Can Developers be (Rock)stars?

[Jochen Fromm-4]

Recently my colleagues and I had a discussion if
developers can be "rockstars". Although developers
have to be very creative, and software development
is really sometimes an art, as Dave West argued
recently, software products themselves have not
the same effect on people as paintings or songs.

Leo Tolstoy argued in his essay "What Is Art?"
that art must create a specific emotional link
between artist and audience, one that "infects"
the viewer. And Maya Angelou said "People will not
remember what you did, they will not remember what
you said, they will remember how you made them feel."

In other words, stars are famous because they
arise strong emotions. We enjoy literature, art,
music and movies - even if they are imaginative
experiences - because at some level we don't
distinguish these experiences from real ones.

In this sense, developers can only become stars
in their own community - among the developers
themselves. The rest of the world will only see
the surface of their products, which will barely
arouse any emotion (except anger and frustration).
Do you agree?

-J.




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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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[Russ Abbott]

Given how rabid some Mac/iPad fans are, I'd say that Apple arouses many emotions.

-- Russ

On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 8:34 AM, Jochen Fromm <[hidden email]> wrote:

Recently my colleagues and I had a discussion if
developers can be "rockstars". Although developers
have to be very creative, and software development is really sometimes an art, as Dave West argued recently, software products themselves have not the same effect on people as paintings or songs.

Leo Tolstoy argued in his essay "What Is Art?" that art must create a specific emotional link between artist and audience, one that "infects" the viewer. And Maya Angelou said "People will not remember what you did, they will not remember what you said, they will remember how you made them feel."

In other words, stars are famous because they arise strong emotions. We enjoy literature, art, music and movies - even if they are imaginative experiences - because at some level we don't distinguish these experiences from real ones.
In this sense, developers can only become stars
in their own community - among the developers
themselves. The rest of the world will only see
the surface of their products, which will barely
arouse any emotion (except anger and frustration). Do you agree?

-J.




============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

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[Eric Charles]

Jochen,
I suspect there are a few problems with the rockstar scenario, but the biggest two are the collaborative nature of most high end programming for consumer products, and the lack of explicit branding. Of course, collaboration exists in many other forms of art as well, but as a formality credit is usually given to an individual, in the case of rock groups, usually the singer (or in the case of Apple, Jobs, Microsoft, Gates, etc.). Clearly there are some contexts in which software designers create incredible emotional links with their audience, most noticeably in the context of video games, but also, as Doug recently pointed out in his latest blog installment, through things as simple an elegant OS GUI. The difficulty is getting attribution to a single person. The notable exceptions involve explicit branding, i.e. Sid Meier. I think an argument could be made that there are "rockstar" software development companies, but few individuals. I'm not sure, for example, would IBM have gathered a larger market share if they sold "Ray Ozzie's Lotus Notes 4"?

Eh, just some random thoughts,
Eric


On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 11:34 AM, "Jochen Fromm" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Recently my colleagues and I had a discussion if
developers can be "rockstars". Although developers
have to be very creative, and software development 
is really sometimes an art, as Dave West argued 
recently, software products themselves have not 
the same effect on people as paintings or songs.

Leo Tolstoy argued in his essay "What Is Art?" 
that art must create a specific emotional link 
between artist and audience, one that "infects" 
the viewer. And Maya Angelou said "People will not 
remember what you did, they will not remember what 
you said, they will remember how you made them feel."

In other words, stars are famous because they 
arise strong emotions. We enjoy literature, art, 
music and movies - even if they are imaginative 
experiences - because at some level we don't 
distinguish these experiences from real ones. 

In this sense, developers can only become stars
in their own community - among the developers
themselves. The rest of the world will only see
the surface of their products, which will barely
arouse any emotion (except anger and frustration). 
Do you agree?

-J.




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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

Eric Charles

Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Jochen Fromm wrote:

 > And Maya Angelou said "People will not remember what you did, they
will not remember what you said, they will remember how you made them
feel."

