You wanna know why some of us find it necessary to reinvent the wheel? well its because some of us are not satisfied with the status. Just coz something works doesn't mean its okay for me.
I am heavy involved in 3D graphics Software development and from what I have been able to learn from the industry is that a lot of these animation studios build their own renderers from scratch in house... an later end up being licensed outside the companies when interest builds.
Am sure you enjoy and marvel at Pixars movies... guess what they use a tool called renderman to render their movies. It was built from scratch even though the studio spends a fortune on Maya and other software which could have done the same job.
But why is pixar on top? Because they needed to achieve some effects that puts them ahead of the competition and the Maya renderer or any other was not acceptable acceptable. It was Steve Jobs (one of my mentors by the way) who said
"Never Settle (He was referring to jobs or projects you are working on), keep looking, keep searching and keep working at your dream".
The same thing happened with Weta Workshop (guys of Lord of the rings etc) They built their software (Massive) from scratch because what existed was not good enough. Look at the results. They are now the most sought after studio when it come to special effects coz they reinvented the wheel.
If steve Jobs didnt reinvent the wheel they would be no Pixar today.
If apple didnt reinvent the wheel they would be no iphone.
Same case with google and Android.
Now Nokia has to reinvent the wheel to stay relevant.
Microsoft thought reinventing the wheel was nonsense look whats happening to them.
New technology is based on reinventing the wheel which is necessary when you find that the existing tools are not there yet.
Nasa's core business is reinventing the wheel.. am sure you thought it was just flying to space.
When Google was started there were no less that six search engines on the internet and every body thought another one was not needed. Look where google is now. Where are the other six? when Gmail was started there were already enough email services out there. You think Google cares? No way.
Google has made a Career of reinventing the wheel.
Christopher Colombus dared to reinvent the wheel (route to India) where all the sailors of his time dreaded sailing off into the Atlantic. What happened, He discovered America. Hat if he thought like KE devs and decided to use the existing route?
The point is if you want to be stuck in the status quo that the idea I have already exists so i shouldnt run with it is just messed up.
Personally I am not interested in free skunk mails but what if the idea is run with and who knows in three years it evolves into the next big thing...who knows?
I think what Aki is saying is that Ke devs fear treading into new territory and come up with all sorts of excuses why the wheel cannot be invented.
Forget about the crowd and follow you dreams and ideas. No one said it will be easy. Its gonna be hell on earth following and implementing your idea. Bugs are part of software development. If you are a Dev and you fear Bugs then you are in the wrong profession.
Steve Obbayi
Software Developer
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Kioko" <
dmbuvi@gmail.com>
To: "Skunkworks Mailing List" <
skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke>
Sent: Thursday, November 4, 2010 4:27:52 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] To Re-Invent the wheel? Why is it important for us to keep re-inventing, re-evolving. I also give you a project..
Also remember that new software comes with bugs which have to be discovered, patched and exploited. Building on a software that has already been patched is better
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