Re: To the Brotherhood of the Consoles (Warning contains Wibble)

On 30 Nov 2005 11:04:09 -0800, "Tarkin" <nuke48386@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Linux challenges you. It will test how easily you are bored or
>distracted while reading
>documentation, waiting for compiles, sifting through newsgroups &
>forums.......

But surely that isn't a good thing. Instead of reading documentation
to get a reasonable task done, I could be reading texts about
programming, which is something I actually WANT to know more about.
Instead of compiling software because a binary package isn't available
for my system, I could be using that power to do something
constructive.

>
>It will test your resourcefulness. It will test your patience. But the
>results are (in my case at least)
>well worth it. And it (in 90~95% of cases) is FREE, except the time you
>put into it.

So it's good because you have to invest time in it? I just don't
agree. It would be good if you would otherwise be using that time for
nothing, but that's rarely the case. In my opinion it's just taking up
time that could be used for more important things.

>I'm not here to join the debate on which is better- I use both, and use
>them differently for different
>things.

That's a good attitude towards the whole thing.

>I just think that people give up on Linux because their frustration
>index is too low-

I don't. I didn't give up on Linux - I spent years learning about it,
using it (first picked it up in 1999 when I was 15, abandoned it
completely last year) and had no problem with knowing what to do and
how to do it. But there was no joy in spending an hour doing something
that is done almost instantly in Windows, particularly when it was
something that I had done countless times before and taught me nothing
new. For example, fixing dependency mess isn't a rewarding task - it's
a chore that just shouldn't arise.

>whats funny is
>that some of the older hardware was just as frustrating (RAM pack
>wobble, anyone?)! Ever had your
>8bit crash, after entering 100's of lines of code? Ever had your drive
>go wonky all othe sudden,
>trashing disks & hours of work? Yet we pushed on, for the love of this
>thing called computing.

But there was no real alternative. The annoyances weren't so bad that
it was no longer worth using the computers, but when you've got a
choice why put up with the badness?
.

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