Lars Müller said the following on 12/08/2011 07:51 AM:
When do we finally manage to keep it simple stupid?
Oh? Somewhere along the line Microsoft has been both "dumbing down" and "educating up" users. They now know how to use the mouse, pull down menus and such. Microsoft has introduced many radical (?!?!) features like the floating menus strip (or do you call it tear-off menus?), the "do everything via a GUI" approach and the supporting APIs that mean the GUI is not simply a front-end for the "command line behind the scenes". The cost of this, for many users (and that includes sysadmins) is that what were difficult, multi-step, multi-decision tasks at the command line level are now GUI-fied and don't need a great deal of understanding. I'm not saying my cat can configure Windows, but seeing how some Windows sysadmins just bat the mouse around I'm not sure there is a lot of difference. Does this mean that computing has gone the same way as the automobile industry where, in the search for profit, a hormone crazed, distracted, irresponsible, immature sixteen year old can drive two tons of poorly maintained (and possibly uninsured) Detroit Iron down the highway at breakneck speeds while drunk, stoned and deafened by a sound system that is worth more than the car itself and which compete with the the THX system at my local theatre, but is treated the same as the eco-conscious 40-year-old experienced driver in the Prius or that minuscule thing from BMW or one of the Fiat things with a small engine that would barely match a Lambretti scooter -- except possibly by the people managing risk, the Insurance companies. I think it has; we've adopted a "one size fits all" approach to installing; and to a great deal with the overall facilities and UI. Standardization and mass production and all that. To be fair, though, not all of us are regular installers. Perhaps an install system that is a "bit dumb in places" is useful even for those of us who are experienced with _running_ systems. -- Virtually every major technological advance in the history of the human species-- back to the invention of stone tools and the domestication of fire-- has been ethically ambiguous. --Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World) -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org