TITLE: No Comment
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: August 15, 2022 12:49 PM
DESC: 
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  <img src="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog-images/photos/orchid-in-april2021.jpg"
       alt="a picture of the orchid in my office from April 2021"
       width="200"
       align="center" />
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 From the closing pages from <em>The Orchid Thief</em>, which I
 mentioned in
<a href="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2022-07.html#e2022-07-31T08_54_29.htm">
   my previous post</a>:

<blockquote><em>
 "The thing about computers," Laroche said, "the thing that I like
 is that I'm immersed in it but it's not a living thing that's
 going to leave or die or something.  I like having the minimum
 number of living things to worry about in my life."
</em></blockquote>

 Actually, I have two comments.

 If Laroche had gotten into open source software, he might have found
 himself with the opposite problem: software that won't die.
 Programmers sometimes think, "I know, I'll design and implement my own
 programming language!"  Veterans of the programming languages community
 always seem to advise: think twice.  If you put something out there,
 other people will use it, and now you are stuck maintaining a package
 forever.  The same can be said for open source software more generally.
 Oh, and did I mention it would be really great if you added this feature?

 I like having plants in my home and office.  They give me joy every day.
 They also tend to live a lot longer than some of my code.  The hardy
 orchid featured above bloomed like clockwork twice a year for me for
 five and a half years.  Eventually it needed more space than the pot in
 my office could give, so it's gone now.  But I'm glad to have enjoyed
 it for all those years.
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