Now obviously that press release wasn’t written for me. While we’ve been using Cloud 1 since it was Cloud 0.98b, I’ve never used Heroku personally nor professionally. The press release was more likely written to arm the multitude of IT Ops middle management at my former workplace, those long-removed-from-the-trenches starch suits who joyfully wade through mountains of Prince2 Project Management documentation like pigs in mud. But those guys don’t use Heroku. Sure, Salesforce.com want them to use Heroku, but those people aren’t  even remotely in the same demographic as the majority of Heroku users singing its praises in Ruby usergroups world wide for the past 3 years.

No, Salesforce, the early adopters largley responsible for Heroku’s excellent public image are mad agile. Not the Agile described in your well layed-out Activity Diagram, agile like a hyperactive mako shark on crystal meth. And you just took something they love(d), and they’re afraid you’ll break it. Obviously Salesforce.com need to drop a traditional Enterprise IT press release such as this one for their audience, but they really should have lead with something to reassure Heroku’s existing users. It screams “We got this shiny thing! Look, it’s SHINY!”. Anywhere there are mentions of this acquisition, there are comments by Heroku users regarding how they’re making plans to leave.

This isn’t like when Facebook change something and an army social media zombies rage for two days then go back to Business As Usual, Heroku’s userbase know why they like Heroku and they know what it will take to build a replacement. And you know what? They probably will.

Such events spark a feeling of shock, horror and utter helplessness in me. So many deaths, so much destruction, and it’s all practically on my doorstep. It’s for that reason that I was so impressed to hear around the office that we would be doing the best book deal SitePoint have ever offered to raise funds for the Australian Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal.

Any 5 books (in PDF format) and for the price of 1, with 100% of proceeds going to charity. It’s a great offer, for a very worthwhile cause.

What hasn’t been publicized is our goal for this fund-raising effort – $50,000 USD (~$75,000 AUD); which at first struck me as a lofty goal but one I was hopeful we’d surpass. As an employee a SitePoint, I have access to the sales figures and let me tell you the response so far has been astronomical. As of right now, less than 24 hours since launching the offer, SitePoint has raised USD $61,277 for bushfire victims.

Fuck yeah.

And that’s with two more days to go. If you’re a web geek (and if you’re reading this you probably are), then take advantage of this offer and know that every cent is going to help people who desperately need it.

If you’re here looking for internet nerdery, stick around. Amongst other things, I’ve got a massive project brewing at work that will be unveiled mid March.

To that end, I’ve begun adding some of my guitar-related projects to The Lab, more of which will be coming as I find time to write up details.

Intarwebs!

As I watch Lachlan fetch some Scotch and wonder how much fun BarCamp with a hang over is going to be tomorrow, I must remind all challengers — Team Stoopid takes no prisoners!