Respect to you Roy for bringing these points up, even though you obviously knew it would generate a lot of flamers. These are issues that need to be discussed openly and if the .NET community does not constantly evaluate itself in a critical manner it will not move forward and progress.
Does ALT.NET == Open Source. I don't think it should really, but I get that impression as an outsider?
Pat,
You're commentary is a quite a blatant mis-characterization of alt.net. This kind of opportunistic misrepresentation is usually fueled either by some sort of personal agenda or by not really getting deep enough into the context to have made more than a shallow analysis.
Your perspective would be sharpened with more personal and in-person interaction with the persons, principles, and practices associated with "alt.net".
The alt.net mailing list is categorically NOT the alt.net community, it's more like the alt.net community's drain pipe.
Oran,
There is absolutely an "underdog against the man" thing happening in the .NET world, and fortunately so. Although, you're representation of it trivializes the truth of the motivation and the process.
FYI, Roy and I had (are having?) a conversation via twitter that is really great and we're working towards shared understanding.
Any perceived negativity in these comment threads should be treated as a limitation of blog comments-as-a-conversation-medium rather than any actual negativity.
John,
How are you going to be a better developer if you continue to refute software development fundamentals? You consistently point yourself out as something consistent with a Flat Earth Society of sustainable software development.
And let's not dress Jeffrey Palermo up in angel's clothing. He's a nice guy, but I wouldn't - and neither do many inside the knowledge space - consider him to be as knowledgeable on the subject matter as his actions and assertions in community portray him.
You're characterization of the alt.net community as elitist and dogmatic betrays your need to cover up for not being able to grok the material. That's quite a destructive form of elitism predispositions in itself.
Pat,
Seems like you're bashing me for bashing you for bashing the alt.net community. And around and around we go.
The alt.net community is the people in the community rather than the artificially-constrained thin pipe that we are often forced to communicate with when we're not making the effort to meet in-person.
My blog is gone because I began to recognize that the kind of topics and subject matter we're addressing require high-bandwidth media, or at least they require much more human processing before attempting to distill and serialize to text.
We know now that at a certain level of discourse and subject matter that text-based interaction becomes damaging, and this is why we've committed to in-person community.
I'm financially-constrained at the moment as well, but there are creative means to solving this problem that are available to folks whose motivation presently rests in moving the communications and community ball beyond the hurtles that we've identified as detrimental to the further pursuit and realization of our potential.
LOL. Sure Scott. I don't 'refute' software fundamentals, I simply don't accept that these fundamentals are always applied in the exact same way in all programming areas.
TDD/BDD, for instance, don't really apply to a lot of ELT processes and programs. Whether you think I grok the material or not is irrelevant.
I'm not the gloryhound you are so I don't really care where Palermo ranks according the latest alt.net internal polling. I was acknowledging merely his own acknowledgement of a common perception of the situation.
As much as you seem to complain about it, you are a major contributor to the echo chamber. Alt.Net is the people in the community.
And here I am, still thinking that Alt.Net is just an alternate to the main group of popular people.
You *need* to meet in person to convey the ideas? "High-bandwidth interaction"? Jeez. I think that Alt.Net is turning into an extreme cult of true believers divorced from business reality.
Scott,
Sorry to jump in here with what may amount to a quick flame, but the tone of your posts sounds more like a religion than simply design methodologies. Maybe that elitism is what is turning some off.
@John
Indeed Scott coming to your aid is somewhat like having someone pour gasoline on you to try and put out the fire.
For others ... Scott is not the voice of ALT.Net, he is one voice that attaches himself to that label. Somewhat like fervent lunatics attach themselves to well meaning religions.
He has decided the Internet isn't a good enough communication medium for him as he always comes across badly - perhaps he should heed his own advice.
@Scott
Great reply, that was a blog entry in its own right! :)
One thing I do disagree with is the idea that the discussion group is a 'drain pipe'. Given that people interested in ALT.NET are from all round the world you need something like an online forum. I will of course continue to make the effort to come to ALT.NET conferences, when I can, but for me the forum and blogs are very useful.
So, some comments of my own to add.
I got asked by some of the guys to come to the first ALT.NET conference. I have had the chance to sit and enjoy BBQ and Mexican food with Scott, Palermo, and others.
I have to agree with Scott on the high bandwidth thing. When we discuss topics we are very passionate about, it is very difficult to catch the nuances and ideals.
I have not been on the alt.net mailing lists, so I will refrain from discussing that community specifically. But it does seem that there are factions and fractions around these topics whose passion is fascinating to me. I never understand why people take such great offense to Scott's comments (even if I do think they can feel acidic at times), and at the same time, I wish I had the passion of Scott and Palermo and Roy and Ayende and the guys out there. I think that they are really trying to make things better in a lot of ways.
BTW, 'John' is not me. Though I agree with him.
"You've come to believe that all ideas can be serialized to text by all people. That's not the reality for all ideas and all people."
While this is hilarious, it may also be true.
I attended Scott's presentation on BDD in Seattle at the Alt.NET Open Spaces and it was very clear. Concise to the point.
That being said, somehow people have been able to discuss, oh, I don't know, the works of Plato, the Bible, The Bridges of Madison County, etc. by reading the texts and writing about them.
The idea that alt.NET can't be 'grokked' unless you talk to someone in person is a f%^king joke.
Scott's inability to explain almost anything he talks about in writing is legendary. So is his penchant for questioning the integrity and ethics of ANYONE who doesn't agree with him. Which is funny, given his own ethical status.
He should go back to Twitter and stick to one-liners.
jdn
Elitism in its own right can often be a more subtle form of duplicitous ethics, given that we grok together the significance of achieving community which is much more robust when serialized via human forms.
That said, I find myself questioning the veracity of the arguments when alt.net has conceived such a conundrum as we have discovered here.
Sorry...just had to say a bunch of words to make sure you know I am smarter than you.
I personally like Typemock. In recent times, i read around blog and heard from people that Typemock is too powerful to go at wrong hands. But i think tools should be such that even a little baby can play around it to learn new things and thats where Typemock is good and others are faling to do and making typemock look like useless. Also, support of Typemock is more than that other tools can even provide.
It's disappointing how quickly pragmatic solutions are derided and discarded in favour of vague "principles."
It would seem to me that the more principled approach would be to embrace pragmatic means and heuristics that get things done effectively.
@Scott. So is it Twitter a higher bandwidth (and higher availability, too :D) medium?