Most people believe dogfooding is the perfect way of ensuring the quality of the software you’re creating. I couldn’t agree more.

The only problem is that when you use your own software, you always have the feeling that it’s not quite “done”. There’s always something that you can do better, always something that can be improved, always some features that you feel would be nice.

Especially when building a framework this can become a real problem because you never feel done. Another problem is making sure your framework maintains backwards compatibility with previous releases.

Well, I just mentioned this because I finally decided to freeze version 2.0 of ProMesh.NET and get it ready for release. Release candidate 3 has just been published on CodePlex

Thoughts on open source frameworks

A few weeks ago, a fellow developer asked me why I chose to make my projects open-source. That was a pretty good question because when you look at it: compared to just building a framework for your own use, it makes life more complicated: you have to write documentation, support users, and more headaches.

I didn’t have to think long before I could answer that question: releasing a custom framework as open source forces you to be disciplined about your code and documentation. After all, you can’t afford to write code you are ashamed of, can you? If you write software for your own use, you tend to write code that… well… sucks.

And of course, let’s not forget the whole point of open source software: letting other developers contribute. It creates a dynamic that you would never get when you’re just building and using your own little framework

If all of the above sounds like a bunch of crap, it’s probably because I’m not a native English speaker, or … it is just crap