On Fri, Sep 25, 1998 at 11:35:44AM -0400, Brett Lorenzen wrote:
> Got a fortune today at log-in that pretty much sums up this NT vs. Linux
> thing:
>
> `Fast. Powerful. Easy to use. Now, pick two.'
> -- Olde Programming Proverb
>
> The only caveat is, "affordable" should be in there, too.
>
> The determining factor, though is this: Linux can become all 4 with
> time. NT probably can't hit three of them with concurrent success (and
> then only fast, powerful and easy to use . . . with affordability being
> something that applies to mmillionaires. ;)
>
Linux is already there. It's free, it's fast, and it's powerful.
"Easy to use"? Depends on how you measure it. It's my contention
that once a standard suite of (bloated!) applications like a word
processor, spreadsheet, etc., is loaded up, that the environment
that the end user sees -- a windowing system plus the applications --
is just as easy to use as that of Windows et.al. And it's certainly
more predictable and robust.
Y'see, Unix has been given this "hard to use" label for nearly 20
years now. Back in the early 80's, some luser named "Donald Norman"
wrote an article in Datamation called "The Trouble With Unix" ranting
about it. Never mind that he made factual errors in nearly every
sentence in the article; never mind that he clearly never bothered
to even try to read the manual; never mind that he was completely
wrong; the label stuck and has been with us since.
And because a lot of people have bought into it -- with help from
Microsoft FUD, for example -- a lot of money has been poured down
the toilet, wasted on projects where people tried to coax VMS and NT
and other systems into doing things that Unix eats for breakfast.
It is no accident that the Internet was built on Unix. It is no
accident that all significant development on the Internet continues
to take place on Unix. It is no accident that Linux systems are
taking the world by storm, replacing Windows systems in the same
way that Berkeley Unix replaced VMS. Y'see, techies like systems
that are easy-to-use *too*, and Unix/Linux would not even be
remotely close to this popular if it wasn't.
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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