Linux-Advocacy Digest #254, Volume #29 Thu, 21 Sep 00 22:13:06 EDT
Contents:
Re: Because programmers hate users (Re: Why are Linux UIs so crappy?) (Richard)
Re: Computer and memory ("Chad Myers")
Re: "Overclocking" Is A Bad Idea (Jim Broughton)
Re: Unix more secure, huh? ("Otto")
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From: Richard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Because programmers hate users (Re: Why are Linux UIs so crappy?)
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 01:15:39 GMT
2:1 wrote:
> Richard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> But helping incompetent users does not necessarily help you, if you have
> to simplify the system, you might have to remove some of the power of
> it.
Define "incompetent" and please explain how the programmer
possesses this mythical quality.
> > 2) programmers are used to ignoring, defending and even
> > accepting whenever the system /they/ created misbehaves.
> ^^^^^^^^^^
> That's to do with bugs. That is entirely different from the model uses
> for interaction.
No, it most emphatically doesn't have anything to do with bugs. It
has to do with *high-level architectural decisions* which "hackers"
never make consciously and explicitly and thus always do badly.
> The programmers, especially OSS ones, *are* the users. They have the
> emmotional attachment to the software. Why should they bend over
> backwards to change something that they created and they like,
> considering that noone is paying them to do it.
Because it's better if they change it? Because the system would be
simpler, more elegant, more beautiful *and* more powerful?
"I like it" isn't a rational argument for anything. You've just implicitly
asked "Why should programmers be rational?"
> > That's right, there are universal principles of beauty. Christopher
> > Alexander writes about these principles in On The Nature Of Order.
>
> Well, that's just damn wrong. Beauty is subjective. Take the example of
Well that's just damn wrong. And there's a pile of research siding with
me. For example, it is known that a certain waist to hip ratio is
considered
most appealing across all cultures. Different cultures rationalize it in
very
different ways (some say it's sexy, others say those are "good childbearing
hips") but that doesn't matter.
> that group of (black) people, where the women stretch their bottom lips
> until they are very big (I forget the name of those people). I,
> personally find that deeply unattractive, but those peopls seem to
> really like it. If that isn't a difference of opinion anout beauty,
> then what is? Even *birds* display different taste when it comes to
> artistic appreciation.
There are two components to beauty;
the hardwired biological component
the socialized /exaggeration/ of an already existing beauty trait
That tribe is only able to do this because it's already hard-wired into
humans that long necks are beautiful.
It's noteworthy that I've never heard of a culture that considers
warts to be beautiful. The thing about the 'beauty myth' is it's not
a myth!
> There may be some things universally regarded as beautiful. Others are
> definitely not. Judging by discussion on this group, OS interfaces are
> not of the universally appreaeciated kind. Compare a known windows
> advocate to a command line junkie (me). That's a real, unresolvable
> difference in taaste. We just like different things.
There are universal principles behind the human perception of Order
and Elegance that apply equally well to physical phenomena, urban
planning, architecture, tapestry weaving and software design. Do you
seriously suggest that it is *random*??
> As a programmer, I don't share the code just to spiet users. If the
> users don't like the code, then they can use something else, or (group
> together and) pay someone else to make something that thay like. They
> can't expect the world to get better with no financial or labour
> contributions (complaining doesn't actually get the work done).
Maybe. In any case, you asked how programmers' gifts to users
could be reconciled with hatred of users, I demonstrated this.
> > *: note how much more tolerant <programmers/academics>
> > are to uneducated and incompetent people who intend to join
> > the ranks of the <programmer/academic> class.
>
> It is usually because the other kind of user is unwilling to even try to
> learn, so the programmer/academic has to keep going over the same points
> over again. That irks some people.
This is just bigotry. It is generally incorrect that those who do
not seek to become academics have a lesser interest in learning
the subject. What they do have is a vastly lesser willingness to
submit themselves to unnecessary and unnatural contortions.
It is possible to teach advanced concepts to laypeople. In fact,
it is possible to teach advanced concepts to *schoolchildren*.
