Letters

Dear DDJ,

How come Perl didn't make the list in the table in Thomas Plum's article "Quantifying Popular Programming Languages" (DDJ, October 2003)? Perl is extremely popular, yet Pascal and Fortran only rank between 0.1 percent and 1.5 percent in the chart!

Brian Patrick Lee

LeeB@thirteen.org

DDJ responds: Good question Brian. Based on feedback from you and other readers, Thomas has gone back and updated the list to include Perl; see Table 1.

Pirate This Page

Dear DDJ,

I read Jonathan Erickson's editorial on piracy ("Pirate This Page," DDJ, September 2003) and, while I get the idea that he believes that industry greatly exaggerates the piracy problem, I don't think Jonathan (or others) realize that the only face of piracy that hurts the industry is professional piracy rings that pirate for profit (places that sell burned CD-ROMs of pirated software for cash), and the odd computer store that bundles pirated wares onto a system to make a sale.

Even then, the software industry suffers little. Microsoft products are pirated far more than any other, and you could hardly say that Bill Gates is going hungry.

You see, the same thing goes for sharing software as for sharing music (I prefer sharing to piracy when referring to individuals versus people who pirate for profit—pirates profit from their ill gotten gains). Sharing actually benefits the industry. It's like free advertising. It makes more people familiar with the software, and it's like an investment—the people may depend on sharing software when they can't afford to buy it themselves, but sooner or later they will pay for the new version.

It's the same with music. Jobless teenagers may not be able to afford to buy all the CDs of their favorite bands, but you can bet that they'll be buying the entire collection when they get their first job.

Sure there's a part of the population that never pays for software if they can help it...but they likely wouldn't pay for it even if they couldn't get a copy from a friend, or a warez site. The point is that good software will give a good name to a company. If people are pirating (or sharing) your software, then you're doing something right. It's a good sign...

Piracy can also keep abandonware alive. Many products are discontinued, and sometimes the company is long gone, but if an old product was exceptional, it may be still floating around in classic warez circles, and certainly shared among friends.

Without this, these old products would be lost for good. A rare few companies sometimes give away ancient products for free, or release source code (like ID Software), but this is far from widespread.

Anyway, my point is that sharing—software, music, movies, books, whatever—benefits companies far more than it hurts them. Microsoft is a perfect example. While I don't see any of these industries embracing "piracy" anytime soon, I really do wish they'd keep their targets set upon those selling pirated software/music/etc. and turn a blind eye to the individual P2P sharing. Going after individuals will end up hurting the industry because it will give them a bad name, and people will end up choosing companies with a more lenient hand (and/or free open-source software).

Derek Snider

derek@idirect.com

Quincy Again

Dear DDJ,

Thanks to Al Stevens and DDJ for making Quincy freely available. I am a high-school teacher from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and will be teaching some C++ this year. Al's IDE is perfect for teaching. It is very user friendly and perfect for the beginning programmer. It lets students focus on programming without a confusing and intimidating interface. Plus, it has a really cool icon. Thanks again for helping to make my job a lot easier.

John Karpiak

jkarpiak@shaw.ca

Ham Radio and Software Unions

Dear DDJ,

After reading Jonathan Erickson's October 2003 editorial, I'm finally compelled to write a letter to the editor. Jonathan, it's not too late to join the ranks of the radio amateurs. I got my license two years ago when I was 47. It's a relatively simple test—you can probably score 50 percent "out of the box." A $20 book from http://www.arrl.org/ will get you through the first level. I learned Morse Code when I was 49, and got my General class license last April. In July I upgraded to the top level—Amateur Extra. The only challenge was the Morse Code exam, and if you put it off just a little bit longer (not that I recommend it) you'll likely not have to learn that! Go ahead—it's a great hobby (I just had a PSK contact with a fellow in Havana...).

As far as unions are concerned, I can only envision jobs going offshore faster. What happened to all the auto jobs? The steelmaking jobs? The electronics and other manufacturing jobs? By the millions, they went offshore. Why? Because unions priced their workers out of the market. The same thing will happen to software engineers, among which I have counted myself for over 20 years. When the unions or their equivalent in Japan made that labor pool too expensive, off to Taiwan, Singapore, and now mainland China.

John Griswold, KB1HDO

kb1hdo@arrl.net

DDJ