Monthly Archives: July 2012

Oh, the admin and the coder should be friends!

This is a tongue-in-cheek blog post a few days before the Open Repositories 2012 conference that is being held here in Edinburgh. I’ll give a bit of background first, a disclaimer, a video, then the main content of this post.

First the background: I have a slight love/hate relationship with the repository community and the Open Repositories conference related to how it makes a strong distinction between ‘Repository Managers’ and ‘Developers’.  Its nice that we do this as it allows for innovate conference strands such as the ‘developers challenge‘ where developers can come and show-off their wares. However I also hate this segregation and the labeling of delegates into these categories.  Personally I see myself as straddling the two, and I feel that we should be looking for our shared interests (developing open repository services) rather than highlighting differences between our roles.

However, I won’t rant or get on my soap-box, but instead I’ll butcher a song from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical ‘Oklahoma!‘. One of the most famous songs is about how the farmers and the cowboys don’t get along and look for all the differences between themselves, rather than trying to work together to make the most of being settlers in a new territory. (See any similarities?!)

The disclaimer – the song makes the assumption that farmers and cowmen are all male, and that the females stay at home cooking, with the daughters waiting to get married.  In my re-working of the lyrics I’ve been equally sexist and made the repository managers female and the developers male.  This is not representative of my views or of reality, but it fits for the song!  So please don’t hold this against me!  This is just a light-hearted piece!

The song also fits with the OR2012 conference as it talks about the admins and coders (‘repository managers’ and ‘developers’ are too long for the song!) dancing together.  The conference dinner will be ending with a ceilidh, where hopefully there will be much dancing and fun!  If you’ve never seen Oklahoma you can watch a performance of this song below:

So sing along (preferably in your head if you work in a shared office!)

The admin and the coder should be friends.
Oh the admin and the coder should be friends.
One of them likes to bulk upload, the other likes to cut some code,
But that’s no reason why they can’t be friends!

Repository folks should stick together,
Repository folks should all be pals.
Admins dance with the coders’ daughters,
Coders dance with the admins’ gals.
(repeat)

I’d like to say a word for the admin,
She come out west when repos were in beta,
She came out west and built a lot of services,
And uploads PDFs with metadata!

The admin is a good and thrifty citizen,
no matter what the coder says or thinks.
You sometimes see ’em drinkin’ in the tea room.
And always wants download stats when she rings.

But the admin and the coder should be friends.
Oh, the admin and the coder should be friends.
The coder writes a script with ease, the admin holds the OA keys,
But that’s no reason why they can’t be friends.

Repository folks should stick together,
Repository folks should all be pals.
Admins dance with the coders’ daughters,
Coders dance with the admins’ gals.

I’d like to say a word for the coder,
the road he treads is difficult and stoney.
He codes for days on end with just a keyboard for a friend.
I sure do find he’s often tired and moany!

The coder should be sociable with the admin.
If he drops in looking like he needs bath water,
Don’t treat him like a louse make him welcome in your house.
But be sure that you lock up your wife and daughters!

I’d like to teach you all a little saying.
And learn the words by heart the way you should.
I don’t say I’m no better than anybody else,
But I’ll be damned if I ain’t just as good!

Repository folks should stick together,
Repository folks should all be pals.
Admins dance with the coders’ daughters,
Coders dance with the admins’ gals.

Suggestions for better lyrics are most welcome!

[If you want to see the original lyrics, you can view them at: http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/oklahoma/thefarmerandthecowman.htm] This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , on by .
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