(via DHH) In web development news, a relatively upstart framework (“Ruby on Rails”) reached 1.0. The release notes included this statement:
”…it works mostly right, most of the time, for most of the people”
Then in response:
Where do [industry leaders] explicitly state their framework runs perfectly for all users all of the time? They don’t because such a claim would be patently false, and there simply is no sexy way to articulate the truth [...] Such careless honesty from such a visible project may inadvertenly damage overall market perception of the f/oss community, regardless of the actual quality of the offering (over the short-term at least).
The above poster was trying to describe the relatively hostile market conditions out there, and the author indeed was more comfortable with the above statement, rather than the other response, that a framework would ever reaching 1.0 without claiming to “work just right, all the time, for anybody”.
If you’ve spent any time on the internet (yay internet) then you’ll recognize this quote:
Well, whatever. Whatever people say about Rails, it helps me do my job better, and have fun doing it. I look forward to new projects now, because I get to do them in Rails. To me, that’s key.
So you can keep up the “everything is okay” facade as is expected, or you can bid up your earnest but uncomfortable honesty, or perhaps you can count on a fanbase that’ll just like it and not worry about the bollocks.