As time has passed it is rare that I encounter a DotNetNuke developer who has
not used at least one of my tutorials from the
DotNetNuke® Module
Development Help Website. I am frequently asked why I spend so much time on
it. Ultimately the answer is I believe it is important for my personal
professional survival. I feel that trying to stay on top of things by myself is
impossible and that the best way that I can continue to maintain employability
as a programmer is with the help of others. I have decided that the “DotNetNuke
Collective” (people who use and develop / extend DotNetNuke) is the largest and
most successful group that uses ASP.NET. I believe the “DotNetNuke Collective”
is the group that will help me achieve my goals.
Now, how do I think they will help me do that? I believe that as web developers
all we do is move information, nothing more nothing less. If I create a web site
to allow a person to buy a pound of cat food I am only transmitting information.
I don’t make the cat food, nor do I deliver it. I may take the credit card
information but I don’t actually pay for the cat food. I simply tell the bank
that the person is trying to pay and then I tell the customer that the bank has
accepted their payment.
When I look at it this way I see that I am not the all powerful programmer who
is able to topple the citadels of the brick and mortar establishment. I see that
all I am is a better faster way to do the same basic tasks that always need to
be done.
I enjoy a high standard of living because websites, using the internet, are able
to be so much more efficient. It is cheaper (for the store) to sell a pound of
cat food on the internet than it is using a brick and mortar store (when the
customer pays for shipping). I also see that the largest cost (for the store) is
the cost to pay programmers to build the website.
Right now you can spend a lot of money to build a website and still make a
profit. That will not always be the case. It’s like paying too much for a house
in a booming market. You can pay too much and still make a profit. I survived
the DotCom crash and saw that when the boom times are over the only way to
survive was to prove that you can be profitable to the people paying you.
I believe that we are in boom times now and that they will change. When they do
change we will only have jobs if the websites we make are profitable. When these
times come, leveraging Open Source software (like DotNetNuke) will be a must.
However, the surprising thing is that it’s not the software that is important,
but the collective. The “DotNetNuke Collective” is a group of people who have a
common interest. Each person contributes to the survival of all the members.
When a single member (perhaps fighting for survival from some local company
creating sites using some other framework) creates a “killer module”, all of the
members in the “DotNetNuke Collective” benefit. If I am part of a small
collective (or worse, building everything from scratch by myself), there is less
of a chance of this happening. Survival is "staying with the herd". Since not
all herds survive, the trick is picking the right herd.
I feel that bringing as many programmers as possible into the “DotNetNuke
Collective” helps me because it increases the chances that the next great
program or module that we will all need to leverage later will be created. I
feel we need to take the time to train the beginners. Like planting a seed I
believe it will produce bountiful returns.
Like good citizens we are all responsible for nurturing our community.
Hopefully we will all look at ourselves and see what we each can do, however big
or small, to nurture the “DotNetNuke Collective”.
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