Egos And Opensource

It’s incredibly sad when people let their egos get in the way of developing something useful. I haven’t run into this in Apache yet but I’m seeing a really bad case of it in the on-going quest to create an opensource replacement for HyperCard, Apple’s now abandoned rapid application development system. There are now four or five different projects each struggling to get something up and running, none succeeding because the developer resources are stretched so thin. Even my latest efforts to get them to work together by saying I’m happy with any language, any architecture – just get a 1.0 out the door has been shot down because people are so insistent on writing it all themselves and doing it precisely their way that they’ll cut off their own nose to spite their faces. I’m very much on the verge of giving up on the whole idea to be honest. I’ve got enough skills in Java that something like HyperCard isn’t exceptionally useful to me anyway – I’m not sure I should waste any more time trying to create something like that anyway. It’s sad though, HyperCard is the best way I’ve ever come across to get people interested in programming and start them learning and thinking about what their computer can really be made to do. No other language provides that kind of opportunity for creativity and power to Joe User.