Confessions of a SysAdmin

Mr.Fork writes "Scott Merrill from CrunchGear has a confession. He really, really hates computers. He writes: 'No, really, I hate them. I love the communications they facilitate, I love the conveniences they provide to my life, and I love the escapism they sometimes afford; but I actually hate the computers themselves. Computers are fragile, unintuitive things — a hodge-podge of brittle hardware and opaque, restrictive software.' Does his editorial speak to all of us in similar IT-related fields? Do we all silently hate the complexities and idiosyncrasies computers have, like error messages and UI designs that make no sense to the common user, which make our tech professions miserable?"

Comments

Which make our tech professions miserable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which make our tech professions possible.

Re:Which make our tech professions miserable?

[blackraven14250]

Rephrased: If there weren't problems to fix, there would be no jobs in fields to fix these things. If every user had an intuitive knowledge of everything the system does, there would be no jobs fixing them.

Re:Which make our tech professions miserable?

[Captain Splendid]

Which make our tech professions possible.

Which still has no bearing on whether I like it. I'm with Mr Merrill on this one. Playing with computers sure was fun in the beginning. It's 2010 now, and I'm still dealing with retarded ideas or retarded implementations of otherwise good ideas. I'm not suggesting the computer should ever stop evolving, but as I look around, I see a lot of stuff that should just simply be "good enough", not in beta, not difficult to integrate, not a placeholder until the next revision.

Re:Which make our tech professions miserable?

[mindstrm]

At one point I would have been in the same camp as you guys - then I gained enlightenment and learned that the job of being a sysadmin was more than just playing around with computers. It's also about managing corporate expectations, resources, budgets, and all kinds of stuff.... and if you do it right, it's still just as fun as it used to be.

If you've been doing sysadmin for 10 years and you are still fixing people's workstations then of course you hate it - you aren't moving up in the world - you're doing a job that someone fresh out of school should be doing.

Macs?

[melikamp]

a hodge-podge of brittle hardware and opaque, restrictive software

Sounds like Steve Jobs can claim another victim.

Re:Macs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like Steve Jobs can claim another victim.

The real shame is that the poster will probably never experience the computing environment that is provided by the Macintosh. Wincrap spoils a lot of people's attitudes concerning computers and they don't try anything else.

Re:Macs?

[mikael_j]

I know you were aiming for a "funny" mod but in my experience macs tend to be some of the most stable consumer computers (short of custom-built machines where the person who built it spent a lot of time researching the parts and then testing that everything worked satisfactory before beginning to actually use the machine). Compared to the average whitebox OEM Wintel machine (or even Dell, HP and similar desktops) I've had much less trouble with macs, sure there are still problems but when we bought 40+ Dell and Fujitsu-Siemens machines (various models) at work our helpdesk guys ended up having to return almost half of the machines in the first couple of months due to overheating issues, glitchy NICs and other stuff that should "just work". That's what you get when you consistently go with the cheapest possible parts (sometimes a few cents difference on a chip that costs ~$1 can make a big difference) and you're always hopping between different models and manufacturers to always get the lowest possible hardware cost.

Re:Macs?

[yotto]

Well on the Linux I use (Debian) I type a single command to install most any software package. Sometimes I have to type a couple commands to uninstall, but I generally don't uninstall programs.

I remember the days when installing something on Linux was hard. Those days are gone unless you're holding onto the wrong distro.

Re:Macs?

[peragrin]

and where do you find which command? how do you know the package name? where is that information. how do you know what's in each package? what happens when your distro doesn't have the package you want?

The linux command line is only useful if you happen to have memorized the hundreds of commands and their modifiers. If you don't know what you need to get started with however it is very very difficult to learn.

Re:Macs?

[yotto]

I'll grant you that. There is a lot to learn to get started and it can be frustrating. Likewise, getting all those muscles working right to walk can be hard, and all those RULES for driving are a pain. But I love walking and I love driving because I know how and find them fun. If some idiot cuts me off and drives 5 mph under the speed limit, I don't hate DRIVING. I hate THAT GUY. Likewise, if some idiot makes a crappy program or whatnot, I don't hate my computer for it. I get mad at him and move on.

Re:Macs?

[keeboo]

and where do you find which command? how do you know the package name? where is that information. how do you know what's in each package? what happens when your distro doesn't have the package you want?

