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Web nourishment by John Ford and crew

Archive for the 'Usability' Category

Moment of Open Source Zen

John Ford Mar 17, 2007

Every day, as a developer, I’m grateful for the thousands of programmers around the world who have so graciously shared their time, knowledge, and programming code. I have access to millions of lines of free code at any moment through the Internet which allows me to write programs more easily, learn new concepts, and make a difference in society.

Yes, every open source developer plays their part in making life better. Take, for example, the recent updates to Sean Coon’s blog. A few tweaks to some great free programming code and Sean’s rapidly spreading the word about The People, Yes which directly engages the homeless community to share their voice through blogging. He’s able to send a text message which is then automatically relayed to his friends/acquaintances (through Twitter) and also posted to his blog (using a modified version of Alex King’s Twitter Tools plugin). Don’t forget that in conjunction with this great plugin there are other pieces of the free code puzzle - the powerful blogging tool, the simple programming language, and the server’s solid operating system. All of this was made possible by many generous programmers sharing their time and skills.

So here’s to the programming language, plugin, framework, and code snippet givers around the globe. You truly make a difference in the world.