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From: Daniel Pitts on 31 Dec 2009 17:24
Casey Hawthorne wrote:
> I beg to differ.
>
> Even on a project that's not a professional endeavour, documentation
> might land you future contracts.
Point taken, but in my particular case I don't think it is relevant.

I have a career at a corporation, and my job is fairly secure. I'm not
looking for contracts at the moment, and by the time I do, my portfolio
will be very well polished. Like I've said before, this project is pure
hobby, and it is in the alpha stage.

Also, I have begun the JavaDoc process, so the project is not completely
devoid of documentation. It just has no user targeted documentation
yet. This is partly because I have been focusing more on the core
simulation and less on the UI. The core simulation is a clone of an
existing product, so the documentation for that product *is* relevant
and useful.

Once I finish polishing the UI, the documentation will come.

--
Daniel Pitts' Tech Blog: <http://virtualinfinity.net/wordpress/>
From: Maarten Bodewes on 11 Jan 2010 15:23
Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> Daniel Pitts <newsgroup.spamfilter(a)virtualinfinity.net> writes:
>
>> RedGrittyBrick wrote:
>>> Daniel Pitts wrote:
>>>
>>>> I've finally put my AT-Robots clone on SourceForge. It is lacking
>>>> in documentation
>>> I shall frame this and put it on my wall. Whenever anyone casts
>>> doubts about my professionalism, I shall look at it and draw comfort
>>> :-)
>>>
>> This made be LOL. Thanks for the laugh.
>>
>> This project is not a professional endeavor, and it is in the alpha
>> stage. There is existing documentation on how to write robots, but it
>> is in the original software package. I have been too busy to get
>> permission to copy or to re-write it.
>>
>> Once I'm ready to slap the "Beta" sticker on it, you can bet there
>> will be documentation, and it will be a lot more polished.
>>
>> Anyway, this is my hobby, so professionalism needn't be as high.
>
> Indeed.
>
> But there's no need to be ashamed.
>
> Professionnals only need to make a product _saleable_.
> Amateurs need to make a product _usable_.
>

This is a professional doing a hobby project, so if not complete I would
try and polish it a bit before bringing it online. Anything you post
will be availabe forever.

So as long as it is not unprofessional the author is fine. If it
is/looks amateurish, it might become a problem.

Think of a professional photographer that puts horrible pictures online...

Regards,
Maarten
From: Rui Maciel on 12 Jan 2010 11:13
Maarten Bodewes wrote:

> So as long as it is not unprofessional the author is fine. If it
> is/looks amateurish, it might become a problem.

The terms "professional" and "amateur" have since been used to express the same
meaning as "quality work" and "poorly put together", respectively. That, as anyone
can attest to, doesn't make sense. We have grown accustomed, particularly in the
computing word, to see purely "amateur" projects being adopted as standard
professional tools while witnessing some "professional" products producing
disappointing results even when compared to their "amateur" counterparts.

More to the point, a talented craftsman doesn't suddenly become incompetent when he
decides to apply his craft in his own time.

For those reasons, expressions such as "unprofessional" and even "amateurish", as
they have very specific meanings that don't really apply in this case, aren't
exactly the best words to be used in this context.


Rui Maciel
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