost them a lot up front.

If I have tools I want to distribute to folks who aren't bleeding-
edge-distro-Linux users, I program in python 1.5.  It hurts, but it
wins.  Once you've got them hooked, they come saying "why can't it do
...?" and _that's_ when you say "it's too hard in 1.5, I don't have
time.  But if you'll upgrade to 2.1.2, it's already in CVS...."

If you're not doing that, then you're just programming for yourself.
Which is fine:  unless your job is writing for others, your needs come
first.  But it's not investing in support for your tools from your
coworkers.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
              Don't ask how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.