Re: [XPOST from WDSCI-L] Webfacing out, EGL in

Aaron Bartell wrote:

And at that point you will still have direct access to the authors. My
point is that not everyone gets the same experience as industry pundits,
which can most definitely sway our opinions of a particular technology.

I think you miss the point. I don't get access because I'm an "industry pundit". I get access because I am willing to work with the technology, provide input to the developers and try to apply it in real world situations. As a pundit, I could just write articles bashing the technology or post on mailing lists about how awful it is; I guarantee I wouldn't get the same access. Whereas there are people whom you've never heard of who are working with the product getting as good of access as I am.

In fact, they get better access, because they're paying customers <grin>. There has been more than one occasion when my phone call got cut short or an email went unanswered because the team was working with people who were actually trying to implement the technology. And that, my friend, is exactly the way it should be. That's because people actually trying to use the technology and paying for it can drive it to be better, whereas with open source, there's sometimes less of an incentive to work with people who don't drink the koolaid.

If you've ever read some of David Hansson's writings, it's pretty clear that if you don't meet his vision of the future you don't need to use Rails. IBM doesn't have that luxury with EGL; it needs to be commercially successful and to do that it needs to be a productive application development environment.

Joe