[lug] my latest guilty pleasure -- Linuxhaters Blog

[Jeffrey Haemer]

I lack the experience I'd need to fully appreciate this troll-and-response
fest.  Still, like reading flame wars about the singleton pattern or going
to bullfights, it's more about the spectacle, for me, than about the
details.

I used to work for a company that made an editor.  Occasionally, a mail
thread would erupt in which folks in other parts of the company would
explain, in great detail, why it was impossible to use as a text editor.
Since I ate my own dogfood, it was all I ever used.   I would think to
myself, "The report of my death was an
exaggeration.<http://www.twainquotes.com/Death.html>
"

I use Linux as a desktop, and -- like most folks who use it -- get by
somehow.  I haven't used Microsoft stuff since 1983, but I'm told it's
advanced marvelously.  And lots of folks use Vista, the most-maligned of
their current releases, every day but can still sleep at night.  Go figure.

My most recent switch was from OS/X to Ubuntu.  I found it a big step up,
but different folks have different needs so your mileage may vary.

I'm sitting here, at 6:30 on a Sunday morning, with a coffee and two laptops
in front of me -- a Mac and an Ubuntu box.  I'm using the latter.  My Mac
seems to have turned into my CUPS server, and does a nice job of that.

After 30 years of computing, I still can't predict what's important to me
from first principles.  It's often little stuff.

For example, I like this box better than my Mac; yet the Mac's much lighter,
so when I go down to meet a friend for coffee, after I shower, I may take
the Mac down instead.   Weight wins out over ease-of-use and software
sophistication.

And another.  When I use my Mac, no one ever stops to say, "Can you show me
how to make my computer do that?"  I do, in contrast, have people stop and
say "That is so cool.  How can I make my windows jiggle?"  Cute girls come
ooh and aah over Compiz Fusion's transparent, rotating cube.

Yes, really.

But was I thinking, when I switched from a Mac to Ubuntu, "It'll attract
attention from beautiful women"?   Well, okay, maybe that's a bad example.

On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 10:59 PM, Nate Duehr <nate at natetech.com> wrote:

>
> On Jul 26, 2008, at 10:47 PM, Nate Duehr wrote:
>
>
>> On Jul 26, 2008, at 8:46 PM, Michael J. Hammel wrote:
>>
>>  On Sat, 2008-07-26 at 16:13 -0600, Nate Duehr wrote:
>>>
>>>> Again, I'm not a software designer, so asking me to code a replacement
>>>> for Visio is the open-source community's way of saying open-source is
>>>> not willing to take on the hard challenges, I guess.  (And I have no
>>>> problem with that... I'm not taking it on either.  But it's reality.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>> That's not really what open source is about.  It's always been about
>>> scratching your own itch.  That's why you hear a lot of "if you want it,
>>> code it".  The idea is that the source is available to anyone willing to
>>> scratch their own itch.  The problem these days is that the user base is
>>> so large that the number of people available to scratch itches is a lot
>>> smaller than those complaining about poison ivy.
>>>
>>
>> The user base of commercial applications has always been what?  1000:1,
>> 10000:1, 1000000:1?
>>
>
> Er.. this wasn't a complete thought.  The user base of commercial
> applications to developers of those applications... is what it should have
> said.
>
>
> --
> Nate Duehr
> nate at natetech.com
>
>
>
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-- 
Jeffrey Haemer <jeffrey.haemer at gmail.com>
720-837-8908 [cell]
http://goyishekop.blogspot.com
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