Scott Bellware is an Alpha Geek and an Entrepreneur

In my last post, a good friend Scott Bellware said:

Alpha geeks *are* entrepreneurs – especially in agile software businesses.

Sorry, Scott, I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t an Alpha-Geek. ;)

Seriously, let’s think about it. Who are the people you want to watch? Those who are wanting to get a PowerShell plugin so they can run LINQ queries against their Desktop Search Data Store? Or those who are willing to look at that, and other things, and choose the path that suits their needs, regardless of the technology?

For example, let’s talk about those people who are running their own businesses, or working for startups. Yes, they have an entrepreneurial spirit. But, let’s look at .NET versus Rails. Have they tried Rails on a couple of projects? And if they did, and they were more productive, would they choose it over .NET? Or do a hybrid? Why/Why not?

Of course, there are interesting counter-arguments. Trying to do Test-Driven development using the existing unit testing tools in Visual Studio Team Developer or Team Test is a) expensive and b) pretty terrible. I’ve gotten to see the work they’ve done in Orcas, and must say it is quite improved. So, using your entrepreneurial spirit do you a) use NUnit / TD.NET or b) use the Orcas beta?

Yes, of course it is possible to be both an uber geek and an entrepreneur. I just think that the entrepreneurial spirit would lead to people who are good with technology, yet willing to find the next big things to help drive the future. In other words, they adapt their world to themselves, their needs. If something isn’t working, they change the things around them (tools, processes, languages, companies) to fit them. If they are happy with a technology, I think that holds a lot of weight.  

Ruby is hot because people found that they were more productive, more expressive, and had more fun writing code. They were tired of the languages and tools around them, and took a risk leaving the more established camps (like Java and .NET) to strike out on their own.

I’ve heard very few, if any, complain that they wish they were doing .NET or Java. I’ve heard a lot more of the reverse.

So yes, there is some cool stuff coming out for .NET. But imagine the power if you didn’t have to wait for that to come out, but instead modified what you are doing right now to make it happen. That’s the alpha-geek entrepreneur. And why I’m Ok with saying that Scott Bellware is an Alpha-Geek and an entrepreneur. Even if he is a Texanadian.