This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Brian McCallister. Original Post: Java Jerks Feed Title: Waste of Time Feed URL: http://kasparov.skife.org/blog/index.rss Feed Description: A simple waste of time and weblog experiment Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Brian McCallister Latest Posts From Waste of Time

Charles Miller has a nice, concise (something I am not good at) plee for Java programmers to get a grip =) The interesting parts are the comparisons between language communities (Alan Green's comparison to Python and Glenn Vanderburg's (who really is as smart as the rumours say he is) comparison to Ruby.

I don't know the Python community very well except by association with the few Python developers I know -- and they are amazingly respectful and helpful people. The Ruby community is definately far more friendly, helpful, and respectful than the Java -- Ruby is just full of unbeliebably enthusiastic, talented, and helpful people. ruby-lang gives me warm fuzzies

I suspect it is a function of the size of the communities. Saying "Java Community" is awfully loaded. In Charles blog he speaks to the Java Community On Public Forums (ie, TSS) or JavaBlogs. This is a very different community from the Jakarta Commons community, which is very different from the Cocoon community, which is quite a different flavor than the OJB community which is miles different from the OpenSymphony community, which is insanely different from the Codehaus community, etc.

OTOH -- communities around mailing lists and newsgroups may just be nicer. Does the primary medium of communication influence the nature of the community in a statistically significant way? Maybe it really is just that a larger proportion of Java-centric developers who blog are jerks =)