[H-GEN] Windows to *nix

[Anthony Irwin]

David Jericho wrote:

>As James quite correctly states, there are occasions were an IDE is the way to
>go. I've known some programmers who'd blow the socks off people here, who love
>their IDEs.
>
>Someone who adopts and uses a tool that makes their task at hand easier and
>potentially simpler, is smarter than someone who goes down the path of doing it
>the hard way, Because Real Men Do It That Way. There is no reason why that
>person cannot understand the magic smoke underneath, however, wasting time doing
>it the hard way, is counter intuitive, and quite frankly, incredibly stupid.
>  
>
Yes that is true but generally if people learn with ides they don't go 
back and learn the this the ide does for them. People generally want to 
keep moving forward so if they can already write programs with an ide 
but their are certain things that don't know then they won't bother 
learning it.

Sure you seem to relate everything back to the commercial world and in 
the commercial world time is money and you have deadlines and new 
projects. When I am at work I do things the quickest and best ways I can 
but will often make notes to myself to go back and do some thing the 
hard way as you put it at home so I get more in depth knowledge of how 
things are done.

>Disk, processor and RAM is cheap. If you are at the level where you are limited
>by those factors, you are not running a SME or a home operation.
>
>Get over it. Disk, processing power, and RAM is cheap. Really. Repeat after me...
>  
>
But if you look at it from a humbugers point of view. I haven't been to 
a meeting in a while but last time I was there their were people with 
what I would consider ancient computers using them with minimalistic 
window managers because their computers wouldn't handle anything better 
and they could not afford a better computer.

Hey people go running to the front of the room every time someone 
ditches some old equipment to put together new computers for all sorts 
of different purposes. Computer equipment may be cheap but for many 
people that do it as a hobby or are not a company being able to take 
control strip out graphical environments and what ever else and use 
ancient hardware to achieve useful tasks is a good thing and something 
you can not do with windows.

>Get over cost. Something is worth exactly what you are prepared to pay for it
>out of your total resource pool. No more, no less. If you value your time at $0,
>then sure, free software is nearly always the winning answer.
>  
>
I don't use the word free as in cost. I would and have paid for free 
software. Before I had an adsl connection or lived in Brisbane and could 
get to humbug meetings I purchased many distribution cds because I would 
not be able to download and burn copies easily.

I subscribe to transgaming but don't play games and have purchased 
crossover office and never used it. I purchased these commercial 
programs because I thought they were doing something that some people 
would want and thought I would support the projects.

I would much rather buy a linux distribution then windows when buying a 
new computer such as a brand name laptop. In fact my last laptop I 
purchased was a macbook because I didn't want to pay microsoft for an os 
I would never use. Although I did buy os x and some bundled software 
that I will probably never use but hey I guess I would prefer my money 
to go to apple then microsoft even though apple really sucks with 
regards to drm and the like.

>In my personal life, when buying toys or doing hobbies, I place an arbitrary
>value of $50 per hour on my personal time. If it takes me more than an hour to
>save $50, then I just fork over that $50. In my professional life, problem
>solving is valued at a far higher rate, because it'll most probably consume my
>time, some of my staff members time, and not to mention other users time.
>  
>
I agree with that but personally enjoy working on the computer and 
learning how it all works.

>>How can one have too much freedom? if its your computer you should be
>>able to do what you want how you want.
>>    
>>
>
>But not on my network...
>
>And in fact, even though my employer (and myself as a result) has access to tens
>of Gbps of international bandwidth, and unimaginable volumes of bandwidth around
>Australia, we don't get to do the "it's my network and I'll do what I want to".
>
>Very quickly, we'd find ourselves being disconnected from other networks. We
>have our freedoms because we chose to operate within a convention as defined
>with others.
>
>You only have as much freedom on your computer as it affects other people. The
>moment your "freedoms" start making other people suffer, you'll find that you in
>fact have less freedom.
>
>Then again, on an island in the middle of the ocean, arguably you have infinite
>freedom, to do nothing.
>  
>
I am referring to what you do on your personal computer not a major 
network. Not spamming, not writing and sending out viruses or trojans or 
other nasty things into the world but the freedom to do what ever you 
want with your computer which is something many proprietary programs and 
operating systems try to stop you doing.

Kind Regards,
Anthony Irwin