Monday, March 18, 2013
Coders Unite!
That Linux exists and is widely used today is an incredible phenomenon. Random coders, who were scattered all across the world, united and created an operating system to their own desired specifications and were quite successful. The fact that Linux is so widely used and popular is a testament to how well made it is. It is incredible that people who had never met nor discussed any ideas in person were able to coordinate their efforts and create such a popular and effective operating system. This is especially so because of the sheer size and complexity of an operating system. If those coders had not thought it possible to coordinate their efforts and to work together in building Linux it might not exist today.
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Really I think abstraction is at the heart of the issue here. Computer technology is driven by abstraction, so that we can move from breadboards and circuits to higher level programming language interfaces (in this case, the internal protocols used in the Linux kernel and applications). Yes, coordinating a million people's work would ordinarily be a nightmare, but because things are abstracted at this high level, the system (or the Internet, whatever you want to call it) becomes an incredibly powerful tool for collaboration.
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