summary: MS rewards stupidity and ignorance

Story: The Virtues of MonocultureTotal Replies: 15
Author Content
tuxchick

Apr 25, 2007
12:31 PM EDT
Dear me, so the 'real world', as Mr Turner says, needs .Net in order to get anything done? So much for his FOSS creds; he implies that FOSS is not the real world.

How many different models and brands of vehicles are there? TVs? Toasters? Clothing? Houses? Tools? Cola drinks? Coffee drinks? Bread? Hamburger joints? Computers? Dear me, how does a person get along in our modern society with all of these awful choices?

dinotrac

Apr 25, 2007
12:45 PM EDT
>Dear me, how does a person get along in our modern society with all of these awful choices?

In many cases, with great stress.

Extra choice introduces extra stress into our lives. Freedom is the tradeoff for that stress.

Think about how people really live, and you'll see a lot of stress reduction --

1. Run to the same grocery store for most shopping, pick up the same brands 2. Brand loyalty 3. Follow the fashions (do what everybody else is doing, etc
dcparris

Apr 25, 2007
1:00 PM EDT
In that case, dino, I am a certified anomaly - especially in the fashions department. I still have - and wear - clothes I bought when I was in the Marines.
tuxchick

Apr 25, 2007
1:08 PM EDT
I don't think that's quite the same thing, dino. We do that after trying different things, then we settle into a comfortable rut of what we like. Most folks don't give up before they even investigate a few options, or shop at stores like 7-11 with tiny inventories. No, they beeline to SuperDuperWalMart and the World's Biggest Mall and MondoCostco and all that.

What I should have added, only I was too busy dripping sarcasm all over, is programming and computing in general are still in their infancies. Yes, I understand the frustration in trying to sort through the nine million Java Bean/Seed/Ant/Fly/Tomcat/Deaddog/Rails/Grails/Hails/Flails/Pails, and being continually bombarded with the Revolutionary New Codey Thingy of the Week that will bring world peas and make everything easy. It's nuts. It's also a wonderful creative ferment that produces great software. In general, the bad stuff will fall away, and the good stuff will evolve.

Probably the most direct path to efficiency is don't migrate to a new development platform without some really good reasons, because an experienced coder using familiar tools is always going to be more efficient and faster than someone still figuring out their shiny new Scooby Doo on Sails.

Maybe I focused too much on the "real world" phrase, but that seemed revealing to me of a mindset that doesn't really take FOSS seriously.

tuxchick

Apr 25, 2007
1:12 PM EDT
oh yeah, and when something breaks in .Nut how many of those ace pointer-clickers will be able to debug it? Ha! As if. Those things turn out lardy code anyway.
jimf

Apr 25, 2007
1:14 PM EDT
> Extra choice introduces extra stress into our lives. Freedom is the tradeoff for that stress.

Not sure it's really a 'tradeoff' Dino. More like one possible result of bucking the direction of modern society. At best freedom's a reward, though sometimes a questionable one.

> I still have - and wear - clothes I bought when I was in the Marines.

It's to your credit that you still 'can' wear those clothes :D
rijelkentaurus

Apr 25, 2007
1:16 PM EDT
Quoting: Extra choice introduces extra stress into our lives. Freedom is the tradeoff for that stress.


True, however I think TC's point is that people aren't stuck with one brand in regards to other items...and we certainly don't have the multitude of items in the OS world that we do in the cereal world. I don't think a bit more choice in the world of software will hurt anything, and the more that those choices work within established standards, the less stress people will experience. Look at the number of vehicle choices, then look consider it if they: 1) used all different forms of gas, 2) could only run on certain roads, 3) could only be driven for one year before they had to be purchased again, 4) etc. with more software-specific lock-downs. Things would be really stressful, which leads me to think that MS's disregard for standards is more to blame for all of the stress people deal with.

But I still can't decide between Cheerios and Corn Flakes, sometimes.......

Quoting: bring world peas


Mmmmmmmmmmm................
dcparris

Apr 25, 2007
1:25 PM EDT
You can have mine.
jimf

Apr 25, 2007
1:27 PM EDT
> bring world peas and make everything easy. It's nuts. It's also a wonderful creative ferment

I agree with what you were saying TC, but, also wonder what it is you're brewing? Peas? nuts? fermation??? :D
jdixon

Apr 25, 2007
1:42 PM EDT
> what it is you're brewing?

Didn't you see her post earlier about Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound?
dinotrac

Apr 25, 2007
2:00 PM EDT
World peas...

So long as I don't have to choose between peas and carrots.
jimf

Apr 25, 2007
2:00 PM EDT
@ jdixon,

Naw... I think TC just needs to stop posting during her lunch break :D
tuxchick

Apr 25, 2007
2:02 PM EDT
mmm, fermentation.
tracyanne

Apr 25, 2007
2:06 PM EDT
What you all forget is, regardless of real value, it's the CIOs that makes the choice, not Linux geeks, not Microsoft fanboi programmers. Microsoft products are well packaged and are presented as a coherent whole - they are well marketed - they seem ordered and professional, in comparison the FOSS world appears chaotic and unprofessional. To most people the air of professionalism and orderliness is impressive and desirable, it makes the purchase predictable and implies certainty, and the CIOs don't have to do much research.

Now, in point of fact Microsoft does have some excellent products, and they are well documented, and Microsoft makes great efforts to supply developers with a consistent, well documented set of tools, that for all one might abhor lock in enable a developer to concentrate on what the application should be doing, rather than what the tool should be doing, or how to set the tool up to do it's job.

I'm still struggling with Netbeans, this being the only FOSS (well CDDL) IDE I could get to work at all, it still won't talk to my MySQL database, and I can do that in an instant with Microsoft tools.

So in the end Microsoft actually has a very easy job of locking people in. For most people the Linux and FOSS toolset is a Chaotic nightmare, i'm certainly find it so, and I want to move to a Linux and FOSS toolset, so I keep on trying - CIOs in general (the vast majority actually) either don't, don't care, or are completely ignorant of FOSS tools.

In fact while we are on the subject of Microsoft vs FOSS toolsets. Lets compare MySQL and MSSQLServer. Using MSSQLServer is so easy, there is a very comprehensive GUI that enables you to litterally make the database engine roll over and do almost any trick you want. In comaprrison the MySQL GUI tools are primitive - stone axes and spears compared to M16 and hand guns.
jimf

Apr 25, 2007
2:20 PM EDT
> In comaprrison the MySQL GUI tools are primitive

Unfortunately still true. Database manipulation has come a long way in Linux, but, still has a long way to go to beat MS. Even today, something as simple as printing out a single record in a form is a major programming effort. With MS, the process takes minutes.
tuxchick

Apr 25, 2007
4:30 PM EDT
tracyanne, mr turner should have hired you to express his thoughts. You did a much better job. I might quibble over "excellent products"; I think their chief excellence is locking people in and making them too comfortable with crap code, and not understanding what's happening under the hood. But other than that, yes, I think you summed it up well.

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