🚀 go-pugleaf

Jeff Halverson (halv0019@gold.tc.umn.edu) wrote:
: jlp@cheeta.inesc.pt (Jaime Lares Rebelo Pinto) wrote:
: >Chad Irby (cirby@news.gate.net) wrote:

: >
: >    My brother didn't know a thing about computers, refused to learn DOS,
: >but with just a few hours of help, he started using my Mac. I sold it to
: >him, and since then he does his works very well on it, alone, for his
: >university studies (not related with computation). Does his brilliant works
: >matter? No, because he doesn't even know what sendmail is, and his Mac
: >doesn't have a PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING OS yet.

: Okay.  Fine.  Why doesn't your brother buy a Typerwriter?  (What?  You say a 
: typewriter is not as flexible???  Yeah.  Thats my point.)

    My brother uses word processing, but he uses other applications too,
like spread sheet, graphic specific tools, drawing tools, and games. But
he only started using the computer because he realized that it was easy
to learn to use it productively, by seeing me using it. Now he
likes to do things with computers (ate least with a Mac), not to learn
about computers.

    The MacOS and the software that runs on it offers lots of flexibility,
for the things he uses it for. He wouldn't be more productive on unix, and he
wouldn't even learn it.

: >
: >    My Mac only crashed about 4 or 5 times during the last year, all of
: >them because of badly designed freeware/shareware/demos I was testing.
: >I didn't lose a single document because of it, not even a bit of a
: >document did I lose. And I use it almost every day. Does this matter?
: >No, because it doesn't have PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING yet.

: My Linux box has _NEVER_ crashed due to misbehaving software.  Yes, I've had 
: poorly written programs crash, but _NEVER_ has it taken down the system with it.  

    But you can't say you lose less work than me, since I didn't lose any.

: The Mac IIsi at work, on the other hand, crashes under MacTCP at least once 
: every day.

    May be the problem is just a configuration problem, or may be you should
use unix for the kind of things you do. I think that it's a mistake to
believe that we all should always use MacOS, as it is a mistake to think
that we all should always use unix. For some tasks and for servers unix
can be very good, and is complexity is justifiably, while Macs with MacOS
can be wonderful personal computers.
 
: >
: >    Is it all clear now? You were having problems understanding their point
: >of view, because you were thinking about the end user, instead of thinking
: >about the programmer, the system administrator, and, most important of all,
: >PREEMPTIVE MULTITASKING.

: I don't care for any of these marketing words (Preemtive Multitasking) created 
: only to PROVE one system is better than the other (ie.  Preemtive Multitasking, 
: RISC, etc.)  You can toy with syntax all you want.  When I concider my 
: experience with MacOS, Linux, Windows, etc, I _know_ what does what I want it to 
: do w/ the least pain.  I also know what system has the most potential to support 
: future developments!  (Open systems and community built/designed freeware is a 
: much faster development model!)   

    As it was said before, you can have a very good environment to develop
for the Mac, and some things are much easier to develop on a Mac than on
Linux.

    Open systems can give way to a state near chaos, with all kind of
incompatibilities, as you find in the IBM compatible world; Unix is very
complex and there are to much flavors of it; I believe that the Mac is
the best solution for most people, when it comes to personal computers.

    You, however, don't have to fit in the Mac world. If Linux is the
best for your own purposes, go with it. But it seems to me unreasonable
to expect most people to learn it, or to be able to have a system
administrator for it.

[...]
: Jeff Halverson


    Cheers,
    Jaime.