Disclaimer: I actually have never seen the movie "Bambi." Disney's "classics" were out of fashion by the time I was at the optimal age for enjoying them. Nevertheless, the message, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" cropped up in my childhood. But that maxim can also be turned that on its head: "If you don't have anything to say, say something nice."
Today is one of the rare days when my idea-basket has stayed empty the whole day. But that's okay, because it clears the decks for something I've wanted to mention for awhile. That "something" is how very impressed I've become with the team that creates the open-source Derby database system, currently under the wing of the Apache Foundation.
In the short time that I've been trying to stay on top of the mailing lists for internal development and user forum, I've been struck by how absolutely gelled the core group seems to be. No small part of that seems to be the excellent written communication skills. And this is a good time to point out that, based on the names of the core contributors, I'd be willing to bet that not all of them natively write/speak English. But you'd never know that. Which makes me embarrassed to think how I've let both Spanish and French rust since high school. (And to think how I used to pride myself on trilingualism!)
And so I think that these folks deserve a shout-out for their dedication and organization and their mastery of language, be it computer or human--all on top of being plain ol' freaky-smart. I very much look forward to learning even more from them in the weeks, months and years to come.
