It’s been awhile since I’ve visited WPDevel.WordPress.com which is the home of WordPress development updates and I’m happily surprised to see so much content from the folks who make things happen. The different teams that are working on various aspects of WordPress 3.4 are doing a good job of keeping not only the other team members up to date, but they are being transparent so that the public can view the progress and figure out what is going on. I hope the amount of communication on the site continues, the more transparent the merrier.
Category: WordPress
The expression ‘Achilles Heel’ or ‘Nemesis’, etc, has been around for a long time, and for very good reason.
It is hard to exaggerate, or to fully convey how powerful, how much an agent of change the Hippie Movement was at its peak. Strangely, I can’t bring to mind any Hollywood production that has done better than vignettes or individual portrayals of it. Movies have done pretty good with the overall Vietnam ‘scene’, several times, and some of the right ‘feel’ for Hippies was invoked in these … but I can’t really say that the “Movement” was ever properly captured. Not afaik.
The last of the reverberations are only now finally dissipating to small potatoes status. ‘Occupy’ … and the Medical Marijuana Follies, etc. For 40 years, like the fractured pieces of Genghis Khan’s empire, Hippiedom has played out its energies, mostly headless.
The Hippie mantra was “Peace, Love, Dope”. It’s that last one that explains why the Movement failed to capitalize on its full potential. The affection for substance-indulgence, and the affectation that it made no difference, didn’t matter … was its Achilles Heel, and the Nemesis from within.
Exceptionally strong & potent movements are rarely done in, from without. When they don’t stick, veer off into the ditch or over the cliff, the basic problem isn’t their opponents. The unconquerable nemesis or the fatal vulnerability, is usually something from within.
When I should have been growing my hair long and learning to inhale, I was instead in the (high/uber-tech) military, leaning & practicing … Documentation.
It is now widely understood, that the West won the Cold War on the basis of, indeed, effective documentation.
When you watch & read about Astronauts engaged in their various exploits, you are observing the pinnacle of documentation … or, that is to say, what can be achieved with the organized & disciplined deployment of documentation.
It was the documentation of advanced & complex technical systems that enabled American teenagers in uniform to successful operate an array of systems which ultimately induced their adversary to … blink.
Open Source clearly has a major exposure, in its inadequate attention to the documentation-imperative that is its foundation & core. The situation isn’t hopeless; many recognize the danger, efforts are being made, and some progress is visible.
Bottom line: Everything that we hope & dream for Free Open Source Software hangs on large increases in the scope & quality of the Documentation that will, for real, ultimately make or break the enterprise … the Movement.