[H-GEN] Windows to *nix

David Jericho david.jericho at aarnet.edu.au
Wed Sep 20 02:57:35 EDT 2006


Anthony Irwin wrote:

I'm going to be a bit argumentative and possibly play the devils advocate. I
take care of a large number of servers and workstations of varying types on a
rather large network.

> Windows: In the windows world developers have the mind set that their
> users are afraid of computers 

This is a false assumption. Users just want to use their computers as tools. The
same way they use a pen, a pad of paper, or a stapler. The "users" do not care
in the slightest beyond that.

No, they really don't.

> *nix: In the *nix world developers have the mind set that their users
> are only going to be newbies for so long and that they will learn the
> terms and what they are trying to achieve. 

May I forward you the IM and email questions that come in?

Quite frankly, most (unix) software developers should be taken out the back and
beat with a large lump of wood. Until they are not breathing. Then beaten a bit
more for good measure.

Yes, the power in a unix like environment does come from the fact that you can
get under the hood, and chain together parts to do something new. But with great
power comes great responsibility.

Consider Mailman. Last I checked, there were at least 2 switches used between
programs to do the same task. Each time I do large list operations, I have to
check the program help first to remember if it's -f, -n or some other option. I
do not have the interest in remembering this, as you state further on.

Mailman is the snowflake on top of the iceberg.

> anyone would want to do. It means learning how to use these tools and
> thinking about how to put them all together to get the result you want
> but in the end it means that you have no restrictions and can do
> anything provided you are willing to learn.

And yet, after 23 years of computing, and 15 years of using a Unix variant
daily, I still learn a new tool or trick nearly every day, and I spend most of
my time managing.

> The joining of all these programs may result in a really cool user
> friendly gui program or a bash script that is run in a cron job it
> doesn't matter because you have the power.

Windows does have this ability. Most modern operating systems do.

> This is they type of power and flexibility that windows users will never
> experience because of the mind set of the user base. 

I will say exactly the same of the average Linux user, or the average OS X user.

> Now these days there are more and more user friendly programs linking all these tools
> together to make it easy for people to do things and thats a great thing.

And yet these programs continue to suck the proverbial, and the end result is
the user switches back to Windows.

> computers for the rest of their lives so spending a bit of time to
> dramatically increase their productivity and increase their ability to
> get things done is an invaluable investment.

Clicking can be more productive and quicker than using text commands. There are
some things you just can't trivially script.

> Most *nix users are conditioned to first think for themselves and read
> the man page, readme's, faq's etc. Then google then post a question. 

See above. May I forward my email to you?

> of time learning it all. But seriously how often has things drastically
> changed in *nix that it would be a waste of time learning it? 

At the level I deal with, between every release. Definitely no more than Windows
has.

> Also in a *nix system everything is open you can find everything and see
> what is happening to help diagnose problems 

Rubbish. I routinely come across problems that I cannot explain without a major
investigation involving some very nasty diving into places I don't want to go.

> happening. Windows seems to try and hide everything and make it secret
> and obscure making it harder for people to know whats going on and fix
> problems in fact all the windows people I know say the only real way to
> fix windows is to format and reinstall.

The reason for the format and reinstall is usually because of an intrusion. I
manage quite a number of machines around the world, and sometimes it's quicker
for me to format and reinstall across the Indian ocean, even with a rather
comprehensive configuration management system in place.

We operate in a world with time restrictions, and commercial or social
realities. I do not care that a sector on my disk got corrupted because the
great Cthulu decided to fart a solar flare that caused a memory bit flip and a
subsequent kernel crash. All I know is the state is corrupt.

I could spend time fixing it, and going "Ha! I do not know if there are other
problems!", or just flip a switch, reboot the box and have an identical machine
rebuilt in 15 minutes when I return from flirting with the barista.

> Sure being able to diagnose problems, read through logs and manually
> changing configuration files can be a steep learning curve but once done
> you control the computer not the other way around.

It is a flaw of design that you have to control it to care for it. You don't
need to control your other tools. You need to maintain them to some basic level,
but as a whole, they're very simple to care for.

> limiting mind set given to them by the windows world they can become
> free to use their computer anyway they wish and if that is point and
> click then so be it but at least show them the light so they can decide
> for themselves.

Free software is generally rubbish. The sooner the OSS world realises that most
of their software is total and utter crap, the sooner we'll actually start to
see progress. It would also be nice if closed source developers also realised
this before  launching and subjecting me to it.

There is such a thing as giving someone too much freedom.

> I guess I am being one of those traditional *nix bigots. It would be
> interesting to see how others feel about it but the only people I know
> that only use *nix systems are hard core *nix people that see a lot of
> the new windows world methods for doing things bloated, cumbersome and
> bug ridden.

A lot of these people have not yet removed the log from their own eye.

> I for one hope that people continue to learn the *nix ways and that the
> user friendly *nix distros don't completely hide the fact that there is
> more to life then the point and click gui.

I would love the day when I can retire and say my services as a systems
architect or administrator are no longer needed. However, I believe my career
will continue for at least my lifetime.

At the risk of seeming self-aggrandising, users, developers, and other computer
users do not understand what a good system administrator goes through on a daily
basis. We see the worst of the worst, and manage to pull it all together so the
typical user can still view their pr0n.

I leave you with a parting thought from RFC 1925, the Twelve Networking Truths.

   (4)  Some things in life can never be fully appreciated nor
        understood unless experienced firsthand. Some things in
        networking can never be fully understood by someone who neither
        builds commercial networking equipment nor runs an operational
        network.

-- 
David Jericho
Senior System Administrator, AARNet
Phone:     +61 7 3317 9576
Mobile:    +61 4 2302 7185




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