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Information Overload Overblown, Says Gates
Aarthi writes "Microsoft's annual CEO meet-and-greet kicked off on Thursday with the company's Chairman, Bill Gates, countering the notion that the workers today are not overloaded with information.'We still want a lot of information.' He also outlined plans for Office 12, the next version of its desktop software, which is due to arrive in the second half of next year." From the article: "There is a real temptation that the thing that comes in the latest is the one you shift your attention to, even though that may be the least important...That turns you into a filing clerk."
I'm a fairly technical user, not a tech god by any stretch of the imagination, but I know my way around. I know how to forward ports on my router, I do all my own XVID rips from Vdub, I can install most Linux distros without a problem, and I'm damned proficient at packages like Photoshop and Illustrator. In addition, I'm a gamer from back in the DOS days, so concepts like editing text files (config.sys, autoexec.bat, etc) don't necessarily scare me.
That said, as much as I like the concept of Linux, I simply will not try it any longer until I hear that a number of problems have been solved.
A) Having to recompile kernels/worrying that apps will be broken by upgrading that kernel. For that matter, I don't want to have to compile anything, ever. Just to make this clear, never. Come up with either something akin to Windows where I click on a standard installer, or make it like Mac where I just drag and drop the folder.
B) Any time I'm forced to drop to a command line, you as a developer have failed. Back 10 years ago, this may have been acceptable. In this day and age, it isn't. Furthermore, while once in a blue moon I may change a text file in Windows, in Linux it's a constant occurence. Again, you have failed.
C) MAN pages do not cut it. Neither does a message board where half the time I'll be called a clueless n00b, 25% of the time I'll be told to use a different distro, and the other 25% of the time I'll get genuinely helpful people giving me contradictory answers. If I'm expected to jump to an alien computing environment you'd best make sure your documentation is up to snuff. Linux sucks in this regard.
I'm an advanced user who's in favor of open source, but the bizarre, arcane, and technical details I have to jump through to achieve the same things that are comparatively simple in Mac or Windows may Linux a deal breaker. You will never, ever, become successful on the desktop until idiocy like this is exorcised from the OS.
A synopsis of why Linux is a cult religion.
There are four basic steps to establishing a cult religion. They are;
Step 1: Pick a ridiculous icon.
Step 2: Choose a name for your cult.
Step 3: Define yourself.
Step 4: Write down your tenets.
A comprehensive history of how the linux penguin came to be can be found at
http://www.sjbaker.org/tux/. This is the main reference site for this
article. All quotes have been obtained there, unless otherwise stated.
It is important to note that the opening words of the Holy Bible are "In the
beginning..." Genesis 1:1. The reference site opens with the words, "In the
beginning..." This is no mere coincidence, as will be shown.
Detail
======
Step 1: Pick a ridiculous icon.
Checking out the opposition was an absolute must for Linus. Every Tom, Dick and Harry was out there with a cult. It wasn't going to be easy to find an icon for the linux cult, so the linuxfux had to do some research. They were competing with ancestors, cosmic schemes, cows, rats, the sun, the moon, the earth, stars, snakes, turtles, planets, aliens, crystals, ufo's, light, dark, evil spirits, crying and/or bleeding statues, and goodness knows what else.
The hard part was to pick something that hadn't been used before. Heck, even the atheists have an invisible pink unciorn. They tried trombones, grand pianos, accoustic guitars, commodes, Marilyn Monroe's underwear, and even Linus Torvald's underwear. The last one was not very good good because Linus Torvalds was, at that stage, a pipsqueak of an excuse for a human being, and
most linuxfux are very fat, and very pimply. That last point will not be lost on those familiar with the more recent appearance of Torvlads.
Now, you may think that using Linus' underwear as an icon a bit strange. You may also wonder how people could bring themselves to believe that Linus' underwear is the font of all spiritual knowledge, but just think! Linus wore them, they gave him spiritual enlightenment and, of course, everyone who knows Linus Torvalds has heard the harmonious tunes coming from that
direction.
In the end, the linuxfux chose a paunchy, naked penguin. Yes, the penguin is naked! Just like Didney's fantasy character, Porky Pig. The Linux Penguin has no pants.
So, how was the ridiculous, gormloos looking, naked, pauchy penguin chosen?
Linus Torvalds: "Yes, I was bitten by a penguin, but it wasn't actually very ferocious. It was really just a pigmy penguin about 6 inches tall or something, and it was more of a timid nibble ("is this finger a see before me a small fish, or what?"). Even so, I like penguins a lot."
So, there you have it. A mind-association between "pigmy," "timid nibble" and Linux. All well-balanced people, that is, Windows users, will see the irony in that Freudian association.
Some quotes from Linus on the penguin;
Thu, 9 May 1996 17:48:56 +0300 (EET DST)
"Anyway, this one looks like the poor penguin is not really strong enough to
hold up the world, and it's going to get squashed. Not a good, positive
logo, in that respect.."
As you can plainly see, Linus is attempting to place the penguin on a pedestal. The very same pedestal as the three great religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, that "hold up the world."
In the same usenet post, and in the very next paragraph, Linus exhorts is eager new cult recruits thus;
"Now, when you think about penguins, first take a deep calming breath, and then think "cuddly". Take another breath, and think "cute". Go back to "cuddly" for a while (and go on breathing), then think "contented"."
Compare that exhortation with the following quote from
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/yoga/yoga_06.htm l
"A Yoga student is always happy, and is never worried or vexed. Yoga prescribes Santosha or contentmen
Computing is a fast-paced field. What was cutting edge yesterday is as
outdated as a pet rock today. Newer, more efficient technologies are
always being developed. The 8" floppy gave way to the 3.5" floppy
which was later replaced by the CD-R. The acoustic modem eventually
yielded to the DSL/Cable modem. Unix was overtaken by Windows XP. And
so on.
The same technology also applies to programming languages. C yielded
to C++ which gave way to C#. However, the time has come for a complete
paradigm shift in programming. I propose a de facto migration towards
a relatively new, but promising language known as assembly.
Most of you are probably unfamiliar with this langauge. I know I was
until I chanced upon it in my community college while completing my
MCSE. So allow me to give you a little background on this language:
C++ and Java do not allow the programmer to directly access the
hardware. Instead they compile into a "bytecode" which is then
interpretted by a virtual machine. While very portable, this limits
the speed of Java and C++ programs.
Assembly, however, was designed to allow the programmer *direct
access* to the hardware! This makes for *much* faster programs.
Furthermore, assembly is the same language "spoken" by computers.
Because of this, you may sometimes see assembly referred to as
"machine code".
I fear that without the support of a large corporation (the way MS has
pushed Java, or Sun supported C#) assembly will fall by the wayside
like many other interesting languages (Python, I'm looking at you!)
Thus I hope to start a "grass-roots" movement to support assembly. I
would like to see the FSF release a GNU-based assembly compiler
(although they can keep the bugs that have plagued the 3.0 release of
gcc which caused people to switch to Visual Studio for their Linux
programming.)
I would love to expound on the superiority of assembly over C++/Java
but I'm late for my "Intro to TCP/IP" class. Those of you familiar
with assembly, please feel free to educate the many ignorant
C/C++/Java users on the glory of this superior language.
We'll be able To