[ilaksh]

Much of the core functionality was created by the Etherpad and Etherpad Lite team. The integration, rundown editor (originally), full-text search, and other features were created largely by myself (in addition to Mindy). The use of the term "amateur coder" here is slander. But I understand why Rob and them started describing it that way -- the system fell down a few times in high-profile situations of course they totally blame me rather than taking credit for project management issues, so they used the fact that I don't have a degree against me and found all of the bad code and system restarts and pointed at that (I also wrote a lot of _very good_ code and solved some very tough technical challenges).

Really the last time I was lead that we had an issue with the server going down was a third-party component that had a bug, and it came down to me deploying it in a hurry because we didn't have a good release process and I was tired from my other job. So I believe there were project management issue which I should have been more assertive over. But if I had money then I would consider suing regarding the use of terms like "amateur coder". I started learning software engineering when I was 8 years old (32 years ago), taught myself object-oriented programming in middle school. I have studied software engineering curriculum for many years online and also developed my own philosophy and practices around software engineering focused on feedback loops of different types and levels. I am a very good software engineer, not an "amateur coder".

[thinkpad20]

The way your responses read, you would think this article was some kind of hit piece on your programming skills. Not only is (to my eyes) no slandering or insults to anyone going on in this article, but the only one they call an amateur coder is Rob Dubbin. The name Jason Livesay doesn’t appear anywhere in the article.

[datalus]

Ummm.. Rob Dubbin was mentioned as the amateur coder. Slow down there :)

[ilaksh]

I see the problem now. By describing him that way, it implies that he was involved in the coding. In the years I worked on the project, he wrote zero lines of code for it. I was confused because that implication led me to believe that they were talking about a coder on the project, such as myself.

[spunker540]

Are you sure that person is not Rob Dubbin??

[notatoad]

In another comment he says he isn't.

[cornyNetHandle]

You shouldn't be suing them, you should be thanking them.

Whatever your perceived status was before having a New Yorker article about the success of a commercial project that you helped create, after the article is published, it is definitely that of 'professional', even if the text of the article describes you as an 'amateur'.

Unless you manage to act exceedingly unprofessionally about the whole thing, say for instance, threatening to sue them after essentially being given free advertising.

[ilaksh]

First of all, this in no way provides advertisement for me, nor do I need any. I have projects, I don't need more. And if I go looking for another project, I just need a spec or idea -- I can prototype virtually any type of technology in a relatively short time.

There is a lot more to this story than you know about. My comments were actually extremely restrained.

You should talk about things that you actually know about.

They took advantage of me, then threw me under the bus and discounted my work.

The one thing that will absolutely enrage me is someone throwing around the word 'unprofessional'.

He did discount my work in that article. I hope that actually the 'amateur coder' comment was just implying falsely that Rob coded it and not referring to me. If he wants to refer to me as an amateur coder though, then yes, I will hope that I can save up and sue him some day for that slander, no matter how famous or connected a lawyer his dad is.

[cornyNetHandle]

It clearly does provide some advertisement for you, even if you do not want or require it. The general public are being informed about an item on your CV.

I am sure that there is a lot more to this story than I know. I only just encountered it and newspapers are notoriously bad at accurately portraying anything remotely technical.

I refuse to talk about only things I know. Nobody else does, and it would make finding out about new things difficult.

I am sorry to hear that you had a bad experience here, I have had numerous shitty clients over the years, however if your client does have a case to answer, the wise thing to do is go down the legal route and do not air any dirty laundry until after the dust settles.

You are not going to like this, but if you get enraged by someone throwing around the word unprofessional, then you are unprofessional. You might be the best coder on earth, but the professional response to being called unprofessional is to ask for written examples and a followup meeting, not rage.

As far as the plan to save up in order to go off and sue people whose fathers are famous and well connected lawyers, I do not know the details, however on the surface it doesn't sound all that good a route to happiness, but at least you will find it easier to accomplish now that you have had your work promoted in the national press.

[oneeyedpigeon]

I always thought "amateur" had a very objective definition: what you do for a living. If you make your core income from programming, you're a professional, not an amateur. It says nothing about the quality of your work, although there's obviously an implied correlation.