Ok, this is getting really off topic but... Jordan Brown (Sun) wrote:
> Rainer Heilke wrote: > >> This analogy breaks down fairly quickly when you look at the >> audience, though. How many Windows admins do you know that develop >> their own services, for example? Yet, this is the kind of "get your >> hands dirty in the code" administrator that we (speaking at least for >> myself) are talking about. > > > ... which is precisely why UNIX, which had GUIs in 1984, lost out to > Windows, because it always catered to developers rather than to > average Joes. Do you really believe it was this simple? > If UNIX is to maintain viability, it _must_ present a reasonably safe > and easy to use interface to the 99%+ of the population that doesn't > want to get their hands dirty. So we need to provide an easy interface for them to use - I agree. > System administrators are *not* the market. System administrators are > an unpleasant burden that the real customers, the business people, > must pay for because they don't have any choice. I disagree with this. > Every year, our chums in Redmond make Windows a bit more solid and a > bit more powerful, and every year there are a few sites that decide > that they can survive on fewer administrators, less experienced > administrators, or even no formal administrators at all. If we keep > catering to the dirty-hands crowd at the expense of the people who pay > the bills, we will shrink to a hobbyist niche. Bet on it. Presenting an easy to use interface through a GUI should have *no* bearing on what happens on the command line. Darren
