Disclaimer: I reserve the right to not know what I'm talking about

There have been some links to this blog with the implications that either because I am a researcher at HP Laboratiories with commit rights to a number of projects -including Apache Hadoop- then my opinions may have some value.

Not so.

Everything I say is obviously my own opinions, do not reflect those of my employer, may be at odds with corporate strategies of which I am blissfully unaware of, if I do mention corporate plans they may change on a whim, etc, etc.

I do work at HP Labs -which is a fun place to work- but think about what that means. It means that I don't do stuff that goes straight into shipping products. The code I write is not considered safe for humanity. I may talk about it, I may write about it, some may get into the field, but only after rigorous review by people who care about such things.

This makes it a bit like a university, except that I don't teach courses. Cleary I am not considered safe near students either, in case I damage thier minds.

"Oh well", people say, "he's a Hadoop committer -that must count for something?"

It does, but I don't get to spend enough time there to keep up with the changes, let alone do interesting stuff of my own ideas.

Whenever I create an issue and say "I will do this", other people in the project -Arun, Tom, Todd and others will stare at their inbox in despair, with the same expression on their faces that my family adopts when I say "I will bake something".

Because then, yes, I may come up with something unusual and possibly even tasty, but they will know that the kitchen will be left with a thin layer of flour over everything, there will be pools of milk, and whatever went in the oven went into the closest bowl-shaped thing I could reach with one hand, rather than anything designed to be used in an oven, let alone watertight. Even if I didn't use flour or milk.

Bear that in mind before believing anything written here.

[Photo:me somewhere in the Belledone mountains; French Alps. For some reason French villages never like it when people on bicycles come to a halt]