Linux heads
-
pseudonym67 wrote:
You may have to wait but you are then getting a tested install environment.
Well... I have problems at work with people using their favourite distribution and then someone else finding that distribution needs a load of patches etc. Elaine :rose: The tigress is here :-D
Trollslayer wrote:
Well... I have problems at work with people using their favourite distribution and then someone else finding that distribution needs a load of patches etc.
I can't speak for or comment on other distibutions cause I simply don't use them. I tried Suse liked it stayed with it. As Suse is done by Novell and Mono is owned by Novell I think, I'm still quite safe in saying the Suse 11 will probably have a working verison of mono. As a seperate point if it's a work environment why are different flavours of Linux allowed. I mean if it was a windows company they wouldn't allow everyone to run there favourite version of windows as you're bound to get some twonk insisting that they'll only use windows 3.1 one and swear that the whole world of computing went to pot with the release of windows 3.11 pseudonym67 My Articles[^] "So keep that smile on your face. Have a drink to help you sleep at night. They got what they desired. We're passive in their brave new world." New Model Army
-
Trollslayer wrote:
Well... I have problems at work with people using their favourite distribution and then someone else finding that distribution needs a load of patches etc.
I can't speak for or comment on other distibutions cause I simply don't use them. I tried Suse liked it stayed with it. As Suse is done by Novell and Mono is owned by Novell I think, I'm still quite safe in saying the Suse 11 will probably have a working verison of mono. As a seperate point if it's a work environment why are different flavours of Linux allowed. I mean if it was a windows company they wouldn't allow everyone to run there favourite version of windows as you're bound to get some twonk insisting that they'll only use windows 3.1 one and swear that the whole world of computing went to pot with the release of windows 3.11 pseudonym67 My Articles[^] "So keep that smile on your face. Have a drink to help you sleep at night. They got what they desired. We're passive in their brave new world." New Model Army
The issue of different distributions is something else that I will have to tackle in the long term and promises to be great....fun :evil-grin: The tigress is here :-D
-
NOTE: I almost just plopped this into the Lounge but at the last minute figured this was way more 'ranty' than was supposed to be there so I put it here. What the heck is it with these Open Source people? All I want to do is install mono and do some work with it. Can I just install mono and have a decent development experience? NOPE! I have to install an IDE also. I can dig that, after all you can install the .NET framework and just write your code all day in notepad and then drop to the command line and compile it, why should Linux be any different. So... I do some searching and find Monodevelop. Cool, I figure I will just install that rpm and then be up and running right? NOPE! Monodeveloop installs, you guessed it, JUST monodevelop. There is a dependency list as long as my arm of junk that I have to install first. Oh yeah, and I better get the order right too otherwise I am screwed down into the land of obtuse error message hell! Not to mention that most of the dependencies do not seem to offer just a binary installer but I have to DL the freaking source code to build them first then I can install them. Oh, but wait, some of them have dependencies too. Oh happy day, and some of them are source only distros as well. Yeah! Am I the only one that tries to deal with this freaking Opensource thing every year, and every year it ends up seeming like it just gets worse and worse? How can anyone work in an environment like this? How can a group of people honestly think this is a productive and good way to work?
Ray Cassick wrote:
Am I the only one that tries to deal with this freaking Opensource thing every year
It's OK, you're just a slow learner :-)
Ray Cassick wrote:
How can a group of people honestly think this is a productive and good way to work?
I think the right term is 'groupthink' - where the group all believe the same thing, and everyone assumes it's right, because the others believe it. Christian Graus - Microsoft MVP - C++ Metal Musings - Rex and my new metal blog
-
NOTE: I almost just plopped this into the Lounge but at the last minute figured this was way more 'ranty' than was supposed to be there so I put it here. What the heck is it with these Open Source people? All I want to do is install mono and do some work with it. Can I just install mono and have a decent development experience? NOPE! I have to install an IDE also. I can dig that, after all you can install the .NET framework and just write your code all day in notepad and then drop to the command line and compile it, why should Linux be any different. So... I do some searching and find Monodevelop. Cool, I figure I will just install that rpm and then be up and running right? NOPE! Monodeveloop installs, you guessed it, JUST monodevelop. There is a dependency list as long as my arm of junk that I have to install first. Oh yeah, and I better get the order right too otherwise I am screwed down into the land of obtuse error message hell! Not to mention that most of the dependencies do not seem to offer just a binary installer but I have to DL the freaking source code to build them first then I can install them. Oh, but wait, some of them have dependencies too. Oh happy day, and some of them are source only distros as well. Yeah! Am I the only one that tries to deal with this freaking Opensource thing every year, and every year it ends up seeming like it just gets worse and worse? How can anyone work in an environment like this? How can a group of people honestly think this is a productive and good way to work?
