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Craig Hockenberry on developer passion

From Craig Hockenberry's open letter to Steve Jobs, protesting the iPhone's restrictive developer policies:

"Great developers create amazing software for love as much as money. Take away the artistry and craftsmanship and you're left with someone pumping out crapware for a weekly paycheck."

Hear, hear. You don't have to be an iPhone/Cocoa developer to feel this way, either. One reason I'm such a strong advocate of Tk as a GUI toolkit is the sheer joy that developing in it gives me. It's a lot of fun.

And fun has positive benefits for both the developers and the users of his application. For the developer, as Eric Raymond has noted, "'fun' is therefore a sign of peak efficiency." It's a competitive advantage, allowing the developer to bring out better applications, more quickly. As well, the end user harvests the fruits of this work: applications made with care and attention to details, that do more than just the bare minimum to meet functional requirements.

Here's to fun!

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