It's a very good and noble thing to contribute to the wealth of tools that we as developers have at our disposal, to help relieve others of the pains that we faced getting a particular problem solved. There is no vector for spreading ideas and progress as helpful as source code and software, and it's a great thing to help other people.
However, it's very, very, very important not to simply toil in obscurity dropping code--I believe our efforts are better spent teaching others how to program and making tools and libraries that are simple enough for others to hack on.
We don't want to drive our field so far out of the realm of the common man that they simultaneously take it for granted and yet are unable to extend it; that path lies ruin once we've passed.
However, it's very, very, very important not to simply toil in obscurity dropping code--I believe our efforts are better spent teaching others how to program and making tools and libraries that are simple enough for others to hack on.
We don't want to drive our field so far out of the realm of the common man that they simultaneously take it for granted and yet are unable to extend it; that path lies ruin once we've passed.