Ray Cassick wrote:
I do some searching and find Monodevelop
Mono... what? Use vi, dude, and see the light. Also, forget about Fedora and get FreeBSD or some other real Unix.
My programming blahblahblah blog. If you ever find anything useful here, please let me know to remove it.
-
Trollslayer wrote:
Which is the point.
Developers can't be expected to be knowledgable about their development tools? Not to be rude, but that's a bit "VB", isn't it? ;P make and autoconf are key pieces of the build environment. A Linux distro that is attempting to be 'user friendly' won't necessarily install developer tools like this. If the original poster had been complaining about obtuse desktop installs, lack of driver support, X configuration bizareness, etc... I'm right there with him :) -- Russell Morris Morbo: "WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!"
Being knowledgable about the tools is different than having to compile the crap... I agree with Ray. It's a pain in the ass. I'm a programmer that needs to get the job done, not fritter around and waste trying to line up all of the infrastructure ducks...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
NOTE: I almost just plopped this into the Lounge but at the last minute figured this was way more 'ranty' than was supposed to be there so I put it here. What the heck is it with these Open Source people? All I want to do is install mono and do some work with it. Can I just install mono and have a decent development experience? NOPE! I have to install an IDE also. I can dig that, after all you can install the .NET framework and just write your code all day in notepad and then drop to the command line and compile it, why should Linux be any different. So... I do some searching and find Monodevelop. Cool, I figure I will just install that rpm and then be up and running right? NOPE! Monodeveloop installs, you guessed it, JUST monodevelop. There is a dependency list as long as my arm of junk that I have to install first. Oh yeah, and I better get the order right too otherwise I am screwed down into the land of obtuse error message hell! Not to mention that most of the dependencies do not seem to offer just a binary installer but I have to DL the freaking source code to build them first then I can install them. Oh, but wait, some of them have dependencies too. Oh happy day, and some of them are source only distros as well. Yeah! Am I the only one that tries to deal with this freaking Opensource thing every year, and every year it ends up seeming like it just gets worse and worse? How can anyone work in an environment like this? How can a group of people honestly think this is a productive and good way to work?
This any help? It suggests that
apt-get install mono mono-gmcs mono-gac mono-utils monodevelopis all you need to install mono and the dev environment. But maybe you're not on Ubuntu... -
Being knowledgable about the tools is different than having to compile the crap... I agree with Ray. It's a pain in the ass. I'm a programmer that needs to get the job done, not fritter around and waste trying to line up all of the infrastructure ducks...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I'm a programmer that needs to get the job done, not fritter around and waste trying to line up all of the infrastructure ducks...
From Ray's original email, it seemed to me like he was trying to build mono from source on purpose, instead of using the pre-built binary packages for his OS (which is apparently a Fedora Core version). I had originally installed mono via the pre-built ubuntu packages, and I was up & running just find after the download. If he had attempted to install the binary-only packages and they didn't work, and that's why he was trying to compile from source, then that's a legitamate gripe IMHO. I'm starting work on one of the mono subprojects in ernest, so I've begun building mono itself from source recently. After a 10-minute svn checkout and a 30-minute build pass, it's up and running as well. I had already installed make, autoconf, etc... from prior requirements, so I didn't hit any snags there. The linux packaging systems themselves seem to be a bit scatterbrained. There are a number of different systems (apt-get, yum, etc...), and each distro chooses its own. I'm not hugely familiar with it, but it seems as though most distributions build their own packages for external projects. For instance, I think mono's packages for Fedora Core are built by someone on the Fedora Core team, not someone on the mono team. Seems to me like that kind of delegation would result in more goofed installs than if the mono team itself was responsible for building the packages. I could be wrong however, I'm still a beginner at linux stuff...
-
Ray Cassick wrote:
How can a group of people honestly think this is a productive and good way to work?
Face it, Linux, Mono et al are there because there still are geeks in the world that define "user experience" as "the build it yourself from undocumented, incomplete, most complicated list of links and dependencies and command line compilers, but when you get it working, it feels better than sex". THAT is the true definition of a geek, and they flock to the likes of Linux and co. Marc Pensieve Some people believe what the bible says. Literally. At least [with Wikipedia] you have the chance to correct the wiki -- Jörgen Sigvardsson
-
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I'm a programmer that needs to get the job done, not fritter around and waste trying to line up all of the infrastructure ducks...