Probably people do not think dreamy thoughts of Mark Zuckerberg every
time they use Facebook.. but then he's a billionaire too.
Or maybe the names Bram Cohen or Shawn Fanning don't mean a lot to your
average Joe, but nonetheless peer-to-peer networking forced the
entertainment industry to make fundamental changes.  Perhaps the name
Linus Torvalds means nothing to most people, but rest assured Linux is a
term that is not foreign to senior management at Microsoft.. similarly
Phil Zimmermann and the U.S. government.

For what it is worth, I do remember reading this announcement as a
teenager.. at 1200 baud, paying by the minute for the telephone call.  
Back before it was a fait accompli and taken for granted...

>From CSvax:pur-ee:inuxc!ixn5c!ihnp4!houxm!mhuxi!eagle!mit-vax!mit-eddie!RMS@MIT-OZ
From: RMS%MIT-OZ@mit-eddie
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.usoft
Subject: new Unix implementation
Date: Tue, 27-Sep-83 12:35:59 EST
Organization: MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA

Free Unix!

Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete
Unix-compatible software system called GNU (for Gnu's Not Unix), and
give it away free(1) <http://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html#f1> to everyone who can use it.
Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are greatly
needed.

To begin with, GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to
write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker,
assembler, and a few other things.  After this we will add a text
formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of
other things.  We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that
normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including
on-line and hardcopy documentation.

GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical
to Unix.  We will make all improvements that are convenient, based
on our experience with other operating systems.  In particular,
we plan to have longer filenames, file version numbers, a crashproof
file system, filename completion perhaps, terminal-independent
display support, and eventually a Lisp-based window system through
which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen.
Both C and Lisp will be available as system programming languages.
We will have network software based on MIT's chaosnet protocol,
far superior to UUCP.  We may also have something compatible
with UUCP.


Who Am I?

I am Richard Stallman, inventor of the original much-imitated EMACS
editor, now at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT.  I have worked
extensively on compilers, editors, debuggers, command interpreters, the
Incompatible Timesharing System and the Lisp Machine operating system.
I pioneered terminal-independent display support in ITS.  In addition I
have implemented one crashproof file system and two window systems for
Lisp machines.


Why I Must Write GNU

I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I
must share it with other people who like it.  I cannot in good
conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license
agreement.

So that I can continue to use computers without violating my principles,
I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that
I will be able to get along without any software that is not free.


How You Can Contribute

I am asking computer manufacturers for donations of machines and money.
I'm asking individuals for donations of programs and work.

One computer manufacturer has already offered to provide a machine.  But
we could use more.  One consequence you can expect if you donate
machines is that GNU will run on them at an early date.  The machine had
better be able to operate in a residential area, and not require
sophisticated cooling or power.

Individual programmers can contribute by writing a compatible duplicate
of some Unix utility and giving it to me.  For most projects, such
part-time distributed work would be very hard to coordinate; the
independently-written parts would not work together.  But for the
particular task of replacing Unix, this problem is absent.  Most
interface specifications are fixed by Unix compatibility.  If each
contribution works with the rest of Unix, it will probably work
with the rest of GNU.

If I get donations of money, I may be able to hire a few people full or
part time.  The salary won't be high, but I'm looking for people for
whom knowing they are helping humanity is as important as money.  I view
this as a way of enabling dedicated people to devote their full energies to
working on GNU by sparing them the need to make a living in another way.


For more information, contact me.
Arpanet mail:
  [hidden email]

Usenet:
  ...!mit-eddie!RMS@OZ
  ...!mit-vax!RMS@OZ

US Snail:
  Richard Stallman
  166 Prospect St
  Cambridge, MA 02139



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[Victoria Hughes]

I am emotionally moved by that, and I am not a developer. 

However, I am a creator, and that is what you are really talking about- rockstar creatives. 

None of us can appreciate the work of rockstars in fields we aren't familiar with. 

But all of us, if we're paying attention, can feel passion, creative energy, courage, determination, and generosity of spirit in another human being. That transcends one's occupation. Inspiration and vision bring all of us to our feet. That is our job, to bring to all we do each day, a bit of our passion and inspiration. We all have it, it's the courage to go all out for it that makes someone a rock star.

