New euphemism

Refactoring + Commenting == Code Gentrification.

Open Development

My company just started running certain projects as “Open Development” projects.  It’s just like open source, only internal to us.  Such projects are generally the ones that all of us have a stake in, such as various frameworks, the developer wiki software, project generator, etc.

I think it’s a friggin’ awesome idea.  The biggest reason Linux, Apache, and most other popular open-source projects have become the success they are is because of the open development model.  Linus Torvalds knew he didn’t have the time and/or knowledge to write an entire operating system himself, so solicited the help of others.  That’s not to diminish his abilities whatsoever – being the Benevolent Dictator for Life of Linux is certainly not fit for most mortals.  It’s a very forward-thinking, egalitarian way of managing a codebase, and ultimately it very often ends up producing high-quality software.

Don’t get me wrong – open development is No Silver Bullet.  You can certainly go about it the wrong way.  But, I expect this to be very successful in our company only because the folks running it are pretty gosh darn competent at what they do.