From Ray's original email, it seemed to me like he was trying to build mono from source on purpose, instead of using the pre-built binary packages for his OS (which is apparently a Fedora Core version). I had originally installed mono via the pre-built ubuntu packages, and I was up & running just find after the download. If he had attempted to install the binary-only packages and they didn't work, and that's why he was trying to compile from source, then that's a legitamate gripe IMHO. I'm starting work on one of the mono subprojects in ernest, so I've begun building mono itself from source recently. After a 10-minute svn checkout and a 30-minute build pass, it's up and running as well. I had already installed make, autoconf, etc... from prior requirements, so I didn't hit any snags there. The linux packaging systems themselves seem to be a bit scatterbrained. There are a number of different systems (apt-get, yum, etc...), and each distro chooses its own. I'm not hugely familiar with it, but it seems as though most distributions build their own packages for external projects. For instance, I think mono's packages for Fedora Core are built by someone on the Fedora Core team, not someone on the mono team. Seems to me like that kind of delegation would result in more goofed installs than if the mono team itself was responsible for building the packages. I could be wrong however, I'm still a beginner at linux stuff...
Russell Morris wrote:
The linux packaging systems themselves seem to be a bit scatterbrained. There are a number of different systems (apt-get, yum, etc...), and each distro chooses its own.
Yep, that's part of what's wrong with Linux. 1001 distros, and 1001 different ways to maintain packages. As has been so widely shown by the linux faithful, linux users typically change distro's once every month or so. It blows my mind that a single package manager hasn't risen up from the mish-mash of similar software to become the defacto installer, or even having a common package manager file format agreed upon. Until basic shit like that gets fixed, Linux will remain a wasteland of source-only packages populated by a bunch of me-too cowboys ore eager to roll their own rather than establish something resembling a fuckin' standard. And let's not EVEN start talking about accelerated video drivers and X-windows' inability to determine monitor settings on its own, or that Linux gladly sees even the disabled devices on your motherboard, thinking they're active... Oh yeah, how about the four different browsers, three email clients, four IRC clients, a couple dozen imbecilic games not worthy of early atari 400's, and countless other crap I'll never use, all installed by fuckin' default? We're more likely to see Linux ported to a goddamn water bottle before anything really important is resolved. Yeah, Linux is ready for the deskop!
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
Russell Morris wrote:
The linux packaging systems themselves seem to be a bit scatterbrained. There are a number of different systems (apt-get, yum, etc...), and each distro chooses its own.
Yep, that's part of what's wrong with Linux. 1001 distros, and 1001 different ways to maintain packages. As has been so widely shown by the linux faithful, linux users typically change distro's once every month or so. It blows my mind that a single package manager hasn't risen up from the mish-mash of similar software to become the defacto installer, or even having a common package manager file format agreed upon. Until basic shit like that gets fixed, Linux will remain a wasteland of source-only packages populated by a bunch of me-too cowboys ore eager to roll their own rather than establish something resembling a fuckin' standard. And let's not EVEN start talking about accelerated video drivers and X-windows' inability to determine monitor settings on its own, or that Linux gladly sees even the disabled devices on your motherboard, thinking they're active... Oh yeah, how about the four different browsers, three email clients, four IRC clients, a couple dozen imbecilic games not worthy of early atari 400's, and countless other crap I'll never use, all installed by fuckin' default? We're more likely to see Linux ported to a goddamn water bottle before anything really important is resolved. Yeah, Linux is ready for the deskop!
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
It blows my mind that a single package manager hasn't risen up from the mish-mash of similar software to become the defacto installer, or even having a common package manager file format agreed upon.
I think it's momentum that causes this. From what I understand, the various packaging systems sprung up at about the same time in the various distros. I'd be willing to bet that existing momentum for their particular packaging systems is enough to push back against change towards a single standard.
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
And let's not EVEN start talking about accelerated video drivers
There's a reason I don't have a monitor or keyboard hooked up to my linux box - I couldn't get NVidia's drivers to compile, and was stuck in 800x600 land. Apparently, the linux kernel team keep the interface for those drivers non-binary (read: kernel-mode drivers are essentially .obj's, not .dll's/.so's) to make it tough for binary-only driver providers like NVidia. Talk about cutting off your nose... I just use Cygwin/X to connect to it now.
