Mark Knecht schreef: > To become a Linux user is a commitment. People don't make new > commitments lightly, and making a light commitment to Linux is doomed > to failure. It's far too hard to use.
This is a common 'perception', and yet again I have to object to it, because it's *wrong* (not for the reasons you think), but it's nonetheless wiping the floor with us (much in the same way that the common perception that the world was flat wiped the floor with many early potential explorers). <rant> Yes, becoming a Linux user is a commitment. I'm with you that far. But then saying that in combination with "it's far too hard to use", implying that it should be easy to use is a contradiction in terms. Operating a vehicle is also a commitment, and you have to learn to drive a car/truck/motorcycle-- you even have to learn to ride a bike. A bike is "easier" to use than a car, and a car is easier to use than a bus (I suppose), but in fact none of these vehicles is really "easy to use" and half the tools created to make it easier to use actually make it harder (how many people have trouble using a GPS system, for example?). In fact, the only 'easy' way to use a car is to get someone else to do all the hard work of driving on your behalf, since we do not yet have mental-telepathy-controlled vehicles, or transport beams ala Star Trek. Yes, of course, once you've learned to drive, it's (pretty) easy to do, but does the fact that it's easy once you've learned it mean that you can judge the task as objectively 'easy'? I don't think so-- if you have to learn how to do it, it's automatically 'hard' (or at the very least, "not easy"). Especially since, continuing with this example, learning one variant of how to perform the total operation does not enable you to 'automatically' perform any other variant knowledgeably (you can drive a car, but you can't drive a bus or a motorcycle, or an 18-wheeler). That suggests to me --because of the limits of the human animal, and because of the current design of vehicles-- that "operating a vehicle" can not ever be considered an 'easy' task, notwithstanding that many people are able to do so. Which brings us to 'commitment', proving my point. You don't make 'commitments' to tasks that are easy; you don't have to. You don't have to 'commit' to 'taking a cookie and eating it', because that's easy-- unless of course you have an eating disorder, in which case you do, because 'eating' is now no longer easy, but hard, due to your illness. *OPERATING A COMPUTER IS NOT EASY.* That's just all there is to it. The current design of computers is like a Neanderthal stone axe, for Pete's sake. It's not like a stone axe is not useful, and certainly it's better than your bare hands for chopping down a tree, but it's a long way from a gas-powered chainsaw, which is itself a long way from something like a (back to Star Trek) replicator, which would provide the result (wood, in this example), without even destroying the original source (a tree). Windows is designed with the premise that this fundamental truth should be concealed from 'users' at all costs (they've even abused monopoly power in an effort to promote the perception that using a computer is easy; yes, of course surfing all of the non-compliant sites with *IE* is 'easy", especially if you make sure that the non-compliance is built in by your free-for-the-asking design kit, fold your browser (which of course knows all the tricks) into the OS so that most 'average users' will just use it by default, and bump the competitors out of the market so that 'not-so-average' users won't wonder just what's up with why they can't view thus and so site with X browser, but can with Y(our) browser. Linux, on the other hand, doesn't see that there's anything to hide-- possibly because it was originally meant for server admins, who of course already know that operating a computer is a complex task. Now, of course, the community is all undecided about whether to break the news 'gently' to the hoped-for migrating Windows users (which is a whole sub-argument as to how to do that, or what it even means), or whether to just fling 'em in the water and let $DEITY sort 'em out. But just because Microsoft says that operating a computer is easy does not make it so-- and may I just point out that operating Windows is *not* "easy" either; leaving aside the idea that a complete reformat and reinstall is an 'easier' solution to something going wrong than editing a text file, icons and associating icons with specific programs and understanding the whole concept of files and applications is all *learned behaviour*-- thus, by definition, not 'easy'. So how is changing one *operating system* to another supposed to be an easier task than the global task of operating the computer in the first place? I mean, please. It's a commitment, yes (if only because in order to learn a behaviour, you must commit to learning and retaining what you learn), and when is commitment ever easy? "Light" commitment.... what is that? There is 'conditional' commitment, as in "I'll help you move if I don't have to stay late at work", but the only way this could be constructed as 'light commitment' is "Maybe I'll come help you move"-- which is not a commitment at all. Commitments in the real world usually have to be *sworn* before the state, and often before $DEITY. Why? Because they're so hard to carry out, and so important to be carried out properly once made, that all the power of $DEITY is sometimes needed to keep you to your promise once you've made it (it's hard, and sometimes it's too hard-- we're 'only human', after all-- and only fear of the state or $DEITY will keep you on track). This is my basic objection with the current state of society w.r.t. technology; it's made available to everyone as if it does not require commitment, but the actual state of the technology is so low that it does in fact require commitment to operate reliably/well/sometimes 'at all'. If you gave me a block of wood with a hole, a screw, and a screwdriver, all you'd have to say (assuming that I didn't know what a screwdriver was), is, "This is the tool used to put that thing in that hole," and I could screw in the screw with the tool. A child could figure it out (leaving aside the motor coordination issues involved). *That's* 'easy'. But a digital camera, an answering machine , an automobile-- they *must* have instructions, because if they didn't, you wouldn't be able to use them (or only use them at the most basic level, which makes it pointless to have gotten a device with advanced features). And if you must be instructed in order to use the device, you must commit to accepting that instruction, and there you are-- committed. If you refuse to commit to such instruction, the device goes back in the box, or is impoperly used, creating negative conditions ranging from distress, to damage to property or injury, to death of self or others, depending on the nature of the device. This is why I can't deal with all the people I encounter who suggest that 'it' should 'JustWork' without need for instruction of any sort (whether that be a physical manual, man pages, READMEs, or Windows Help files). Like humanity is sooooooo good at making stuff, and 'users' are sooooooo brilliantly educated, that they should be able to look at a computing device and immediately know what it all means (like looking at a screwhole, a screw, and a screwdriver). It's not gonna happen any time soon, and it certainly hasn't happened yet. Operating a computer safely, reliably, and with any degree of competence whatsoever is a hard and complex task, and it's going to be hard for some time to come. So for $DEITY's sake, get over it, and stop whining (not you personally, Mark). </rant> Holly -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
