Dear Diary,Even when you’re an old hand, there’s a first time for everything. Myself, and plenty others more talented than I, fell under the unexpected cash-cushioned hammer of a lay-off today. This marks the first time I’ve not had a regular income since 1985, which is a bit of a thrill. Also it may have been while you, dearest reader, weren’t on solids yet. (Hopefully I’m being read by people younger than me. If you don’t wear glasses, that counts. Or I’m claiming it at least.)Got laid off today, sausages for tea.
What’s keeping me bouyant, in the non-physical sense, is the fact that I’ve spent the last few years contributing and being a part of open-source communities. The wheel is still turning and the hamster is not yet dead – while my employers may change, I can still write the code I want to write, further the projects I favour to be furthered, and continue to do the things I enjoy doing. This is the beauty, for any developer, to be in open source. You get, for free, an option on continuity that is new and unique, a possibility of satisfaction that your contributions to the global corpus of software is not going to rot in a hopelessly un-administered clearcase repository in the bowels of a corporation. I’m going to spend some time now working through some karmic burdens which have been drifting up against the for-pay-wall, and I’m going to enjoy it.
By the way, I’ll see you all at EclipseCon. If you don’t put speaker names to your talks right now, as soon as I write this, your ass will be slung out of the program. We will make an effigy of you, and either burn it in situ or send it to be consumed by hollowed-out meaty integuments of the NetBeans engineers. You don’t even get the choice.
Oh, and by the by, if you haven’t already discerned, I will attempt to ensure that the removal of the restraining bolt will result in a bit more than a choppy video of some lady in a dress :)
For shorter spoutings, follow @oisin on twitter.