Tory

Jochen Fromm wrote:

> And Maya Angelou said "People will not remember what you did, they will not remember what you said, they will remember how you made them feel."

Probably people do not think dreamy thoughts of Mark Zuckerberg every time they use Facebook.. but then he's a billionaire too.
Or maybe the names Bram Cohen or Shawn Fanning don't mean a lot to your average Joe, but nonetheless peer-to-peer networking forced the entertainment industry to make fundamental changes.  Perhaps the name Linus Torvalds means nothing to most people, but rest assured Linux is a term that is not foreign to senior management at Microsoft.. similarly Phil Zimmermann and the U.S. government.

For what it is worth, I do remember reading this announcement as a teenager.. at 1200 baud, paying by the minute for the telephone call.  Back before it was a fait accompli and taken for granted...

From CSvax:pur-ee:inuxc!ixn5c!ihnp4!houxm!mhuxi!eagle!mit-vax!mit-eddie!RMS@MIT-OZ

From: RMS%MIT-OZ@mit-eddie
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.usoft
Subject: new Unix implementation
Date: Tue, 27-Sep-83 12:35:59 EST
Organization: MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA

Free Unix!

Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete
Unix-compatible software system called GNU (for Gnu's Not Unix), and
give it away free(1) <http://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html#f1> to everyone who can use it.
Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are greatly
needed.

To begin with, GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to
write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker,
assembler, and a few other things.  After this we will add a text
formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of
other things.  We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that
normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including
on-line and hardcopy documentation.

GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical
to Unix.  We will make all improvements that are convenient, based
on our experience with other operating systems.  In particular,
we plan to have longer filenames, file version numbers, a crashproof
file system, filename completion perhaps, terminal-independent
display support, and eventually a Lisp-based window system through
which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen.
Both C and Lisp will be available as system programming languages.
We will have network software based on MIT's chaosnet protocol,
far superior to UUCP.  We may also have something compatible
with UUCP.


Who Am I?

I am Richard Stallman, inventor of the original much-imitated EMACS
editor, now at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT.  I have worked
extensively on compilers, editors, debuggers, command interpreters, the
Incompatible Timesharing System and the Lisp Machine operating system.
I pioneered terminal-independent display support in ITS.  In addition I
have implemented one crashproof file system and two window systems for
Lisp machines.


Why I Must Write GNU

I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I
must share it with other people who like it.  I cannot in good
conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license
agreement.

So that I can continue to use computers without violating my principles,
I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that
I will be able to get along without any software that is not free.


How You Can Contribute

I am asking computer manufacturers for donations of machines and money.
I'm asking individuals for donations of programs and work.

One computer manufacturer has already offered to provide a machine.  But
we could use more.  One consequence you can expect if you donate
machines is that GNU will run on them at an early date.  The machine had
better be able to operate in a residential area, and not require
sophisticated cooling or power.

Individual programmers can contribute by writing a compatible duplicate
of some Unix utility and giving it to me.  For most projects, such
part-time distributed work would be very hard to coordinate; the
independently-written parts would not work together.  But for the
particular task of replacing Unix, this problem is absent.  Most
interface specifications are fixed by Unix compatibility.  If each
contribution works with the rest of Unix, it will probably work
with the rest of GNU.

If I get donations of money, I may be able to hire a few people full or
part time.  The salary won't be high, but I'm looking for people for
whom knowing they are helping humanity is as important as money.  I view
this as a way of enabling dedicated people to devote their full energies to
working on GNU by sparing them the need to make a living in another way.


For more information, contact me.
Arpanet mail:
[hidden email]

Usenet:
...!mit-eddie!RMS@OZ
...!mit-vax!RMS@OZ

US Snail:
Richard Stallman
166 Prospect St
Cambridge, MA 02139



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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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-----------------------------------

TORY HUGHES

[hidden email]

Tory Hughes website

Facebook|Tory Hughes Art

------------------------------------

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[Tyler White]

Software developers can become rockstars if they have a charismatic way about them and appear on TED or other public venues.  Pranav Mistry is an example.  His matron at MIT called him a rockstar on TED and now he's famous for his ambient computing work.  It's a very steep curve no doubt, with very few developers known to the larger population.  Many of the most famous developers are only known within the software community and it drills down from there into individual specialties.  