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Oh yeah, how about the four different browsers, three email clients, four IRC clients, a couple dozen imbecilic games not worthy of early atari 400's, and countless other crap I'll never use, all installed by fuckin' default?
What, you're too good for 143 screen savers?
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Yeah, Linux is ready for the deskop!
Whoa there - I never said that. One of my sister's friends tried to convince her to put Debian on her machine instead of Win2k (which was having problems with the fact that one of her RAM sticks had gone loopy - he never bothered to actually figure out why it blew up at random). I told her that if she let him, I'd be more than happy to cede the "fix-my-computer guy" title to him permanently. Besides, didn't your hear: 2004 is the year for Linux on the desktop? ;P
-
Russell Morris wrote:
The linux packaging systems themselves seem to be a bit scatterbrained. There are a number of different systems (apt-get, yum, etc...), and each distro chooses its own.
Yep, that's part of what's wrong with Linux. 1001 distros, and 1001 different ways to maintain packages. As has been so widely shown by the linux faithful, linux users typically change distro's once every month or so. It blows my mind that a single package manager hasn't risen up from the mish-mash of similar software to become the defacto installer, or even having a common package manager file format agreed upon. Until basic shit like that gets fixed, Linux will remain a wasteland of source-only packages populated by a bunch of me-too cowboys ore eager to roll their own rather than establish something resembling a fuckin' standard. And let's not EVEN start talking about accelerated video drivers and X-windows' inability to determine monitor settings on its own, or that Linux gladly sees even the disabled devices on your motherboard, thinking they're active... Oh yeah, how about the four different browsers, three email clients, four IRC clients, a couple dozen imbecilic games not worthy of early atari 400's, and countless other crap I'll never use, all installed by fuckin' default? We're more likely to see Linux ported to a goddamn water bottle before anything really important is resolved. Yeah, Linux is ready for the deskop!
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001BTW: Didn't you go on the "Eff Windows - Linux is good" kick a while back after repeated frustrations with Win2k? (it was either you or Roger Wright - I forget which). If it was you - did you have any single instances of "this is messed up - I'm going back to windows" while doing production Linux work, or was it more "death by a thousand cuts" stuff?
-
BTW: Didn't you go on the "Eff Windows - Linux is good" kick a while back after repeated frustrations with Win2k? (it was either you or Roger Wright - I forget which). If it was you - did you have any single instances of "this is messed up - I'm going back to windows" while doing production Linux work, or was it more "death by a thousand cuts" stuff?
I think that was Roger. I give linux a try every year or so. So far, Ubuntu has been the best desktop Linux, but I still have to use wine to get a decent text editor (UltraEdit). IMHO, Linux blew the best chance they had at coming up with a viable solution to "the Windows problem". Vista is late late late, and Linux had three years to get their act together, but failed miserably. Oh well...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
I think that was Roger. I give linux a try every year or so. So far, Ubuntu has been the best desktop Linux, but I still have to use wine to get a decent text editor (UltraEdit). IMHO, Linux blew the best chance they had at coming up with a viable solution to "the Windows problem". Vista is late late late, and Linux had three years to get their act together, but failed miserably. Oh well...
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
So far, Ubuntu has been the best desktop Linux, but I still have to use wine to get a decent text editor (UltraEdit)
I'm running ubuntu on my lesser machine now. It shat its pants upon first install, but that was actually ASUS' fault - they completely fubared the ACPI jump tables in their BIOS for my board (apparently it was the first production run of the board - I wish I knew at the time that ASUS motherboards with "CMS" in the model number are virtually first-runs). It's a shame you haven't found a decent text editor yet - I need to find someone who has, so that I can use that one :) gedit ain't gonna cut it. I may break down and learn vim.
John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
Vista is late late late, and Linux had three years to get their act together, but failed miserably. Oh well...
That's the problem with amorphous blobs - direction doesn't describe anything they do. The only part of "linux" that seems to have a good direction is the kernel itself. If linux succeeds on the desktop commercially, it will be because some big company got behind it with the specific intent of pouring cash and brains into the desktop part. The Linux zealots will utterly detest that company and the distro. They'll wine about the very feature set and engineering decisions required to make it a commercially viable desktop. That's what I predict, anyway. -- Russell Morris Morbo: "WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!"
-
That's why open source is a crock of shit, and I will never use it in a commercial product. How can you trust something developed with no regard for standards or even a minimum level of compatibility with other products?