No need to worry: install Ubuntu.
Since Ubuntu is based on Debian, it has a huge package collection thus chances are it has everything you need.
And use its graphic package manager.

What else do you need?

Re:Macs?

[apoc.famine]

Dude, you're about 5-10 years behind on your linux hatred. That or you're about 80 IQ points dumber than you think you are.

The linux command line is god damn useful if you only know three commands. The more you know, the more useful it is.

To bitch about how hard it is to install stuff on linux shows real ignorance. 5-10 years ago, yes, it was a bitch. I will fully give you that. In 2001-2003 or so when I was playing around with linux, it was terrible. Currently, it blows windows out of the water. My mom's a retired librarian, and she can use the package manager in Ubuntu just fine. As a "sysadmin", I'd hope you could do better than her.

and where do you find which command? how do you know the package name? where is that information. how do you know what's in each package? what happens when your distro doesn't have the package you want?

Aaaah, you "sysadmin" from mom's basement. Got it. For the record, on Ubuntu, it's apt, apt-get to install and remove stuff, apt-cache to search for programs and get more information on them. Google can help you a lot with these things. As can the myriad of user guides and forums dedicated to new users.

But you really didn't want answers, did you?

Re:Macs?

[bjourne]

Your personal anecdotes are very impressing. Truly, why would anyone need studies or facts when we have stories like yours. Personally I haven't seen a mac break down but the two guys at work using them look gay.

I don't hate computers

[eln]

I love computers. I wouldn't have gotten into the field if I didn't love them. The ones I hate are the developers who write the shitty bug-ridden code that gets loaded onto computers that I have to support.

Re:I don't hate computers

[SplashMyBandit]

Yeah. The computer hardware is mostly fine. Mostly it's the software that sucks - and I say this speaking as a software developer. Some software sucks less than others though (we're sick of O/S and tools flamewars so please don't start). Some software still has crappy short-sighted design after twenty years, while in some is improving to the point its a joy to use and you don't have to think about it as much as you used to - mostly you get on with doing what you need to do instead of wrestling with drivers and patches etc. Which is the point of the exercise after all.

Sounds like he doesn't hate computers nearly as much as the bad design of the software that runs on them.

Re:I don't hate computers

[DaMattster]

Let's tack on to this: the closed source, crappy programs that we must put up with or be unemployed.

Re:I don't hate computers

[Anonymous Coward]

He did and you came out

Re:I don't hate computers

[VGR]

I am in hearty agreement. It's the software that's just awful awful awful. Notice every complaint in the article is actually a software complaint.

And most disheartening of all is that we can't write better software, outside of the FOSS world. Just try to write good software. And I mean really good, intuitive software, with useful errors and help messages that actually tell a user what he can do about the problem. Software that behaves well and doesn't act like it owns the computer and doesn't step on all the other software. I've been trying to do it for twenty years, and it's clear no company is interested in paying for that kind of development. Welcome to the world of low-quality everything.

Re:I don't hate computers

[abigor]

Well there you go then, you are in a shit-dispensing part of the food chain. Well done!

If you think you have it bad, go and visit one of your admins some time or, even worse, someone in tech support *shudder*

Re:I don't hate computers

[SeaFox]

[blockquote]Yeah. The computer hardware is mostly fine. Mostly it's the software that sucks - and I say this speaking as a software developer. Some software sucks less than others though (we're sick of O/S and tools flamewars so please don't start). Some software still has crappy short-sighted design after twenty years...[/blockquote]

I hate that this software is able to exist after so long because it's not forced out of he marketplace for being crappy. It seems the primary reason is purchasing decisions for large companies made by people who don't personally have to use the product. The software company comes in an dazzles them with their marketing team and afterwards it's the rank and file employees who get stuck with it.

Re:I don't hate computers

[xero314]

And most disheartening of all is that we can't write better software, outside of the FOSS world.

As much as I agree with your sentiment, you are not going to find any better quality on average in the FOSS world. Which I have never understood because there is no excuse for it in the FOSS world where there are no deadlines and no PHBs.

Re:I don't hate computers

[frank_adrian314159]

I love computers. I wouldn't have gotten into the field if I didn't love them.

