At 10:11 AM 3/14/04 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote:

Return of the homebrew coder

BEFORE Henry Ford unleashed the practice of mass production on the world, every little town had a few dozen artisans who made the lives of citizens easier.

Software is also still in the "craft" stage where the designers actually do the building, in some cases. Know any architects that can handle an automatic nailer? The article doesn't address the real reason that lone software artisans (and small software businesses) can still exist: there are niches too small for Microsoft, not sexy enough for a squad of Open Source Gooncoders to replicate your work for free. Life in the 21st century feels like being a proto-mammal 65Mya, do not get squashed by the monster lizards nor noticed by the hungry others. Small, quick, furry, that's us. Sometimes it gets cold, the lizards can't move fast enough, so we eat them. Last two sentences sound like something Al Q could say :-)