🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3vchm7$8ok@park.uvsc.edu>, Terry Lambert <terry@cs.weber.edu> wrote:


>In fact, I have repeatedly made statements to the effect that we
>are *NOT* talking about users who do the effective equivalent of
>systems level work (programming or administration) on *EITHER*
>platform.
   
   But what is administration? Most things are administration.

>We are talking applications programming and end user use of canned
>software.

  Installing most moderately complex canned software, on almost any
machine, gets pretty close to system administration. Installing any
software that relies on system capabilities that aren't there initially. 
   Lets face it - your attitude that it Unix is superiour, because it is
more stable once set up by an experienced administrator, and left just as
it is in terms of major installed software, system updates, etc. does not
really make it superiour to many people. In a more realistic situation
(new software being installed often, new machines being added to networks
quite often, sometimes on an ad hoc basis for a visitor or special event,
people requesting new capabilities all the time) then Macs win a lot -
they have crashes more often, sure. But when they do they solve them
quickly by themselves 90% of the time, while unix problems are usually
major crises. 
   I administer a large, primarily Mac network. My users have wildly
varying needs and software, and computer knowledge. If I gave them all
Unix accounts I would quickly go quite mad from having to personally
install, administer, teach, etc. everything. But the Macs are fine. Not
that Unix is not sometimes the best - they all have Unix mail accounts,
for example. And most of them have telnet to get at various other Unix
boxes around the place, mostly things that run one large, multi-user,
complex and important app - our library system for example. But as user
workstations, Macs are vastly superiour, because of my time saved. The 80%
Macs here are less troublesome than the 20% PCs (and the handful of Unix
boxes).

>After acknowleding that, we can dicuss CASE tools, code coverage,
>branch path analysis, and version control, all issues which bear
>on whether a third party OS extension will interoperate with your
>particular copy of *whatever* OS.
>
   Which illustrates the problem. On Unix, you could do this, with an
expensive consultant, for a few hours. On a Mac, give it a try, and work
it out for yourself in a day or two. Sorry, all the above is overkill when
all you want to know is wether some complex app that adds to your system
(Freehand or Illustrator, say) will run on your machine. Hiring a
consultant for a couple of hours to work it out is not appropriate.
   Cheers
            David
>
>                                        Terry Lambert
>                                        terry@cs.weber.edu

-- 
David Cake
davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au

Faculty of Arts
University of Western Australia