On Tue, 03 May 2011 08:10:26 -0600 Stuart Jansen <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-05-03 at 07:34 -0600, Charles Curley wrote: > > Oh, lighten up. All of you. There are times and places for > > "immature" humor, and times and places where it is inappropriate. > > Learn which is which. I think that most of the PLUG crew are mature > > enough to handle that. > > I'm tired of listening to people praise Linux and bag on Windows > without really knowing much about either. Agreed. If you are going to criticize something know your subject well enough to offer cogent arguments. > > I'm passionate about Linux. I think it's safe to say that I know a > fair deal about Linux. Agreed. > So you can be certain I know what I'm saying > when I tell you that Linux sucks. Hard. Linux has its problems, but saying that it "sucks. Hard." is engaging in exactly the same childishness you claim to abhor. If I didn't know you I would challenge you to be more specific, but I know you are capable of it. > > Linux meets my needs better than Windows, but that's not true for > everyone. If you can't name at least 10 things that Windows does > better, you're either not trying or not paying attention. Fair enough. > > Think about it. I'm not afraid to be abrasive, and yet I make a big > deal about childish insults like Winblows and Micro$oft. It's because > I've seen how destructive that attitude is. As I said above, there is a time and place for it. Many things are good when properly used, destructive when ill used. Guns. Governments. > > I don't care what you say, if you're calling people lusers behind > their backs you're not going to be able to do your job as well as you > should. You're always starting from the position that "it's probably > the users fault, why don't they spend as much time learning computers > as I did"? Well guess what, most applications are poorly designed and > most people view computers as tools instead of toys. I agree in general. But be careful not to stereotype. Not everyone who has a sense of humor looks down on newbies. Simply exercising a bit of word play is not evidence of elitism. > > I've seen the destructive stereotyping about Windows admins. You might > not want to admit it, but if you're throwing around childish insults > your first reaction on meeting a Windows admin is probably "must've > been too stupid to hack Linux". Now you are stereotyping again. I've known some excellent Windows admins, and learned a lot from them, about Windows and other things. In some ways Windows is much harder to administer than Linux. > Now I can tell you that's not true. > I've met many smart and professional Windows admins. Fact is, we in > the Linux world could learn something from their "just get the job > done" culture. That too has its place, but also there are places where it is inappropriate. I worked in the film industry, where the motto seems to be, "there's plenty of time to do it over but not enough time to do it right." That's a very expensive attitude. I say, "Get the job done. But do it right, so you don't have to do it over." > > The corrosive culture of childish insults must die. Well, good luck on that one. As the line from Inherit the Wind says, "Darwin was wrong. Man is still an ape." As long as men are men there will be childish insults. Deal with it. For childish insults to go away, man will have to evolve into something utterly different, and probably into something neither of us would like. > I'm not willing to > endorse it with my silence. It is destructive. Yes. > It is a big deal. No. > And > I'm not going to sit by quietly and watch yet another generation get > sucked into it. Yell all you want to, but inveighing against the immaturity of the human race like some political correctness police or some WCTU harpy is itself pretty immature. -- Charles Curley /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign Looking for fine software \ / Respect for open standards and/or writing? X No HTML/RTF in email http://www.charlescurley.com / \ No M$ Word docs in email Key fingerprint = CE5C 6645 A45A 64E4 94C0 809C FFF6 4C48 4ECD DFDB /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
