[FOSS] How does one respond to this line of questioning?

[Bruce Labitt]

On 4/7/2011 9:57 PM, Thomas Charron wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 9:26 PM, Bruce Labitt
> <bruce.labitt at myfairpoint.net>  wrote:
>> Had an interesting conversation this evening.  A snipped
>> version basically was:
>>
>> op: You like to use a lot of Open Source Software don't
>> you?  Don't you know it is not 'standard' here?
>>
>> me: Hmm.  What part of free, efficient and fast don't you
>> care for?
>>
>> op: (no answer)
>>
>> How do list members respond to this line of questioning?
>> (Yes the conversation went on, but it was merely an
>> unfruitful elaboration of my answer.)
>    Well, that guy walked away thinking you where a prick, if you really
> put it in THAT language.  :-D

I have to admit, I really did put it in those terms.  The 
software was free.  The language I chose is rather efficient 
in terms of my development time.  I can code faster in that 
language.  And the execution time is as fast as the 
alternative non-free benchmarks I've done.  So my comments 
were *entirely* accurate.  Was I being subtle?  No.

>    Open Source is 'different'  It isn't better in any way that can be
> definitively proven.  If it finds that you are able to do things
> faster and easier, then great.  Help it make inroads to MAKE it
> included as a standard.
>
I'm trying.
>> I don't need to be sold on FOSS.  In general, I find FOSS to
>> be incredibly useful.  I use it whenever I can.  It isn't
>> always *the best* solution, but most (nearly all) times it
>> is more than good enough.  (If appropriate, I make an
>> attempt to help the 'community'.)
>>
>> Why do many large organizations tend to resist FOSS?  Discuss.
>    Honestly, the largest reason is attitude of the users.  People using
> OSS software 'outside the bounds' tend to leave software behind that
> others have to figure out how it works.  A Visual Studio monkey can
> generally pick up any other monkeys stuff, and get up to speed on it.
>
>    A perl guy walking into an environment where the guy liked Python,
> who took over from a guy who liked bash scripts..  Weeeeeeeeeeelllll.
> It doesn't go over to well.
>
I see what you are saying here...  I used OSS because it was 
the fastest and cheapest (cost and development time) to get 
something done.  If I had something that would be faster and 
easier, I'd use it.

I've see lots of bad C, (and other languages) no matter 
whose compiler was used.  Bad comments or poor documentation 
are poor practice, independent of language or the cost of 
your compiler/interpreter.

One cannot assume *the next guy* can read your mind.  Tell 
TNG what you were thinking.  Never mind that, tell yourself 
what you were thinking when you wrote that stuff.  
Especially if you were trying to be clever.

Of the three 'languages', above, I prefer python.  Clean, 
easy to read, and document.  Does sophisticated numeric 
processing if required.  Fast, with numpy.  Really easy to 
abstract for higher levels of sophistication.  Works for 
me.  Relatively easy to port to C++ if you can't run python 
on your platform.  YLMV.