This is not commonly done because academics hold people
outside their chosen field of expertise (and this includes other
academics) in contempt.
Immune response, immunosuppression, neurotransmitters,
the functioning of the kidneys, the differential properties of
bone and cartilage, ossification of cartilage; these are all
things I learned about while I was still in early elementary
school! And the only reason I did was because someone
(Radio-France, IIRC) went to the trouble of presenting all
of these things in a format that children could understand.
I know of no analogue to the 100+ episode series "Il etait
une fois ..." in the english-speaking world. From the little
I've seen of "Bill Nye, the Science Guy" it is condescending,
irritating and contemptible. HARDLY something to make
people interested in science.
Is there a reason why laypeople don't understand what a
soliton is instead of being presented with the oxymoronic
(and plain moronic) "duality of light"?? No there isn't.
You only think there is because society indoctrinated you
into being unquestioning of academics, and because the
anti-human nature of anglo-american societies is an
omnipresent feature so you've never experienced anything
to contrast it with.
Btw, all of the great teachers I've known or heard of have
always assumed that they were in the wrong wrt any teacher-
student conflict and have always made their students feel
worthwhile.
It may be comforting to blame one's students for one's own
lack of teaching skills but it doesn't make it so.
> Programmers are not responsible for the users mental well being at all.
> In fact, the OSS programmmers (esp. GPL ones) are not responsible for
> anything. No fitness for a particular purpose guarntees. Since the
Blatantly incorrect, illegal, unethical and immoral.
> programmer is coding for himself, and merely allowing the user to take
> what advantage of his work that they can, it is in no way up to him to
> make sure that the user likes it.
Of *course* it is. If you offer a gift then you are taking responsibility
for that gift. You can't give someone of bottle of hydrochloric acid and
say "by the way, don't drink it" and expect to get away with it!
The gift *is* the responsibility. Without this responsibility, the gift
is completely useless. But of course, anglo-americans do not have
the perspective of humane aspects in their societies or of anyone
taking responsibility for their actions.
> If someone gave you a box of hard drives and said 'these are a faulty
> batch, some might work, some might not, take them if you want them', you
> wouldn't complain if some didn't work or gave corrupted data.
I would certainly complain if they turned out to not be hard drives
or to connect only through some proprietary interface which nobody
has access to.
You're completely trivializing the importance of Expectations.
Is it possible to give software to a user and destroy all of their
expectations about that software? Hell no. In that case, it is
flatly impossible for you to discard all of your responsibilities
as a consequence of a gift.
> I thought that you were trying to blur or eliminate the difference
> between processes and programs (ie persistence).
Only by eliminating programs wherever possible.
> A sequence of commands operates on data.
> It does not matter if they are resident in memory or not. That is an
> artificial abstraction necessitated by computer architecture and OSs.
I agree. And it doesn't matter whether processes are in memory or not.
But a program is not a process and never will be. The two are *completely*
different entities. Saying that a program is a process is like saying that
source code is machine code or that source code operates on anything.
> Compatibility is very important, so is good design. Trying to make a
> brand knew OS compatible with an older, nastier, but fairly different
> version is bound to involve nasty hacks. Besides, that is a very
> negative point of view of yours. In the case of a commercial OS, money
> is put in one end and a (say) substandard product gets out the door.
> That is a failure. With free software, nothing goes in, something comes
> out, that is only success.
Incorrect; I honestly think you should read Nikolai Bezroukov's paper
'A Second Look at the Cathedral and the Bazaar' at
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_12/bezroukov/
I hate commercial software because it isn't free. But I don't think that
Linux is free in any meaningful way either.
Compatibility is about the only design goal that will conflict with every
other design goal in existence. I don't care much for it. Nearly all of the
OS design principles I've seen are consistent with each other (and that's
quite a long list). Like I said; programmers are too used to rationalizing
their failures by claiming their goals are inachievable. This stands in
marked contrast to people working with formal methods who *prove*
that goals are inconsistent (even when they seem consistent) long before
they write down any code.
> Plan 9 looks like a very interesting OS. I will look in to it when I
> have time.
