Re: [Social-discuss] Re: The Next Step

[Rob Myers]

On 05/08/2010 05:49 AM, Brylie Oxley wrote:
> I am a novice programmer but I see projects such as JRuby, Jython, and
> Scala which are gluing together languages and development paradigms.
> While I recognize the importance of development on a ubiquitous language
> such as PHP, I don't think that we should segregate our community at
> such an early stage, if at all. We need Solidarity.

I am, as I've stated before, not a big fan of PHP. I am however a big 
fan of languages anyone can run and hack on. The dynamic scripting 
languages are more widespread now, yes. But they are not widespread 
enough, and it takes time to learn each one. The only really PHP-like 
language is PHP (thank goodness), and it really is everywhere.

We can produce twenty sketches in different languages that have been fun 
for individuals to write or we can have the satisfaction of producing 
something more finished that other people can actually use and hack on. 
This is a GNU project, so it's about producing free software for people 
to use above all else. The itch we're scratching is freedom.

Discussion on this list has raised, and continues to raise, important 
technical and social issues and creative possible solutions to them. 
I've learnt a lot reading this list and talking to people on IRC and at 
conventions. The protocol discussion in particular has been recognised 
as important, and there's a list for that now (see the original post in 
this thread). People will be able to make protocol clients in the 
language of their choice.

But while we've been talking, several other free social network projects 
have started, or released new versions, and have received a lot of 
attention. We need to get coding, and we need to get coding on something 
that supports everyone's freedom as much as possible even if that makes 
for less cool framework choices. That doesn't preclude desktop clients 
or other good stuff later, but it does give us something to focus on 
right now.

- Rob.