Even cowboy coders get the blues

Joel Spolsky is emerging as an important voice in software development. Currently, his company is in the beta test phase with a new product and he’s journaling his experiences. In Working on CityDesk, Part Four, he discusses one of the horrors of the modern developer’s life: relying on someone else’s code library. Although he doesn’t make the connection, it’s clear to me that if he were using an open source environment instead of Windows and Visual Basic he would be able to resolve the specific problem gracefully instead with a hack. OTOH, using Windows does offer somewhat better opportunity for an actual profit so one cannot be too harsh in criticizing.