I think that to be a rockstar developer, the technology used has to be accessible and understandable on some level by the general public.  It's less likely that a brilliant database programmer will become a rockstar versus a brilliant ambient computing developer, or any of the artsy environments like Processing and OpenFrameworks.  An audience can more easily have an emotional response with a piece of software (art) than a piece of software (art) that is more obfuscated like a database schema.


On Aug 8, 2010, at 9:34 AM, Jochen Fromm wrote:

> Recently my colleagues and I had a discussion if
> developers can be "rockstars". Although developers
> have to be very creative, and software development is really sometimes an art, as Dave West argued recently, software products themselves have not the same effect on people as paintings or songs.
>
> Leo Tolstoy argued in his essay "What Is Art?" that art must create a specific emotional link between artist and audience, one that "infects" the viewer. And Maya Angelou said "People will not remember what you did, they will not remember what you said, they will remember how you made them feel."
>
> In other words, stars are famous because they arise strong emotions. We enjoy literature, art, music and movies - even if they are imaginative experiences - because at some level we don't distinguish these experiences from real ones.
> In this sense, developers can only become stars
> in their own community - among the developers
> themselves. The rest of the world will only see
> the surface of their products, which will barely
> arouse any emotion (except anger and frustration). Do you agree?
>
> -J.
>
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Jochen Fromm-4]

People think that Zuckerberg gives them the ability to become
popular, to contact the rich and famous, to see what their
'friends' are doing.. What Facebook actually does is to take
away the privacy and the private data of the users.
And Zuckerberg is only the actor who represents the
company. Facebook has over 500 developers who
are working on the code. Sometimes a thing is attributed
to a single person although it has been done by a whole
group (a kind of attribution error ?).

Wernher von Braun for instance is sometimes called
"the greatest rocket scientist". Although he made some
suggestions for the design of the Saturn V rocket, the
rocket itself and its modules were built by at least
four big companies: The Lunar Module was built by
Grumman, the Command Module by North American
Aviation, the Saturn V rocket itself was produced by
Boeing (1st stage), North American Aviation
(2nd stage, 3rd stage), and IBM was the main
contractor for the computers.

Facebook has not even an own data center, which means
they use contractors to store all the personal data. And maybe
they would not need a data center at all. You mentioned Shawn
Fanning: Zuckerberg has apparently not understood the power
of P2P. I think the fundamental architecture of Facebook
is wrong, it should be more like Shawn Fanning's
Napster, Bram Cohen's BitTorrent. Like a P2P system.

-J.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marcus G. Daniels" <[hidden email]>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Sunday, August 08, 2010 8:01 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can Developers be (Rock)stars?

