Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:13:27 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft brainrot (was: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf) Message-ID: <19970929101327.45644@lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <199709282241.PAA17788@usr07.primenet.com>; from Terry Lambert on Sun, Sep 28, 1997 at 10:41:42PM %2B0000 References: <19970928101941.03210@lemis.com> <199709282241.PAA17788@usr07.primenet.com>
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On Sun, Sep 28, 1997 at 10:41:42PM +0000, Terry Lambert wrote:
>>>> Why do it if the basic nameserver setup takes about 10 minutes? (No,
>>>> not the caching-only server, this one only takes a couple of minutes.)
>>>
>>> Each. Time.
>>
>> How do you find out your configuration with this horrible,
>> complicated, you-only-see-as-much-at-a-time-as-I-want-to-show-
>> you-and-make-sure-you-keep-alternating-from-keyboard-to-mouse Motif
>> application once you have entered your initial configuration?
>
> 1) Use one of the other UI front ends (the one you prefer of
> Motif).
>
> 2) Use the command line tool directly. It's capable of running
> interactively (like VMS command line tools), as a "one event"
> command line (like UNIX command line tools), as a grammar
> engine on the end of a pipe (for the UI's), etc.. So you can
> even batch 10,000 user adds still.
>
> 3) Edit the files on which the command line tool operates, like
> you do today. Get erroneous data because you weren't limited
> to only valid values by a command line tool or UI obeying the
> grammar dictated by the command line tool.
Well, 3 sounds almost right. But if you mention erroneous data there,
you should mention the corresponding ways to get erroneous data with
the other possibilities.
A couple of months ago, I was teaching a UNIX class in China. The
"terminals" in the classroom were PCs running Microsoft. They had
lots of trouble setting up telnet sessions to the UNIX box, and I
tried to help them. Each machine seemed to have its own warts, and I
couldn't find an easy way to verify the dribs and drabs of information
hidden behind all those artificially small windows.
After about an hour on one particular machine, I finally located the
text-mode file which one particular part of the configuration editor
(for want of a more appropriate term) had updated. I found the bug
immediately, despite lack of knowledge: it had been introduced by the
configuration editor.
For some reason, the editor presents IP addresses in square brackets:
[192.109.197.137]. I didn't know why, so I removed them. The editor
didn't complain, and it didn't update the screen, but it placed *one*
bracket in the config file: [192.109.197.139.
>From this incident, I extrapolate:
1. Having lots of tiny windows, all different, doesn't obviate the
necessity for syntax.
2. Front ends of any kind may help when you know what you're doing,
but if you have trouble it still makes sense to have a text config
file you can look at.
3. The quality of GUI programming is inadequate to actually make
things easier.
>>> Speak for yourself. 99.99% of the computer users in the world prefer
>>> that type of interface -- which is why they are MS users instead of UNIX
>>> users.
>>
>> Wrong on both counts. 99.99% of the computer users in the world don't
>> understand the question -- which is why they are MS users instead of
>> UNIX. In fact, I'm very surprised to find you defending this
>> position.
>
> The only position I'm defending is "make something people would want
> to buy" instead of "make something people would want to buy, if only
> they knew better".
I don't think that people "want to buy" Microsoft. They buy it
because of marketing, not because of any technical advantage.
>>> UNIX users are, as a class, intellectual elitists who don't
>>> undertand that the average I.Q. is 100 because that is how a 100 I.Q.
>>> is defined. And as a class, they are unprepared to make the necessary
>>> allowances. There's a good reason a moron can run Microsoft OS's: so
>>> that that morons won't be too intimidated to buy them.
>>
>> Well, again I'd say wrong on both counts. Morons can't run
>> Microsoft's OSs. Even people of normal intelligence (whom I think I
>> can understand quite well) feel intimidated by them. That's not to
>> say, of course, that they don't feel intimidated by UNIX as well.
>
> Well, welcome to the future, then, because you're labelling 75% of
> people as uneployable at McDonald's when they move to touch-screen
> based Windows CE cash registers (just like the touchscreen based Windows
> CE stations that an AirBus A320 uses for non-flight-critical systems).
There's a difference between running the OS and running an
application. What would be the difference to the situation if this
application were running on touch-screen based FreeBSD cash registers
or stations?
>>> This may be intentional laxity. In their opinion, you are supposed
>>> to buy an NT server and configure WINS naming instead of DNS.
>>
>> Make up your mind what you're arguing.
>
> It's a perfect logical opinion for them to hold.
>
> Regardless, it's easier to configure DNS on NT than it is on FreeBSD.
> I can give you complete instructions in a page and a half for it.
That's half a page more than my instructions for FreeBSD.
> Or you can hit 'F1' any time uring the DNS setup. Can you do the
> same for FreeBSD?
Sure. I can hit any key I want. But why would I want to take my
fingers off the keyboard?
>> Then why don't you do it and import the configuration to your UNIX
>> box? I'd like to see it, if only to pick holes in it. How do you set
>> up a HINFO RR?
>
> Under "Advanced..."
Is it available.
>> An ISDN RR?
>
> A variant reverse record?
RR stands for "resource record". It's the basic unit of information
in DNS.
> I assume your cache timeout everywhere is now one second, right?
I don't know, do you? But I don't think you understood the question.
Greg
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