If i had to put a number on it, i would say that more than 90% of the feedback that i receive on my projects is on bad behavior (exceptions, visual artifacts, broken APIs etc). I don’t complain. Not only this person decided to download and evaluate one of my projects. He also decided to spend his time to report the problem he is seeing via the project forums, mailing lists or a private e-mail. I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again – a feature that has absolutely no feedback is a feature that nobody is using.

In fact, as a developer myself i don’t even expect the “thank you” e-mails (and this post is most certainly not a solicitation for one). However, i would like to use this space as a collective “thank you” to all the open-source libraries that i am using and the people behind them. Please know that when you don’t hear from me, it only means that your library is working as expected. Thanks for all your free time and countless hours spent working on your projects. Thanks for spending this time away from your other hobbies, and sometimes even away from your family. It is much appreciated by your users. It is much appreciated by the community in general, even when we decide to go with a competing solution. Having choice is good for us as users, but it is also good for you as developers.

I would also like to thank the developers of the core engine itself. The work that you do on the JDK is seen by millions of people and even when we complain, it is all in good spirit. Do not be discouraged when you make a great new feature and all people seem to focus on is one specific bug that is still unfixed in the core.  It is in our nature to exaggerate and focus on the negative, but this does not mean that we do not appreciate the work that you are doing.

And finally, i would like to thank developers working on new projects and exploring new frontiers. Keep up the work and don’t get discouraged by the level of attention from the outside community. Good ideas take some time to settle in and win developers’ hearts.