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Hmmm...isn’t Microsoft a monopoly regardless of the existence of Linux? I think the whole gist of the original rant is that people don't have the time to wade through the esoteric world of OSS where source code is considered the documentation and standards are open because everybody has their own. It is not practical to use open source in professional development. No company could possibly afford the time to do even a simple task. Sure there are people who spend their whole life and free time learning to use Linux, and true can find a file or search through it in a nifty fast way but that has nothing to do with real professional development. Time is money and OSS/Linux is the most expensive option by a huge margin. I will gladly pay $500 for a programming environment and $100 in the operating system rather than thousands of hours and massive amounts of dev dollars just to say I didn't pay for the OS. Open source was a failure out of the starting blocks for that very reason. Technocrats know very little about practicality and care even less about the usability/understandability of their creations. It all comes down to dollars and cents. Pay either a single $600 fee or recurring $50-$75 per hours to drudge through sparse and convoluted documentation and experimentation just to get the job done. I tried it and even “inhaled” but it wasn’t for me. I don’t know any serious OSS/Linux developers. That would make a good poll here at CP: “How many professional Linux or Open Source Software developers do you know?” a) None b) One c) All five of them :-D -- modified at 23:14 Monday 19th June, 2006
-
Well, I would suggest a different distro, some are much better than others with their packaging systems. Unix/Linux was never created for the average user. Granted it has come a long way, but the fact remains if you want to get anywhere with it you're going to have to learn about it first. Albeit really annoying to have to trace down a dependency no matter your comfort level. I agree there's a long way to go before it realy ever challenges the desktop like Windows and Macs do. Jeremy Falcon
"Unix/Linux was never created for the average user." And hence the reason both died a rapid and mericless death. When I started developing 20 years ago, we used assembler and it was "cool" to do something so complex that no one could understand it. This was how you got your reputation. This was the era when Unix (father of Linux) was developed. This is laughed at in this day and age because efficency is everything. This is also why both have sucked hind tit to Windows for these years. This is also why the use of Linux is considered a "hobby". I witnessed the Unix biggots who believed themselves to be above the others because they learned a convoluted obsolete environment. Their punishment was unemployment and finding a job where they were the neophites. Pride goes before the fall.
-
NOTE: I almost just plopped this into the Lounge but at the last minute figured this was way more 'ranty' than was supposed to be there so I put it here. What the heck is it with these Open Source people? All I want to do is install mono and do some work with it. Can I just install mono and have a decent development experience? NOPE! I have to install an IDE also. I can dig that, after all you can install the .NET framework and just write your code all day in notepad and then drop to the command line and compile it, why should Linux be any different. So... I do some searching and find Monodevelop. Cool, I figure I will just install that rpm and then be up and running right? NOPE! Monodeveloop installs, you guessed it, JUST monodevelop. There is a dependency list as long as my arm of junk that I have to install first. Oh yeah, and I better get the order right too otherwise I am screwed down into the land of obtuse error message hell! Not to mention that most of the dependencies do not seem to offer just a binary installer but I have to DL the freaking source code to build them first then I can install them. Oh, but wait, some of them have dependencies too. Oh happy day, and some of them are source only distros as well. Yeah! Am I the only one that tries to deal with this freaking Opensource thing every year, and every year it ends up seeming like it just gets worse and worse? How can anyone work in an environment like this? How can a group of people honestly think this is a productive and good way to work?
What you're describing is what Linux users think of as "fun". It's part of how they differentiate themselves from "Windoze" users.
-
What you're describing is what Linux users think of as "fun". It's part of how they differentiate themselves from "Windoze" users.
-
Hmmm...isn’t Microsoft a monopoly regardless of the existence of Linux? I think the whole gist of the original rant is that people don't have the time to wade through the esoteric world of OSS where source code is considered the documentation and standards are open because everybody has their own. It is not practical to use open source in professional development. No company could possibly afford the time to do even a simple task. Sure there are people who spend their whole life and free time learning to use Linux, and true can find a file or search through it in a nifty fast way but that has nothing to do with real professional development. Time is money and OSS/Linux is the most expensive option by a huge margin. I will gladly pay $500 for a programming environment and $100 in the operating system rather than thousands of hours and massive amounts of dev dollars just to say I didn't pay for the OS. Open source was a failure out of the starting blocks for that very reason. Technocrats know very little about practicality and care even less about the usability/understandability of their creations. It all comes down to dollars and cents. Pay either a single $600 fee or recurring $50-$75 per hours to drudge through sparse and convoluted documentation and experimentation just to get the job done. I tried it and even “inhaled” but it wasn’t for me. I don’t know any serious OSS/Linux developers. That would make a good poll here at CP: “How many professional Linux or Open Source Software developers do you know?” a) None b) One c) All five of them :-D -- modified at 23:14 Monday 19th June, 2006
rittjc wrote:
isn’t Microsoft a monopoly regardless of the existence of Linux?