Yeah, so did I. But that was thirty years ago. I've seen the industry take so many wrong turns since then I'm alternately astonished, appalled, and amused now. That's why I'm a manager now... well, that and the money. I try all the time to get the guys who work for me to understand that, for most users, simpler = better.

I get pissed off every time some stupid OS vendor (Microsoft, Apple, or Linux distro) changes its API for no apparent benefit to the customer or because some jack-off OS developer wants a new flavor of the day. I get saddened every time some poor user gets run into their individual brick walls because some crappy hardware vendor decided to save a nickel on a mobo component. So all of you wankers who are bitching about the "walled garden" model, all I can say is that you brought it on yourselves. You made your systems so crappy and hard to use that no one wants to deal with the crappiness anymore. They'll sacrifice their "freedoms" (which they didn't really want in the first place) for simplicity. And, in the end, you'll be the ones screwed, with no interesting APIs and nothing new and shiny to play with. And all because you couldn't see past your own need for complexity to keep you mentally entertained while you cranked out yet another for loop (and didn't develop the languages that had the for loops internalized so you could map functions onto collections without a bunch of hideous repetitive syntax, anyhow).

I didn't understand this ten years ago when I told an industry luminary that I wanted to make things simpler for the programmer. He looked at me and said "Don't talk to me about programmers. I don't give a shit about how hard it is for the programmers. I want things simple for the users." He was so right.

Of course, maybe I'm cranky because it's late on Friday and I have a cold. Yeah... that's it...

Re:I don't hate computers

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I am in hearty agreement. It's the software that's just awful awful awful. Notice every complaint in the article is actually a software complaint.

I think you give way too much credit to hardware designers. When the hardware design is botched or just monumentally stupid its the driver writer that has to come up with some kind of hackneyed work-around to at least make the hardware somewhat workable. For example, a card that generates spurious interrupts - it just may not be possible to accurately determine which interrupts to discard and which ones to process without totally blowing performance. So what gets blamed when the card runs too slow? The driver. What gets blamed when the driver is changed to run fast but now it isn't 100% stable? The driver.

Sure there are a lot of poorly written apps out there, but there is bad hardware too, it just isn't as obvious to regular users that the root cause is crappy hardware.

Re:I don't hate computers

[Kaboom13]

There's some bullshit in modern computer hardware design too though. Consider X86. It's inferior to man architectures, but it still exists because the install base for it is so huge it can't be stopped. BIOS seriously sucks, they are all different, love to use arcane terms, often vary wildly even in models form the same vendor in the same product line, and the process to upgrade them is often fraught with danger. Printers need drivers, that are generally platform specific, even on basic models. Hard drives can fail (and fail often) in ways that silently corrupt data with no indication to the user or the OS. ECC has existed for decades yet consumer machines never have it, leading to memory problems causing seemingly random, unrelated issues, that only an in depth low level memory analysis can solve ( requiring you to know the problem before you know the cause). Hardware RAID is often arcane, and a simple mistake can destroy your entire array. Manufacturers save pennies on parts like capacitors by using parts with ratings lower then the design required, resulting in expensive repairs. OEM's release equipment using draft or early revisions of specs that cause weird, hard to diagnose compatibility problems. SSD's could be the single largest performance increase for your average office user in 5-10 years, but they are severely limited because we do not have a good technology to interface with them, and shoehorn them into the tech used for mechanical drives for compatibility reasons. If you were to design the PC platform from scratch today, there's a lot of arcane, outdated cruft you could remove that's only there for backwards compatibility reasons.

Re:I don't hate computers

[icebraining]

Time Machine is what software should be. I've used backup programs for years, but they're all a pain. Plug in a drive, turn on time machine, you have a recent backup. Need to restore off it? Find the files and click the button. Need to restore a whole computer? Boot off the OS X disk and press a button. Old mac got crushed by a bulldozer and you need to transfer everything to a new one? During setup plug in your time machine backup, it takes care of everything. I've restored stuff for my parents from weeks before with no effort. No "go pick the correct backup file", no "only the last version was backed up, the stuff from 2 weeks ago is gone", it's just there.

Flexibility vs convenience. Try to do anything more complicated/unexpected with it and you'll hit a brick wall. Can I backup to a NAS running a SMB shared drive with remote file verification? If I can't, it's not good enough for me.