It is. It's also a failure. Of the goals it even attempted to reach, it
failed half of them. It was working from Unix semantics after all.
> > Of course, they had to kludge it
> since
> > the Unix filesystem semantics are weak, ugly and pathetic.
>
> How do you know they kludged it in. It's inspired by unix, but it is in
> no way unix, so it has no probelems involving unix FS progbems.
Its filesystem semantics are *completely* Unix. They had to implement
"union" directories (a big time kludge), they weren't able to get rid of
special devices, or the superuser concept, or even apply the FS semantics
to processes. A lot of things in Plan 9 are kludges and it's quite telling
since Plan 9 is an extremely timid design; it was only ever meant to be
one step up from Unix.
In addition to this, they got the boneheaded idea that disconnected
namespaces (a totally different concept from merely local namespaces)
are a good idea. It turns out they were wrong and the last comment I
read on this was an admission that they would have to kludge their way
around this massive blunder.
> > In a good OS, the user storage component (the filesystem analogue)
> > would provide portals (powerful versions of mounts) to other storage
> > components on networked machines.
>
> What's wrong with mounts. How are these protals more powerful?
They're bidirectional and implemented by the components themselves;
and so not dependent on kernel support or any priviledged operations.
Unlike Plan 9 mounts, they're visible by all users like a normal part of
the filesystem, and they don't suppress the mount point below them
by doing weird kernel shit. And their being bidirectional is extremely
important as well because it means that all connected computers are
connected in a user visible fashion.
> > Even avatars can be implemented by the shell if you have bidirectional
> > links.
>
> BASH makes symbolic links to directories look bidirectional. It's very
> useful.
Uhh, no it doesn't. Bidirectional links can be *seen* from the other side.
If you have a bidirectional link between two directories then it has two
names and you can recross the same link over and over by commanding
goto name1/name2/name1/name2/...
The only bidirectional links in Unix are directory links. The backend
of the link is uniformly named ".." so it's not very useful, is
inconsistent
with the front end of the links, and is inconsistent with file links (which
do not have backends).
> Why can't you just use the authentication library calls avaliable in
> linux?
Authentication of users is not a sensible system-wide security scheme.
Imagine having to provide your name and password every time you
want to access a process in some way. And conceptually, it just devolves
into Access Control Lists, which are inherently broken.
A flexible and powerful security scheme would enable things like
creating user88.subUser2384.subsubUser34 in order to run just
one program. It should also be possible and easy to create subusers
that are subordinate to two or more other users; this is fundamental
to any meaningful sharing of objects. Unix just doesn't have that.
The problem with authentication through cryptography is that it
creates a flat namespace of users; like the early Mac's flat file
structure (ie, no directories). It says "user 5555" has absolutely
no relation to "user 4344.333" and that's just a flat lie. So users
are forced by the weak security scheme to manually maintain
meta-info about the relationships between users. An OS should
make things *simpler*, make it possible to see and manipulate
the relationships between users easily and naturally. Unix doesn't
do any of that.
Put another way: users are the most important resource in a multi-
user system and Unix provides *no* abstractions for the rational
and convenient use of that resource.
For better security schemes you can check out capabilities in
KeyKOS and EROS as well as the tree of users in VSTa (trees
are not the most powerful abstraction but infinitely better than
Unix's flat space of users).
> > If you like the status quo then you have a twisted definition of what
> > "harder" means. The status quo is not easy for *anyone*. Those who
> > don't believe this just haven't been exposed to good alternatives.
>
> I don't necessarily care about anyone. If the status quo is easy for
> *me* to use, then why should I make it harder for *me* to use. I know
"anyone" /includes/ you.
> it's not easy for anyone, I didn't say that. I find the status quo
> fine---I do not find that I am fighting against the OS to get my work
> done. I am willing to try alternatives, though when I have time.
Surely you've heard of frogs being boiled in water and never
realizing they were in danger only because the temperature
escalated gradually?
> That's one way of looking at it. So are you saying that all the OSS
> programmers who wrote stuff for themselves to use should never have
> allowed anyone else to use it, just in case someone couldn't use it
> (nevermind those who could). The coders write for themselves, and their
> aquantainces. They don't just churn out code to spite people.
