Comment by jcynix
The author is Richard P. Gabriel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_P._Gabriel and he had a rather long and impressive career in software.
The author is Richard P. Gabriel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_P._Gabriel and he had a rather long and impressive career in software.
But we had several distributed version control systems, and collaboration online was rather mature
WRT the earlier comment, I don’t see anything in RPGs writing that assumes solitary development
> we had several distributed version control systems
None that worked well. There is a reason Git took over this space. Git is to 2005-era version control systems what Google was to Ask Jeeves and Alta Vista.
> and collaboration online was rather mature
As someone who experienced this era first hand, I respectfully disagree. Online collaboration was certainly possible, and it certainly happened, but it was not even close to what I would call "mature". It was a colossal PITA. Again, there is a reason that Linus wrote Git, and it was not just that he was bored and needed something to do. He needed a tool that would make remote collaboration on the Linux kernel less of a PITA. And he succeeded quite spectacularly.
It is also worth noting that Gabriel wrote this in 2003. At that time, programming was a much more solitary activity than it is today. Git would not exist for another two years.