Re:I don't hate computers

[MBCook]

So much of that is cost.

• It was cheaper to keep using the same old BIOS than to switch, so we've waited WAY too long. It's finally happening through EFI, but it's going slow. OpenFirmware would have been nice. It's actually pretty amazing we've managed to tack stuff on to the BIOS for ~30 years.
• Printer drivers exist because everyone has to be 'special'. They could all use PostScript which would suit the vast majority of users, but that would cost $$$ to Adobe. PCL seems to be very common now too, but again, a $50 printer isn't going to spend $2 on licensing something. All the "value add" stuff in drivers is just trash. Often, the drives themselves are trash. $50 printers do that.
• Hard drives... I've had that happen. I don't know why OSes don't do save/load checksums on sectors. ZFS can do it. This could be done in hardware too, but that won't catch errors caused by the OS asking to write in the wrong spot.
• ECC is cost. My new laptop has 4 GB of RAM in it. ECC is going to have to start going into every machine pretty soon. If everyone did it, the cost would drop since it wouldn't be "special" memory.
• No experience with hardware RAID, but it doesn't surprise me the interface is bad. That kind of low level stuff is always written for the guru, as if no mortal would ever touch it

I've been through so much in my years of using PCs that could be avoided with a few more $ in part design. Selling computers with name brand SoundBlaster cards instead of saving $3 on a no-name "compatible". Easy to break connectors and cables (because an extra $0.25 per $150 motherboard to make the thing usable would be too much).

That's one thing you can give Apple credit for. They'll toss stuff out. "You probably don't need ExpressCard, so there isn't one". They were the ones to toss serial ports and actually commit to USB. They were the ones to drop SCSI and commit to FireWire. If it's outdated or possibly unnecessary, Steven will drop if it he thinks it's a good idea. May be hard on some users, like when FireWire disappeared off the MacBook.

Re:I don't hate computers

[icebraining]

. Go to your Terminal and type the following command to enable "Unsupported Network Volumes" for Time Machine:

        defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1

But how do you find out about this stuff, unless you find someone who has already done it? Is there any Apple manual that documents this feature?

In Linux, many easy things may not be easy, but hard things are not hidden. They usually have a nice man page (well, not in every case, but most of Debian packaged apps do)

Re:Yes.

[jornak]

You and every other person who has to deal with problems with computers feel exactly the same way. It's like... a wife that nags too much. You love her at first... but she keeps nagging... and nagging... and nagging. Eventually you cut the bitch and bury her in the backyard.

It is called "a love/hate relationship"

[Openstandards.net]

To be honest, they are "things", not people. Should we really consider loving "things"?

Help and Sympathy Available

[Anonymous Coward]

at the scary devil monastery.

Well...

[MightyMartian]

I hate a lot of modern software (open source, closed source, whatever) because of the enormous, and often pointless complexities. I miss the joys of being a kid in front of my first 16k home computer, it was an adventure. I miss my first few years with *nix, when the operating system was populated with fine-tuned tools focused on accomplishing a single job and doing it well.

It's true that software and hardware often seems more like a balancing act. You try to find an equilibrium where you don't need cron jobs to stop the daemon that spontaneously combusts, or where the Windows roaming profile will properly synchronize with the server copy and not barf in a dozen different ways, and hope beyond hope that the patches you're getting won't cause more problems than they solve.

I think the reason, at least for me, is that there's little sense that I have control over how the systems work. Anything non-trivial involves so many separate processes, functions, modules and reliance on everything tying together that sometimes when I get something working, I'm more amazed than pleased.

But that's the job. You control what you can and try to mitigate what you can't.

Re:Well...

[justinb26]

I agree with you on some points, but disagree on others.

I agree that most of the problem is crappy software. It does, however, make me appreciate the truly good software even more.

I agree that there is something to be said for understanding how everything works to a fine degree. However, I think that ability to mentally "chunk" systems you don't care about, and just think of them on a high level, is absolutely crucial to progress. I also think that kids today will find the same kind of joys writing XNA games, or iPhone apps, or fooling around and making "cool stuff" in just about any language.

I also think that it's possible to constuct a useful conceptual framework of the underlying layers without needing to know what's going on down the nth degree. Depending on how you look at it, that 16k program that you think you grok completely, depends on the interplay of concepts all the way down to the subatomic level. With respect to understanding how your program works, do you really need to know the specifics?

