I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that even if Twitter vaporized in a puff of smoke in two hours and never came back, all hell would not break loose.

Coffee is still a drug.

It sounds crazy but I've seen this in action. At my last job they brought in a guy who was unmitigated disaster for a technical leadership position.

In short, he was the most arrogant, buzz-word filled SOB I ever had the displeasure of meeting,

After he finally got booted when people realized he didn't know a damn thing about technology I flat out asked the VP of engineering: "What did you ever see in him?".

He said: "You know, you're going to think I'm crazy, but he was exactly the same in the interview as he was around here daily, and I really thought that cockiness would mean he would take the lead on issues and be able to guide the younger guys".

So remember that kids, if you want to be seen as leadership material, thoughtfulness and pensiveness are not the way to go about it.

Just look at CTOs at companies you respect for further proof and see how many timid figures you find.

"Secondly, support for Microsoft.NET is a secondary goal for Mono"

Guys, you're killing me.

I really want to embrace Mono, but there is this fundamental disconnect between what the Mono team think they are building and what the real world needs them to be building.

Mono team, your ONLY goal should be to provide a 100% compatible .NET implementation that runs on Linux. That's it. Simply make my C# code work there, and I'll be happy.

Unfortunately, the Mono team is trying to do something else entirely. They're adding new language features and trying to extend it into their own thing. And nobody outside the Mono team can understand even for a minute why they would want to do that.

So here we are, 4 years into this project, and it still has pieces of .NET 1.1 that are not implemented. That means we can't use it yet. And while we're waiting patiently for a usable framework, the Mono team is off pursuing shiny .NET 3.5 functionality and inventing new functionality of their own. I mean sure, it sounds like fun and all, but us developers are still out in the cold waiting for a framework that the Mono team doesn't seem inclined to actually finish.

So guys, please, I'm begging you. Quit adding new stuff. Go back and finish what you started. Get .NET working on Linux like you promised. We'll all thank you for it!

I'm sure glad that my government will put me in jail for trying to replicate these results. I feel safe now.

"Anyone can do anything without these drugs, and I'm speaking from experience."

No, you're not. You haven't been everyone, you haven't done everything, not everyone has done everything, and even if they had you wouldn't have been able to observe them closely.

Sounds crazy but I've used this in action. How do you think I got such high karma here? ;-)

Thing is - it works. Both online and in-person. I'd much rather be honest about how little I know (and often am when I'm working long-term with someone), but I've found it's a losing strategy in most situations. If you do know your stuff, you'll just get shouted down by idiots. Better to shout the idiots down first and then do the research to make sure you're not wrong. If you screw up everything, you'll probably get another chance simply by virtue of confidence (look at John Meriweather, who nearly brought down the global financial system three times and is still managing money), but if you appear timid and then screw up, people are all like "I knew he didn't really know what he was talking about..."

It's a good article though I'd go so far as to say the piece it responds to isn't worthy of a response. Take this quote...

"Nothing that comes from Microsoft can be for our good and benefit. They are dedicated to our destruction and downfall.

Mono has infected Gnome. Ubuntu uses Gnome. I switched to Kubuntu and am happy with it. Now Moonlight is infecting Linux."

There are two parts to the Linux community. One part sees Linux as a legitimate tool they can use to bring down costs while maintaining stability. The other sees this as some kind of holy war and is really just using Linux to act like drama queens.

The link here is a good defense of Mono but the people he's trying to defend it to are never going to listen.

"Hopefully Twitter will be able to resolve this quickly."

Gotta love tech writers and their incompetence.