I want to make a video to show my class of would-be IT people. If you write code, would you send me a video clip (webcam, less than 30s) with the following?
- Introduce yourself (name, where you work)
- Why you love what you do
- Why you love open-source software (optional, but would be super helpful)
I'm Isaac Z. Schlueter. I work for Joyent, as the project lead for Node.js, which is basically a glamorous title that means I make builds and try to keep people excited about fixing bugs and continuing to help out. I love working on a platform that empowers developers to have fun and create interesting programs. Javascript is a fun language to work with, and it's very rewarding when you see users having a good time getting creative with the things you build.
I think open source software is the future. Understanding computers is becoming a very important form of literacy, and I think we're finding that software companies and individual developers can get a lot more accomplished by sharing what they create. Even if some parts of their work is proprietary, the more open solution usually wins in the long run, so there's this race to figure out how much you can give away, which I think is a beautiful thing.