From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jan 29 03:25:23 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0AF9816A4CE for ; Sat, 29 Jan 2005 03:25:23 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtp813.mail.sc5.yahoo.com (smtp813.mail.sc5.yahoo.com [66.163.170.83]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 98CF943D55 for ; Sat, 29 Jan 2005 03:25:22 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from krinklyfig@spymac.com) Received: from unknown (HELO smogmonster.com) (jtinnin@pacbell.net@64.173.27.163 with login) by smtp813.mail.sc5.yahoo.com with SMTP; 29 Jan 2005 03:25:22 -0000 From: Joshua Tinnin To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 19:25:21 -0800 User-Agent: KMail/1.7.2 References: <20050128170630.46637.qmail@web50802.mail.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <20050128170630.46637.qmail@web50802.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200501281925.22056.krinklyfig@spymac.com> Subject: Re: Is windows a virus X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 03:25:23 -0000 On Friday 28 January 2005 09:06 am, dereck wrote: > I know that this is meant to be humorous, and I like > this type of humor. So - this made me smile and I > thank you. > > But you should be aware that historically many > computer professionals considered *NIX to be a virus. > In terms of OS history *NIX has big problems, and its > history is very checkered. I use it, because it is > the most complete and widely available OS. But I find > it hardly "good," either theoretically or practically. > I have a love/hate relationship with it, because the > constant re-implementation of *NIX takes a lot of > human years away from what should be a _re-evaluation_ > of the whole *NIX project. (Yes, beginning with the > use of C and its variants as the base language.) > > The spread of *NIX and its many copycats is definitely > NOT a win-win for the computing industry as a whole. > There is even a downloadable book on the early years > of *NIX, which tells the whole sordid story (in user > emails) of why *NIX has historically sucked. I love > BSD and I hate it. It is the "best" of what is > available. Would that we could do better! Just some comments, please don't consider this flaming, as I think the world has enough religious wars ... I can understand and appreciate such sentiments, but personally I love *nix. Any complex software is going to be imperfect, and hardly any software of any size has bugs (this is also a good reason to examine one's favorite software carefully). The difference between graphical UIs and the other way around is that graphics tend to hide what is happening with the system. This is fine for most home users, and in fact this is probably the best solution for many of them, but it is not desirable (IMO) for system administration - some disagree. Many of the gripes concern lack of "idiot-proofing." Many *nixes have implemented this for new users, but others, like FreeBSD, assume you know what you're doing and don't need that. If you would rather not delete a file permanently (for practical purposes), use mv instead. Is this a problem? Well, there's always Mac, and I highly recommend their computers for people who don't want to open the hood and mess around. Additionally, we can always do better, and we shouldn't stop looking for better solutions in deference to the devil we know, but personal tastes in what makes a system better does not mean the same thing for all people. (I do NOT want a GUI for system administration, emphatically, NO!) Some people find some *nix solutions to be exactly what they need, and some people find Windows or other solutions to be exactly what they need, but there are almost always problems in the implementation. People who understand one solution should not implement another which they don't. I understand companies forcing stupid changes on people, but lack of training isn't an issue with UNIX itself. And if anyone is expecting system administration or engineering to suddenly be completely simple, I think they are probably not thinking very clearly about how computers work in the first place. Are you saying spam could be eliminated if only we changed the protocol? Fine, go out and do that. And then I can agree that the protocol might need rethinking, but inertia is always an issue. This has more to do with how the corporate world works more than anything. That being said, one of the main problems with Xorg/XFree86 is inertia. This is a case where the least worst solution is not very good at all, IMO. The commercial software world has done far better with the issue of how to implement graphics, although there are often sacrifices in other areas. > Enjoy the link below! Note that almost none of the > fundamental problems are fixable - they are products > of the original design. I think it's funny that people still consider the use of text to be a problem. The first chapter is called "User Friendly?" Anyway, I've read this before, but I have fundamental issues with the author's premise, that user-friendly == good. This is only true in some circumstances, and I do not consider most software which is called "user-friendly" to be such; personally, I find FreeBSD to be far easier and more user-friendly than any other OS that's useful to me, but it has a lot to do with how I think and what sort of person I am; I do not think it's the right OS for my step-father, who has a hard enough time with anything technical. And I'm not sure how relevant a lot of this is anymore. Many of the problems seem to be concerning the nature of UNIX as a commercial distribution. Do these arguments apply to POSIX? The history is informative, but the question that needs to be asked is: what is UNIX? However, I disagree with people who see *nix as being the solution to all problems, or that any solution which uses something else is wrong, or that Windows has no purpose in any situation (although, personally, I use it only for games anymore, but I work with it for clients). That is shortsighted. The best method is to pick the right tool for the job. Finally, the very idea of a UNIX-haters group without an alternate, viable solution is just pissing in the wind. I'm not impressed by sound and fury, signifying nothing. - jt