Net Asset Calculation

[Linas Vepstas]

Let me support Derek in this little conversation.

Programmers identify with 'Dilbert' for a reason.  They don't think
and act like most other folks.  Open source projects are not like
other volunteer organizations. 

I hear the words 'team building' and I have two reactions: (1) a
grudging, rational admission that it is a good thing.  (2) a
subconscious, irrational gut-instinct pang that says 'run away', 
or 'your time is about to be wasted'.   In most cases, (2) is the wiser
response.  Engineers are not baseball teams. 

That is not to say team-building doesn't occur.  It happens through
overt contributions of time and effort and pulling in the same direction
in the long-haul, of slowly built respect for the other programmers
who have actually done something, contributed to the project.

I also know what programmers hate: anything that smacks of management
or organization or control, especially by an outsider who is not a
respected programmer.  Programmers will take another programmer as a
leader, but that is bassed on technical leadership, not managerial
leadership.  

'Herding engineers is like herding cats'.

Programmers are prima-donnas.  They are the most important and central
people to a project.  Without them, everything stops.  Thier
acomplishments are always heroic, and always took great amounts of
effort, and were always inspired by genius.  They work for the
betterment of mankind.

When you are a hero, there is pretty much nothing more annoying than
having someone say to you that they are your leader, and that thier
wisdom will guide your actions.  

GnuCash has many things that need doing.   You are welcome to make a
list of those things (and I can post it as a web page).   Having 
a historian who can write up something along the lines of 'who wrote
what code when, who gets credit, who accomplished what' is also a 
worthy taks.  Emphasis on past tense.   But the future tense: so-and-so
will do this-and-such is a decree doomed to fail. 

If you do have such a future-tense list, and you have organizational
skills, then keep the list private, and work you organizational magic
to make it happen.  Then a leader will emerge.

--linas



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pub  1024D/01045933 2001-02-01 Linas Vepstas (Labas!) <linas at linas.org>
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