Green Software Development?

Although the term ‘green’ really means a colour, I think everyone uses it because it reminds us of grass, trees and generally anything with chlorophyll in it – plant matter.

So why are plants so important? I think it’s because they represent our world, our planet, the beauty of Mother Nature and the chaotic symphony of balance that she performs daily with which we human beings systematically interfere.

What does this have to do with software development? Well, let’s just say that my conscience has been telling me that there has to be a meaningful way for what I do day-to-day to make small impacts on everyone.

First, I think I need to start to define in my own terms what green software development is. Well, there is the concept of green computing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_computing), which can be integrated into my everyday life by ensuring every line of code is optimized and FLOPS are not wasted. But how do you try and slowly change the world and make a difference if all you do is write software? Software is well, soft: it is intangible, it exists as a series of binary code that makes a computer perform operations. In some of these worlds it will interact with some IO and drive a device, actual hardware, but that is rare for a web developer like me. I’m slowly starting to focus in on the idea that unless you are actually building control systems/software for something that will have an immediate impact as a software developer, it’s hard to change the world.

How do you live with the thought that it’s nearly impossible with software to change the world, especially if you really want to make a difference; and I am not talking about just recycling your pop cans?

Things brings me to my point - I came across a web site http://www.mokugift.com – that takes the ideologies of web 2.0 and slams them together with a very interesting idea: Give someone an e-card that makes a difference by spending a buck and choosing to planting a tree in Asia, Africa or South America. Brilliant!!! This idea almost seemed like salvation to this old web developer. How can we integrate community, web technologies and a few simple business ideas to build something truly unique that CAN make a difference? In the case of mokugift.com it was simple – take an old idea, add some value, find some venues for getting your name out there and plant some trees!

What I’m getting at here is that maybe my moral salvation is not IN the software, maybe it’s how I use the software to do something different. And that - I can live with.