cogent free knowledge - Random Mutterings

An idea for all developers . . .

nospam@example.com (JClermont) — Sat, 6 Aug 2005 10:34:52 -0500

On a recent project I made use of a fantastic library called Overlib. It fit the project's needs perfectly and allowed me to implement a solution in minutes instead of hours or days. The developer of this library provides it free of charge, and like many other free/open source apps, he had a link to make a donation. If you're anything like me, you've seen these links on any number of pages and perhaps thought: "Who would donate money to some person you don't know?"

Well, I was so grateful to this developer that I actually stopped and considered donating. I thought through what his code had allowed me to do, namely, to finish a project ahead of schedule and move on to yet other billable work. Basically, utilizing this code allowed me as a developer to be more profitable. I don't know what the actual going rate is for developers, but I personally charge about $75 per hour (depending on project size) and I have a feeling I'm on the cheap side. Doing some quick math, this guy saved me 5 - 6 hours easily, maybe more. I don't bill by the hour, but by the project, so if something helps me finish faster that increases my effective hourly rate and makes my clients happier.

As a result, I donated $25 to this particular developer. But then I got to thinking, what about all the other tools I use that make me a more efficient developer: phpAdmin, phpBB, netSpell, etc. And what about PHP and mySQL?? I realized that my very career, if not dependent on these projects, was at least greatly benefited by them. After all this pondering, I have instituted a new personal policy regarding open source projects. For every for-profit development project I quote on, if I plan on using any open source projects or languages, I budget in a small amount to donate to the respective groups/developers. I will not advocate a particular amount or percentage for others to use, but just wanted to put forth the general idea. Even my small dev projects generally have receipts of $1000 or more. It doesn't hurt my bottom line at all to earmark a small amount of that for the developers that make my life a lot easier and quite a bit more profitable.

Posted under the influence of [[Joy Electric :: Such As It Was]]

server move

nospam@example.com (JClermont) — Sun, 6 Jun 2004 19:48:17 -0500

The blog has a new home. First, it's on a dedicated RedHat ES box in ServerBeach's datacenter. Second, it's on a new domain. The transfer was fairly painless, a testament to the simplicity of the blog package I use.
Now that I'm all moved in, hopefully I'll have time to update it more frequently.
Posted under the influence of [[Tetsu Inoue :: Slow And Low]]

Why isn't it ever "back to square zero"?

nospam@example.com (JClermont) — Thu, 22 Apr 2004 23:32:59 -0500

The blog is functional. It is loosely configured. Why not create a first post and take this beast for a ride? I have quite a few technical entries planned, but my current brain capacity and level of coherence make that an unwise place to start. For now, you get one of my random mutterings. Here i am . . . at square zero . . .

That's right, not "square one". I happen to hold that zero is one of the counting numbers. This is a subject of great debate, and I happen to be in the minority, but that's never stopped me before. Plus, if the figure of speech is intended to convey starting over, why not take it back to emptiness, nothingness, zero? Makes sense to me. None is better than one.

Posted under the influence of [[Information Society :: Empty 3.0]]