At this time and this is an argument used by Microsoft defending these claims, Linux is the most usable alternative to Microsoft's Desktop operating system. I will also admit that I use Solaris as a desktop and for some environments, it is a better fit than Windows.
rittjc wrote:
Technocrats know very little about practicality and care even less about the usability/understandability of their creations.
I have worked with a number of what you call "Technocrats" and they are Profesional, they document and comment their source code, as any professional should. I have had no problem going over the code or making changes even years later. Just because you have difficulty with a piece of code or troubleshooting an application written by someone who who did not follow what is considered a good practice, dose not mean that the same is true universally. Also look at how the UNIX system is documented vs Windows. Today you can get documentation for any part of either system, however both are the result of an evolution of how computers are used, and of the segment of the overall population that are the predominate users of the systems. When Microsoft produced Windows, the system was designed for ease of use and with the goal that anyone could use it. Other systems were designed with different goals, by other programers, thus with different results. As far as your poll, I would have to choose D - More than 100, and would answer the same in the Windows community. If you look at the Linux community today and compare it to 2 years ago, a wealth of documentation is slowly comming on the scene.
-
rittjc wrote:
isn’t Microsoft a monopoly regardless of the existence of Linux?
At this time and this is an argument used by Microsoft defending these claims, Linux is the most usable alternative to Microsoft's Desktop operating system. I will also admit that I use Solaris as a desktop and for some environments, it is a better fit than Windows.
rittjc wrote:
Technocrats know very little about practicality and care even less about the usability/understandability of their creations.
I have worked with a number of what you call "Technocrats" and they are Profesional, they document and comment their source code, as any professional should. I have had no problem going over the code or making changes even years later. Just because you have difficulty with a piece of code or troubleshooting an application written by someone who who did not follow what is considered a good practice, dose not mean that the same is true universally. Also look at how the UNIX system is documented vs Windows. Today you can get documentation for any part of either system, however both are the result of an evolution of how computers are used, and of the segment of the overall population that are the predominate users of the systems. When Microsoft produced Windows, the system was designed for ease of use and with the goal that anyone could use it. Other systems were designed with different goals, by other programers, thus with different results. As far as your poll, I would have to choose D - More than 100, and would answer the same in the Windows community. If you look at the Linux community today and compare it to 2 years ago, a wealth of documentation is slowly comming on the scene.
JCParker wrote:
At this time and this is an argument used by Microsoft defending these claims, Linux is the most usable alternative to Microsoft's Desktop operating system. I will also admit that I use Solaris as a desktop and for some environments, it is a better fit than Windows.
I am aware that Microsoft uses this argument. That's because it is a valid argument. This should be readily apparent by the fact that Corporate America is not interested in Linux. It is too risky and costly. No one would bet their business on an ideology. Unix had its chance unopposed and it failed because it was a world run by bigots and technocrats that have an aversion to business sense. Linux is a dead body stood up and walked by zealots in hopes that someone will consider it alive. It is not driven by the commercial markets therefore it has no structure and backbone of support other than someone that goes home at night and types on his computer to hack out something in between games of Halo. As a file server it had appeal until they figured out that most Linux admins are specialists in the Linux world, and motivated by idealism rather than the profit of the company. Just look at the way they mock the market leader in operating systems as though some obscure technical advantage would somehow be perceived at preferential. This is what is meant by a technocrat. Reasonably good at technology with no earthly idea how to use it in the real world or what the point of businesses are in the first place. Businesses are not interested in drumbeaters jousting windmills.
JCParker wrote:
When Microsoft produced Windows, the system was designed for ease of use and with the goal that anyone could use it. Other systems were designed with different goals, by other programers, thus with different results.
They took the same approach to the developer. This is why Microsoft rose to the top. They had apps that anyone could develop. This is a pariah in the OSS world. They don't want everyone using their software. They want businesses to depend on a set of esoteric programmers that can charge them more for their rarity of skills. The technology is driven by the capitalist businesses, not by some idealist illusion of nobility. Corporate America is not interested in the vilification of Microsoft by a bunch of script kiddies. Why should I settle on an OS that guarantees it will always be chasing the leader and one that is in the ha