Likewise, if I'm programming in a language, interpreted by a VM, memory managed, providing frameworks to do things like render graphics, play sound, interpret input, etc, do I really need to understand how an ALU works to fully understand my program? I don't think so.

(Playing devil's advocate a bit, as I'm quite obsessive about understanding things from the bottom up. But I understand that this is a personal quirk, and that it's not necessary, given reliable substrates and effective models)

when it's a hobby first

[BitwiseX]

I wish I had never turned a hobby into a profession. For the most part I enjoy what I do as a Sys Admin, but I used to come home from work and hop onto a mini programming project, or maybe i'll try some new software out.. switch from sendmail to postfix, just for the halibut.. stuff like that.

Now I come home and I don't want to look at a computer or I just play some games. Kinda sad :(

Re:when it's a hobby first

[DaMattster]

I wish I could mod this guy up. I did the same thing. I turned what was essentially a hobby into a profession. But, I always enjoyed working with open source more and finding creative, alternative solutions to proprietary and closed ones.

Re:when it's a hobby first

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm full of regret too with my career choice of Ob-Gyn.

It's users I hate

[buback]

Everything would work perfectly fine if we just got rid of all the damn users.

Re:It's users I hate

[Sparx139]

You mean, they check to make sure their screen is turned on before calling support?

Re:It's users I hate

[hackiavelli]

More than a few times I've asked myself "What have those horrible, horrible users done to that poor, innocent computer now?"

Ditto!

[khasim]

From TFA

I often wonder if plumbers reach a point in their career, after cleaning clogged drain after clogged drain, that they begin to hate plumbing. They hate pipes. They hate plumber's putty. They hate all the tricks they've learned over the years, and they hate the need to have to learn tricks. It's plumbing, for goodness sake: pipes fitting together and substances flowing through them. How complicated can it be?

Well for one, copper pipe v3.5 is still backward compatible with copper pipe v2.1 and will be forward compatible with copper pipe v5.0 and beyond.

You know how it will fail and how it will age up to the point that it fails.

With computers, you simply do not know. Systems could fail tonight because of some date/time error. Patches next month can break your test machines. But if you don't install the patches, drive by banner ads infections will go up as crackers exploit the buffer overrun. And a million other possibilities.

Toasters

[VoxMagis]

Computers are the Toasters of the '00s'. Our users expect them to toast. If they don't toast, they call us.

I spend my day doing many many different computer tasks. I help users, I do some light coding, I work on web pages, email servers, file servers, domain servers, track minor issues with printer drivers or email clients, and whatever else. I can really relate to the article.

The issue is that a computer as an appliance isn't a reality in the everyday world, except to users. They want them to do exactly what they expect them to do, every time, without having a 'burnt part and an uncooked part'. For those of us that spend all day dealing with computers, we come to know that it doesn't work that way. Our problem is that we live in two different realities, and they are not yet compatible.

Of course, once they really do work like a refrigerator or a toaster or a coffee maker, I'll be out of a job. Most days I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

Oh really?

[SuperKendall]

Computers are fragile, unintuitive things...a hodge-podge of brittle hardware
Sounds like Steve Jobs can claim another victim.

Sounds more to me like he's about to get another customer.

Re:Oh really?

[Mr. Flibble]

Computers are fragile, unintuitive things...a hodge-podge of brittle hardware
Sounds like Steve Jobs can claim another victim.

Sounds more to me like he's about to get another customer.

And that (the video you linked to) is why the iPad is doing better than us Techno-geeks expected. Indeed, it is why the iPhone and the iMac are doing well.

Computers are mostly brittle - I had my main PC crash last night because of something to do with the graphics card - I still don't know what.

But this little old lady in that video with the iPad? Brilliant. She can get to use it right away - she does not need to understand drivers, or compatibility or any of the other crap that we deal with on a regular basis. As long as it does email, web, IM and facebook, that is all most people would ever want.

It is when we go beyond those basics that computers start to suck. Like my dealing with a pissy PBX, or a switch that I can't log into from some subnets...

