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Date:      Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:31:45 +0200
From:      Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To:        Charlie Kester <corky1951@comcast.net>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Easiest desktop BSD distro
Message-ID:  <20110330003145.f2215241.freebsd@edvax.de>
In-Reply-To: <20110329221637.GC32087@comcast.net>
References:  <20110329144527.c009ba8b.jhsu802701@jasonhsu.com> <20110329205944.GA84145@gizmo.acns.msu.edu> <20110329221637.GC32087@comcast.net>

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On Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:16:37 -0700, Charlie Kester <corky1951@comcast.net> wrote:
> To really learn any operating system, you have to approach it on its own
> terms and be willing to accept that it has its own way of doing things.
> Its own idioms and paradigms.  It has its own history of design
> decisions, unforeseen consequences and problem resolutions.  Some
> problems that arise on one OS never come up on another, because they
> approach things from entirely different angles.  

A very well formed statement.



> The whole point of learning more than one OS, in my opinion, is to
> explore the strengths and weaknesses of different designs, development
> philosophies and ways of using computers.  Otherwise, you're just being
> a software dilettante.

You basically also learn "thinking approaches", to conclude
things and to estimate facts. This of course requires the OS
and programs to act in a deterministic way. When learning
things about UNIX, you learn POSTABLE things. Even if something
is differently named or done on various UNIXes, you *KNOW*
that they actually are the same (or utilizing the same
service, the same principles, the same ideas). Which this
kind of knowledge, you can find your way around in ANY
UNIX operating system (and often even in Linux) because
those share imporant ideas, and don't abandon them just to
look "new" and "shiny". If you know those basic stuff, you're
even able to locate it deep inside software that claims
to be "all new" and "all different". This enables you to
adopt to many variations of the same "old thing" as you
do know what's "inside" it. ONLY THIS KIND of essential
basic knowledge makes you a real professional - in opposite
to dilletantic artists in IT. :-)



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...



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