Was struck this morning by just how cool it is that during this week I've talked directly to the developers working on major pieces of my computing environment. That's the kind of access you only get if you're a Fortune 500 company when you're using Microsoft software.

Think about it, I chatted with the chap who's responsible for writing the IDE I'm using. I've been shooting improvement/bug-fix ideas at him all weekend. I talked briefly with the gent who's porting the TV-viewing software to Gentoo.

Sure, I'm a techie, but the same feature holds (even more so) for a company, where you have techies, and they need to solve problems. Not only can they open up the hood and tinker with the engine, they can chat directly with the people writing the code. It's true what they say, the value is in the community, the code is secondary.

Which, when you think about it, reflects rather tellingly on Python. What's the core value proposition for Python? Well, it's the community, with python-list at the core, and all the other special-interest lists fleshing it out. Generally polite, generally newbie-friendly, generally professional, generally intelligent and mildly humorous, in short, generally filled with people willing to be decent and human to one another.

So, I guess that's my little pitch for the Technocracy, we shall be benevolent dictators, trust us. Oh, and send us your nubile young daughters so we can teach them to program and they can achieve a state of perfection.