If they only wrote for themselves then they wouldn't have to support
users or worry about "defeating Microsoft". And that software is
horrible is independent of its being unusable by some people. A
particular piece of software doesn't have to be usable by everyone.
> All softwaer will have limitations. If you can't tolerate them, then
> computing is the wrong field for you.
I come not to praise Ceasar but to depose him.
I think that computing is the perfect field. Mathematics is a millenia
old field so it would be extremely difficult for me to contribute there.
I'm basically lazy so computing is perfect that way; I can claim to have
done something without doing much at all.
> Only a serious lapse would cause someone to say `grep' to someone who
> wasn't a fellow hacker. I also don't see why programmers should be
> forces to use an inefficient language so that people who have no
> interest in understanding can understand.
Are you talking about standard english or C/C++?
If the latter then in what way is C/C++ "efficient"? Please keep
in mind that a lot more energy has been invested in optimizing C
comilers than any other language compilers, and that the purpose
of a programming language is to communicate ideas to *humans*,
not machines.
> There are plenty of people who do like them and do understand them. Why
There are plenty of people who are into pain and submission as a sexual
thrill.
> shouldn't the people who find them a powerful communication medium be
> allowed to use them? Hell, me and most of my aquantainces at school
> couldn't get the hang of French or German, bu tnoone proposed that the
> language should be abolished because it suopported a minority clique of
> `superior' French speakers.
Natural languages are not human artifacts like programming languages
are so your objection is equivalent to justifying, say, an unusable camera
by saying that "*some* people don't find it so and in any case, no one has
proposed that human eyes should all be plucked out because some people
are blind."
> If you think English is inelegent, then you could do with reading more.
> Many books, plays, poems are written very elegently. In fact, the
> extermely broad vocabulary and range of things allows you to do many
> things elegently.
English is a business language. You can justify chinese by saying that
the characters are beautiful and it has a rich cultural history but you
can't do the same with a language whose single biggest purpose is to
be an international language of business.
> But you seem to think that the language that fits programmers and the
> like should be abolished for the sake of the users, because it doesn't
> fit them.
I don't think it fits programmers at all. I think C/C++ is ugly
because it *doesn't* fit programmers.
> There are plenty of braod minded programmers out there. One thing
> programmers object to is incessent whining by users that everything
> should be `better' with out any help. The users od seem to complain
> endlessly about something that is free and that they choose to aquire.
I didnt't choose to acquire Unix. If I want to run VisualWorks
Smalltalk, then I can "choose" between Windows and Unix.
What the hell kind of choice is that?
If Windows users don't have any choice then why do you suppose
Unix users have any choice??
And yeah, there /are/ plenty of broad minded programmers. Just
not nearly enough of them!
> Improving linux is in no way anti social or destructive. it hurts noone.
> You can't know that all these people who work on linux would be
> implementing your one-true-way system if they weren't working on linux.
But I'm pretty certain that if a thousand programmers stopped
programming in Unix then at least one would start programming
in /some OS/ that was a thousand times better than Unix. Even
Plan 9 would be an improvement, and that is so damned pathetic.
> How on earth does contributing to linux hurt anyone? It in no way
> hinders the development of a persistent OS. The people who want to write
> that aer still free to do so if others choose to work on linux.
Just take 1 typical Linuxer's attitude towards MS-Windows,
point this attitude towards Unix, and stir. Enlightenment soon
follows. Serves 4 to 6.
> Who is undermining you. How are they doing this? And other people
> working on a big project that they like and enjoy (linux) does not count
> other people as undermining you, unless you are very paranoid.
You definitely have to read Nikolai's paper.
Here's the short version:
there is no way in freaking hell that I can write an entire operating
system on my own along with all utilities, shells and applications
even if I write in a high-level language that makes me a hundred
times more productive than a low-level coder. So my success
depends on attracting other programmers. And my success in
*that* depends on attracting a user base. How Linux development
undermines that little venture is left as an exercise to the reader.
