At 12/25/05 19:24, James Knott wrote:
Michael W Cocke wrote:
Why do people always say things like this? I don't give a hang if you don't like how I configure my NICs and I don't see why you should care. It works, end of discussion. If and when I get to a point where I feel the need to change how I do things just to make you happy, I'll let you know.
Perhaps people say such things, because they realize the way things are going and trying to retain old methods is futile. If you're having problems working with the old way, as some people are, perhaps it's because they're stuck in the past and unwilling to learn something new.
It's true that there comes a time when it's necessary--or at least more efficient--to update. But updating just because there's something new available isn't always appropriate. Two extreme examples: MS is trying to force "just because" updates with their new licensing procedure for their OS and their office suite. You "must" buy the upgrade every few (three?) years because they won't support the newly created legacy versions beyond those three years. Updating here benefits only the vendor, not the user. Along those lines, I work for a defense contractor, and we were using Office97 as recently as 2003--the bells and whistles in the newer versions just weren't useful to us, especially at the upgrade cost/license. We build simulators; "officing" just isn't that complex for us. Even so, when someone in our front office decided we needed to join the 20th century and upgrade to Office2000, it took us another year to do so because one of our major customers also used Office97, and they felt less of a need to upgrade their suite than we did. In the present example, the question of bouncing ethx only bothered one of us--the newbie with his newbie ignorance. That wasn't a problem for the others in this discussion. It's expensive to upgrade, even in an open source environment. If the added goodies in the newer thing aren't central to what one is doing, then it's a waste of money to upgrade. One man's must-have is another's bell and whistle. And being able to recognize the difference, and to recognize when one has become the other, puts a premium not on being stuck in the past and unwilling to learn, but on just the opposite. Then the decision to upgrade, or not, is informed rather than blindly automatic. Eric Hines There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. --Bertrand Russell