> Jochen Fromm wrote:
>
> > And Maya Angelou said "People will not remember what you did, they
> will not remember what you said, they will remember how you made them
> feel."
>
> Probably people do not think dreamy thoughts of Mark Zuckerberg every time
> they use Facebook.. but then he's a billionaire too.
> Or maybe the names Bram Cohen or Shawn Fanning don't mean a lot to your
> average Joe, but nonetheless peer-to-peer networking forced the
> entertainment industry to make fundamental changes.  Perhaps the name
> Linus Torvalds means nothing to most people, but rest assured Linux is a
> term that is not foreign to senior management at Microsoft.. similarly
> Phil Zimmermann and the U.S. government.
>
> For what it is worth, I do remember reading this announcement as a
> teenager.. at 1200 baud, paying by the minute for the telephone call.
> Back before it was a fait accompli and taken for granted...
>
>>From
>>CSvax:pur-ee:inuxc!ixn5c!ihnp4!houxm!mhuxi!eagle!mit-vax!mit-eddie!RMS@MIT-OZ
> From: RMS%MIT-OZ@mit-eddie
> Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.usoft
> Subject: new Unix implementation
> Date: Tue, 27-Sep-83 12:35:59 EST
> Organization: MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA
>
> Free Unix!
>
> Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete
> Unix-compatible software system called GNU (for Gnu's Not Unix), and
> give it away free(1) <http://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html#f1>
> to everyone who can use it.
> Contributions of time, money, programs and equipment are greatly
> needed.
>
> To begin with, GNU will be a kernel plus all the utilities needed to
> write and run C programs: editor, shell, C compiler, linker,
> assembler, and a few other things.  After this we will add a text
> formatter, a YACC, an Empire game, a spreadsheet, and hundreds of
> other things.  We hope to supply, eventually, everything useful that
> normally comes with a Unix system, and anything else useful, including
> on-line and hardcopy documentation.
>
> GNU will be able to run Unix programs, but will not be identical
> to Unix.  We will make all improvements that are convenient, based
> on our experience with other operating systems.  In particular,
> we plan to have longer filenames, file version numbers, a crashproof
> file system, filename completion perhaps, terminal-independent
> display support, and eventually a Lisp-based window system through
> which several Lisp programs and ordinary Unix programs can share a screen.
> Both C and Lisp will be available as system programming languages.
> We will have network software based on MIT's chaosnet protocol,
> far superior to UUCP.  We may also have something compatible
> with UUCP.
>
>
> Who Am I?
>
> I am Richard Stallman, inventor of the original much-imitated EMACS
> editor, now at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT.  I have worked
> extensively on compilers, editors, debuggers, command interpreters, the
> Incompatible Timesharing System and the Lisp Machine operating system.
> I pioneered terminal-independent display support in ITS.  In addition I
> have implemented one crashproof file system and two window systems for
> Lisp machines.
>
>
> Why I Must Write GNU
>
> I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I
> must share it with other people who like it.  I cannot in good
> conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license
> agreement.
>
> So that I can continue to use computers without violating my principles,
> I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that
> I will be able to get along without any software that is not free.
>
>
> How You Can Contribute
>
> I am asking computer manufacturers for donations of machines and money.
> I'm asking individuals for donations of programs and work.
>
> One computer manufacturer has already offered to provide a machine.  But
> we could use more.  One consequence you can expect if you donate
> machines is that GNU will run on them at an early date.  The machine had
> better be able to operate in a residential area, and not require
> sophisticated cooling or power.
>
> Individual programmers can contribute by writing a compatible duplicate
> of some Unix utility and giving it to me.  For most projects, such
> part-time distributed work would be very hard to coordinate; the
> independently-written parts would not work together.  But for the
> particular task of replacing Unix, this problem is absent.  Most
> interface specifications are fixed by Unix compatibility.  If each
> contribution works with the rest of Unix, it will probably work
> with the rest of GNU.
>
> If I get donations of money, I may be able to hire a few people full or
> part time.  The salary won't be high, but I'm looking for people for
> whom knowing they are helping humanity is as important as money.  I view
> this as a way of enabling dedicated people to devote their full energies
> to
> working on GNU by sparing them the need to make a living in another way.
>
>
> For more information, contact me.
> Arpanet mail:
>  [hidden email]
>
> Usenet:
>  ...!mit-eddie!RMS@OZ
>  ...!mit-vax!RMS@OZ
>
> US Snail:
>  Richard Stallman
>  166 Prospect St
>  Cambridge, MA 02139
>
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org 

============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Jochen Fromm wrote:
> And Zuckerberg is only the actor who represents the company.
I couldn't think of a stronger contrast between a popular technology vs.
what I think is interesting or important.  If you wanted to find person
in software that's conspicuous (and in some subjective way may or may
not also be worthy), it would be someone like Zuckerberg.  In this same
context, does the name Craig make you think Craig's List or Craig
Newmark?  

Perhaps it has to do with maintaining stockholders and corporate
governance -- why tie the integrity of the company on a Branson,
Ellison, or Jobs if it can be avoided?

Marcus

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