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The Biggest Cults In Tech

bobby f. writes "Infoworld has published its list of the biggest cults in tech — including Palmists, Newtonians, Commodorians, the Brotherhood of the Ruby, IBM power systems fanboys, Ubuntu-ists, and Lispers. A pretty fun read (unless you really are a cult member)." Although I think it's pretty clear that the Apple camp isn't an opinionated cult, they're just always right. Fire away.

12 of 397 comments (clear)

  1. TFA In One Page by BabyDuckHat · · Score: 5, Informative
  2. Re:Perl? by jgtg32a · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm not so sure, from what I can tell Perl is just a really good community, they know their limitations.

  3. Ye Olde Apple Cult by russotto · · Score: 4, Informative

    Name: The Cult of Apple, Orthodox
    Gathering of the Tribes: None since the diaspora
    Major Deity: Steve Wozniak
    Antichrist: Steve Jobs
    Sacred Relics: The original Apple I, green screen monitors, the Disc II
    Mantra: Apple II Forever

  4. Re:Why Windows isn't a cult by calmofthestorm · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not all X users are X fanbois. I have a ubuntu using friend who hates it. He switched away from windows awhile back. Why does he stick with ubuntu? It sucks less, in his estimation. And it makes more intuitive sense (He's a chemist without much computer knowledge, but still technically-minded.)

    I love linux and think it will solve all the world's problems from swine flu to windows vista. I am a fanboi.

    But very few windows users are fanbois. Only a few actually like windows. OS X, nearly all its users seem to be drooling fanbois, but as you say this seems to be changing, and this may just be the set I know.

    Linux is somewhere in between I find, but I'm at a tech school, and around here linux outnumbers windows anyway with os x being a clear leader.

    --
    93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
  5. Re:Perl? by whoever57 · · Score: 2, Informative

    What about Perl?

    The language with a "bless" command -- definitely one for cults!

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  6. Wot, no NetWare? by marquis111 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Established: 1983
    Gathering of the tribes: Brainshare
    Major deity: Ray Noorda
    Minor deities: Drew Major, Dale Neibaur, Kyle Powell, Mark Hurst
    The Antichrist: Bill Gates
    Tool of the downfall: TCP/IP? What's that?
    Holy Relics: IPX/SPX
    Most arcane incantation: dsrepair

    Just saying, it should have been on the list at least.

  7. Re:They missed out C programmers by ceifeira · · Score: 2, Informative

    def fib(n):
        if n == 0 or n == 1:
            return n
        else:
            return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)

    for i in range(36):
        print "n=%d => %d" % (i, fib(i))

    real    0m20.272s
    user    0m20.225s
    sys    0m0.024s

    #include <stdio.h>

    int fib (int n)
    {
      if (n == 1 || n == 0) return n;
      else return (fib (n - 1) + fib (n - 2));
    }

    int main (int argc, char *argv[])
    {
      register int i = 0;
      for (i; i < 35; i++)
        {
          printf("n=%i %i\n", i, fib(i));
        }
    }

    real    0m0.476s
    user    0m0.472s
    sys    0m0.004s

  8. author is a rookie - didn't list OS/2 cult by Locutus · · Score: 2, Informative

    No OS/2 shows an obvious lack of knowing the history of computer software and operating systems.

    LoB

    --
    "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
  9. Re:They missed out C programmers by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah, but try running fib(100) and your answers are still wrong. Lisp gets the right answer. And does it quickly because you can compile it, too.

    --
    That is all.
  10. Re:Cult #1 by keeboo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Name: Commodore Amiga OS

    You mean Commodore Amiga as whole.
    During the second half of 1990s, after the original chipset started to show its age, a faction appeared insisting that the true value was the OS itself.
    The OS was great (the kernel, datatypes, installable filesystems, the modularized structure etc), but I think what made the machine mythical was the whole stuff. It was an overload of perfection.

    Major Deity: Jay Butterfield

    I guess you mean Jay Miner.

    Believed Antichrist: Commodore management True Antichrist: Wintel empire

    I think it was the opposite. Amigans loathed x86 and DOS/Windows (it was indeed crap), but what really killed the platform was those Commodore management dumbasses.
    It's a long history but basically they wasted lots of money in bad or plain stupid products (PC clones, x86-compatibility boards, A600...) and let the platform development stagnate (the stillborn AAA chipset, the switch from 68k processors to PA-RISC the engineers were considering etc).

    Major religious rituals: Multitasking 100 programs at once,(...)

    I personally liked to emulate a 68k Mac (actually it was more like a virtualization), then inside that emulate a x86, then inside that a DOS ZX-Spectrum emulator playing a game.
    In parallel, a number of programs (like www browser, IRC client etc), as usual.

    Sounds like no big deal nowadays, but back then it was different.
    Mac OS was a joke (it lacked preemptive multitasking for years, programs used static memory alocation, it crashed if you coughed nearby etc), no comments on Windows 3.x, Windows 95 was not immediately viable. OS/2 worked well, but it was heavy and lacked apps (then it died).

  11. Re:Cult #1 by dido · · Score: 4, Informative

    I wonder how this got modded up, as it's demonstrably false. There are no secret books of the Bible, or secret doctrines relating to the Catholic faith. There are, however, many writings throughout the centuries that the Catholic Church has deemed heretical and censored. Big difference between the two. Anyone caught practicing or even reading of those heretical beliefs that were censored in the Church's heyday would have been burned at the stake or worse. Everything, however, relating to orthodox Catholic doctrine has always been openly and freely exchanged to anyone who wanted to practice the religion at least ever since the Roman persecutions ended in 311 AD. There is nothing of the hierarchical initiations you see in Freemasonry or Scientology for instance, where secret mysteries are revealed as you ascend.

    --
    Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
  12. Re:Cult #1 by mark-t · · Score: 2, Informative

    You appear to presume that it was practiced in latin because it was desired to keep it secret. If this were the case, it would likely have been practiced in a language of the church's own invention rather than one that was, at the time the r/c church appears to have originated, a still living language. Indeed, its use was maintained for as long as it was not because of any particular desire for secrecy, but because they placed importance on the precise manner in which they traditionally practiced their rituals since the time that they started. I won't deny that it created quite distinct feelings of distancing people from the contents of the roman catholic faith, however. But, this can easily be seen as a side effect of their values, rather than deliberate intent except insomuch as one wants to read deliberate intent into their reluctance to change how they practiced their rituals, which I had already said, they had placed a high level of importance on.