Originality

I've never claimed to have an original thought before.

George Carlin, R.I.P. once said that he'd like something extremely offensive and painful to be done to him, with a red hot poker. No, I'm not going to repeat it here. This is not that kind of blog. The thing is, he said it, just so he could claim to be the first person in the world to have ever said it.

It used to be my life-long goal to invent something. The next killer-app, the holy grail of software developers, to come up with that thing that nobody ever thought of before, and make about 100 million dollars, give or take a few nickels. Of course, I'd still like to make that kind of money, but this morning something dawned on me. I knew it before, I've learned it in the university, and empirical data supports it, but it just never registered with me before.

You don't have to be original to make a killing. Just be better than the rest. So the next time you have a brilliant idea for a product or service, and when you google it and find about a million hits to the term, and a product just like your idea within the first five hits - twice - don't pull the plug on it. see if you can come up with a feature you think is really missing. See if you can make it better, cheaper, faster.

I promise I will, next time.

And one more thing, regarding originality:
I called myself The Software Craftsman. Honestly, I'm just A software craftsman. I've seen the term coined by others before me (actually, I googled the term today for the first time, and realized it's been there before me).

What I can say, is that I thought of the term on my own, out of my own experiences.

So if anybody believes that I am a plagiarist, please let me assure you all: I'm not. I merely reached the same ideas and conclusions as others before me.