Elhanan said:
i just wondered, does the fact you write a product as open source,
forces you to write better code, in the hopes (fears?) that who ever
may see you code in the future will be impressed (shocked?)
For me, this is not a motivator. What makes me write good code is,
well, pride in workmanship. Occasionally, I have written something ugly
in order to get the overall structure to a working state, but those tend
to be pretty well documented. In the main, I want to have written
something to be proud of, whether it is going on my hard drive for me,
on the Alodar server for others here, to a client for a paid project, or
to an open source project for all to see.
Every line of code you write is a an expression of an idea, using time
you will never, ever get back. It thus behooves you to write the best
stuff you can. Since life is a series of trade offs, people optimize
for different things at different times - speed, space, prior knowledge,
what they want to learn next, but the wise are aware of that, and at
least try to select the optimization mix based on real needs, rather
than the voices in their head.
If I know something is going into an open source project, I may spend
more time making it maintainable, as many such projects have a wide
array of contributors. I may also pick an implementation method that I
judge least likely to cause controversy, as time spent arguing about
trivia is time spent not fixing important things.
I may also have different amounts of time to spend, if I am working on
my own time, as opposed to working for a client.
If public acclaim and disdain motivate you strongly, then you may well
find that your open source work looks very different than your closed
source work. Nothing wrong with that, as long as you are aware of the
motivation, and weigh it accordingly.
Scott