Curious read, Cristian, everyone.
I agree with Paul Brown, brave, yes, maybe better to say bold and badly
if not needlessly offensively stated. But it has some merit, which is why
I write.
As perhaps the longest-serving coder on this list - not for KDE, just
overall - now in my 48th year of hacking code (47 professionally), I can
sympathise some with your claim of older = better but with a perhaps
better perspective. Notably, software has come a VERY long way forward
from when I started, and I wouldn't for a moment trade as my daily tool
the computer I sat in front of in 1977 with the one I use now - it's a
TOOL, and I can do far more with it today.
My own similar - not identical at all to older = better - remark is that
the current situation is a corollary to "the inmates run the [insane]
asylum" in that younger coders sometimes make silly, occasionally stupid
choices because they just don't know better. It's inappropriate to give a
blanket criticism to the individuals because a big part is the VERY
mistaken idea that what's gone on before is ancient history and not worth
learning about. Importantly, the only truly common thing other than binary
& logic is the human element, which is extremely consistent; code often
has exactly the same types of flaws and these issues in the past crop up
again and again, so how we solved them in the past is a vital guide.
During my 7 years as a computer scientist at UC Berkeley (Soda Hall -
neither faculty nor student), I was shocked how many times I heard
students opine how they don't even bother looking at anything older than 5
years because, in their view, in the world of computers 5 years is an
entire epoch, thus beyond interest. Big mistake.
I could take a deep dive into that but maybe this isn't the time or place,
and I'll let two quotes suffice. The first, a very slight paraphrase from
Sir Isaac Newton in demurring about his own contributions: "If I appear
great it's because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants." The second
is from George Santayana: "Those who forget the past are condemned to
repeat it." Here "never bothered to learn" replaces "forget."
As for KDE, my most recent major issue with it is how, with my 6 monitor
display environment, the mouse pointer gets STUCK to the boundary between
displays. With 6 screens, this makes for 14 transitions for the mouse to
simply stop behaving normally and glue itself to the edge of monitor IF,
notably, it's approached with the mouse speed at anything but a very brisk
pace. Slow movement, as when trying to place a window anywhere near a
display screen's edge, usually results in this problem. Whoever thinks
this edge-mouse-glue concept is a good idea, I can't possibly imagine, and
as a default it's ALMOST so bad I'll ditch KDE, for all the good it is,
over the issue because it WASTES MY TIME EVERY F-ING DAY FOR NO BENEFIT
WHATSOEVER! (Who do I even complain to?!)
I attribute this to ignorance - not thinking about the multi display
folks - but I still have zero idea WHY anyone thinks this is a good thing.
(If anyone knows how to turn this off, for heaven's sake PLEASE tell me!
It's unbelievably time-wasting. And PLEASE DO NOT make this the DEFAULT!
What possible benefit it may have is entirely beyond me! PROBABLY the
person who implemented this doesn't have lots of monitors and neither did
whoever it was who decided this was OK to let through to users.)
FOR ME, KDE, and computers in general, are TOOLS...
You KNOW you're moving on from being an apprentice to being a master when
you're making your own tools. This community is a big group of folks
making tools... That does NOT mean all of us are becoming masters, but
it's an important step.
As for you, Cristian, you're clearly master at this. I could see doing
what you've been doing but I have to ask myself "with what lifetime? This
one's already full!" Speaking only for myself, I'd need at least ten
lifetimes to do all I'd like to do!
I'll close with a wonderful video for those that like that kind of thing.
Given the stated title (I'll let you discover it), it's appropriate I
state I'm biased, having actually written an entire operating system as
the sole coder. I did this for TANO corporation in their 6809 generation
TANO Outpost, from boot ROM, file system, keyboard debounce routine, to
network protocol stack, etc - in the same era this group starts with
(second half of the 1970s). My OS has been in production for more than 40
years before I've lost track (2020) with no known software-based crashes,
so I'm definitely biased. But just watch, it's short.
To wit, two links (to the same material, but one is only audio):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPRvc2UMeMI
(This one isn't the whole vid, and is audio only - for me.)
https://catonmat.net/ftp/three_dead_trolls_in_a_baggie-every_os_sucks.mp3
Best wishes for happy computing,
Richard
P.S. If the youtube link doesn't work, they change the URL from time to
time, so try searching for "Every computer crashes because every OS
sucks". RT
--
Richard Troy, Chief Scientist
Science Tools Corporation
510-717-6942
[email protected], http://ScienceTools.com/
I pledge allegiance to We, The People, to mutual peace and harmony, and
to the natural Earth and biosphere upon which We, The People, depend.
