Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 13:50:49 -0400 From: Shannon Hendrix <shannon@widomaker.com> To: Stuart Krivis <ipswitch@apk.net> Cc: FreeBSD Advocacy <advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: ExBSD Message-ID: <20010528135047.A10861@widomaker.com> In-Reply-To: <8072844.990964800@[192.168.1.60]>; from ipswitch@kleenex.apk.net on Sun, May 27, 2001 at 12:00:06PM -0400 References: <014301c0e249$debd93f0$0300a8c0@oracle> <4.3.2.7.2.20010523093020.017d3fb8@mail.threespace.com> <8072844.990964800@[192.168.1.60]>
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On Sun, May 27, 2001 at 12:00:06PM -0400, Stuart Krivis wrote: > Unix is unix. Once someone learns one well, it's quite easy to figure out > another one. The vast majority of things will transfer right over. This is a strength that should be promoted more. > Their overall lack of knowledge is frightening. I was in a movie theater last week and there was an ad up in the previews I didn't really notice at first. But then it dawned on me that it was a Microsoft Certification ad, with a bunch of kids in it saying "I'm going to be certified when I grow up!" Made me feel a little sick, and it was kind of Orwellian. Nothing like targeting the youth in the theaters. > If it's really broken, they just re-install. Sadly, a lot of UNIX people do this too. Their training is often suspect, and I always worry about a UNIX admin who never touches anything but Windows outside of his immediate responsibility. I've seen a lot of people actually reboot E-class Sun systems because Oracle was performing badly, and similar nonsense. One thing good I have noticed though, is that a lot of people using BSD or Linux at home extensively, are often better admins even on other UNIX than many who have been to expensive training programs. They tend to be more willing and able to do the research needed to learn new things and get a grip on variations in UNIX systems. > Easy on the eyes? Yuck. I am not a fan of the Windows look. But that's just > m opinion. Do you actually have any proof that Windows is easier to use or > easier on the eyes? I didn't think so. Most people when asked to look at a variety of GUI systems, do not choose Windows. The last such test I saw showed NeXT and Apple pretty much at the top, and interestingly, some systems like CDE scored higher than Windows. It was especially telling when the participants had no computer experience at all. Even Windows users often pick other systems, and some of them are amazed at the other GUI systems, having been unaware of their existence before. > Application availability? How many spreadsheets do I need? How many of the [snip] I think the problem here isn't the number, but the fact that the average Joe cannot go to CompUSA and find what they want. While you might convince people that they don't need that plethora of Windows crud, they can still point to some very real needs that are not addressed in the UNIX world. Of course, there are also some real gems in the UNIX world for free, like Blender (3D modeling/animation) and The Gimp (2D paint and manipulation). What I hate is that most software is written to be Windows only. Lot's of companies have demonstrated that it isn't that much harder to make them portable, including a large number of games (typically very difficult to make portable). In fact, it's probably harder to make a program portable if written on a UNIX system, because you cannot depend on Windows to be equally capable. > How many of them are actually any good? How much time is wasted > because you must reboot constantly when you're installing or removing > a Windows app? It makes evaluating apps a real chore. They don't evaulate at all, they just use what their system came with, and most of the time it's Office. Also, don't underestimate a Windows user's immense patience. I've seen cube-farms of Windows people reboot incessantly while working on spreadsheets and Windows programming. It's amazing they get anything done at all, and I submit that often they don't. When I worked for a certain very large bank, I know with certainty that Windows snafus cost the bank millions of dollars, sometimes maybe that much in a single quarter, and a single project. It wasn't uncommon for me to take a Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux machine and do in hours what took some of the Windows people weeks to do, and my results were correct. But if you ever talked about replacing analysts with Windows machines and using some simple shell and Perl scripts instead, the response was basically "You must be kidding. We cannot trust our data to some hacked up scripts, we need professionally developed software." -- "I wish life was not so short. Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about." - J. R. R. Tolkien ______________________________________________________________________ Charles Shannon Hendrix s h a n n o n @ w i d o m a k e r . c o m To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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