The same applies for *every* other OS project out there.
------------------------------
From: "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Computer and memory
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 01:23:19 GMT
"No Name" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8qdcrj$1du$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Thu, 21 Sep 2000 02:58:41 GMT, Chad Myers said:
> >
> >"Ingemar Lundin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:FR_x5.363$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >>
> >> "Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> skrev i meddelandet
> >
> >> > Of course you liberals would be just as happy selling off
> >> > everything to the Red ChiComs like Fearless Leader has
> >> > almost done.
> >> >
> >> > -Chad
> >>
> >> uh?..yeah!... whatever chad...<LoL>
> >
> >Yeah what? Fearless Leader has already sold them:
> >- Vetoes and bills for passing
> >- Nuclear power and weaponry secrets
> >- Missile guidance systems and technology
> >- global satellite guidance systems and technology
> >- Federal parks to cover up rich deposits of
> > rare minerals (like low-sulfur coal which only exists
> > on large quantities in the US(Utah) and China)
> >- Stays in the Lincoln bedroom, tours of areas of the
> > Whitehouse even American citizens don't get to see
> >- Stays at Camp David
> >- Interviews and meetings with influential congresspeople
> > and other policy makers
> >- Near full access to the Pentagon with high level clearance
> >- most-favored trade status (while turning a blind eye to
> > horrible human rights violations)
> >- Permanent favored trade status which allows them to buy
> > previously restricted goods like aircraft, weaponry (both
> > large and personal), and other advanced technology
> >- computer equipment usually only available for U.S. citizens
> > or companies with export restrictions or bans
> >- shall I continue?
> >
> >All of this is well documented. Any search engine should point
> >you to dozens of sites chronicling each and every one of
> >these actions, plus many more.
> >
> >-Chad
> >
> >
>
>
> Oh dear Chad! On top of been a troll (as you unashamedly
> showed us in the thread about MS OSs in critcial out
> space missions) now also you have all kind of
> conspiracy theories.
Conspiracy theories? Don't you watch the news? This is all
been covered by major news outlets.
I didn't go into the half of it because most of it doesn't
have as much credible evidence as the aforementioned
violations.
> Where de you live? In a cabin in the middle of Montana?
> I can see you screaming: "hurry up, hide, they are comming to
> conquer us!!!" the day you see the first British Telecomm
> van driving close by your forest to connect your cabin to the
> Internet...
It seems you're the one living in a cabin, or more appropriately
a cave as you don't seem to watch the news.
-Chad
------------------------------
From: Jim Broughton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: "Overclocking" Is A Bad Idea
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 02:04:57 GMT
"Aaron R. Kulkis" wrote:
>
> Jim Broughton wrote:
> >
> > "Donal K. Fellows" wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> > > Jim Broughton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > produce games that run on intel systems for windoze. Windoze is a great
> > game platform other than that it sucks. Now were can I get half-life for
> > a sparc system?
>
> I believe it's been ported to Linux.
>
> And if it's on Linux, you can run it on a Sparc!
> --
> Aaron R. Kulkis
> Unix Systems Engineer
> ICQ # 3056642
>
>
Not the FULL game just the server portion.
Jim Broughton
(The Amiga OS! Now there was an OS)
If Sense were common everyone would have it!
Following Air and Water the third most abundant
thing on the planet is Human Stupidity.
------------------------------
From: "Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Unix more secure, huh?
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 02:05:50 GMT
"A transfinite number of monkeys" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
: On Thu, 21 Sep 2000 10:09:19 GMT, Otto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: : : Reference please? In order to perform a remote exploit that involves
a
: : : buffer overflow, you MUST have a *connection* to the victim machine.
In
: : : the case of a SYN flood, you *never* have a completed connection.
Only
: : : one-third of the TCP connection handshake is sucessfully completed in
a
: : : SYN flood.
: :
: : Correct, syn flood is used to cause the buffer overflow. A second pc,
with
: : connection to the victim machine, is used to actually insert the
malicious
: : code.
:
: Ok, great, like I said before, reference please?
IP address please... :)
Otto
------------------------------
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