The ipad gets rid of most of those problems (to a very large degree). I remember an old man coming up to me years ago when I worked at Staples selling computers (that was an awful job, but it was a start). He grabbed the mouse, and immediately picked it up in the air, and began waving it about to try to get the cursor to move on the screen. We don't think of it like this, but just using the mouse is a different skill. Using the ipad generally involves using skills that we already have gained outside computing - as can be demonstrated by this lady's use of the ipad.

Hopefully, computers begin to suck less - like the ipad. (Just without the DRM BS behind the scenes).

Re:Oh really?

[silverglade00]

I'm not trying to be funny or cruel.

Yet you nailed them both.

Re:Oh really?

[Mr. Flibble]

Dear Apple fanboy,

Please take your tablet computer and go spam another topic about it, preferably one about your precious consumer product. Really, can't you just go away?

Fanboi?

Well, yes, I am typing this on an iMac. I have a custom-built windows XP gaming machine to my right. I have a Mythbuntu Linux box in the corner, and 2 other Linux machines in my shelving.

Fanboi? No. Realist? Yes.

I am not a mac fan, I ended up with my current one that I am typing this on, a 17" intel iMac because I bought it for my Mom who was having too many troubles with her PC. My tech support calls just went away after I got her this - apart from 2 calls that I would have had to make myself to get appropriate passwords to make things work.

Why do I have this iMac now? because she liked it so much she upgraded to a newer 22" iMac, that is why.

Apple Fanboi I am not.

I use Linux, Windows, Solaris, Mac, *ANYTHING* that gets the job done.

My computers are tools. I use them like tools to do a job. Fanboi status is for idiots. That old lady in the video? She is not a faboi, she is a woman that wants to communicate with friends and relatives. The ipad is a great tool for her for that purpose.

As soon as you lose sight of the fact that a computer is just a tool, they begin to suck even more than they do already.

Absolutely not

[Nefarious Wheel]

I love them because they feed me.

I Agree

[DaMattster]

By and large I hate computers when I have to work on them for a living. I am stuck having to use M$ software which has all of the joy of scrubbing a toilet. Being responsible for a Microsoft Windows Server can be akin to slashing my wrists. When I am home I love computing because I get to work on my open source operating systems which return the joy of computing back to the user. Instead of being forced to do things Microsoft's way, I am free to use my computer as I see fit with creative tools that let me see what goes on behind the scenes. I am free to do imaginative things with my computer which brings real joy. My intention is not to bash M$ but to show how openness can make something more fun and imaginative to use.

Self-inflictied injury

[JustNiz]

It seems this guy's issues are ultimately mostly Windows-specific rather than anything specific to computers in general. He even takes time out to say how good OSX and Linux's package management is compared to Windows, yet he clearly still uses Windows as his primary OS.

Basically this guys problems are mostly self-inflicted, as he clearly knows about the alternatives yet still forces himself to keep going with the crappiest option.

Careful what you say!

[Locke2005]

Computers know just how you feel about them... and they also hate being anthropomorphized!

But seriously, it is scary how often my wife will complain to me "this doesn't work!" as she is clicking away on a web form, but when I go over and calmly click the submit button, it works perfectly. I honestly have no idea what she is doing wrong.

Re:Careful what you say!

[BobMcD]

I've noticed this, too. I can often just pop in and inquire about a problem and it goes away on its own.

Even more scary, though - computers are getting lazy!

If you're not watching the timer-bar click towards the right, the computer slacks off and doesn't finish. The moment you go back to watching it, it gets back to making progress on it. Triply-true on VMWare boxes.

Re:Careful what you say!

[Novus]

There are a lot of motor skills that we take for granted as heavy users of computing technology that are actually quite difficult to learn, for example: clicking (or even worse, double-clicking) while holding a mouse still and pressing a key for less than 500 ms. I managed to diagnose quite a few weird problems (such as applications failing to start) my mother was having as a tendency to hold Enter down for slightly longer than the time it took for auto-repeat to kick in.

Re:Switch to *NIX

[Merc248]

Bah. I'm a Linux sysadmin, but it still sucks the life out of you to maintain them. Someone can still royally fuck up the infrastructure and make maintenance a living hell. But it is more of a joy to work with *nix systems than Windows systems, I'll give you that.

Re:Yes.

[peragrin]

Why do you think I buried windows and got a mac? if I am going to have a nagging wife she had at least better look sexy even if she isn't any more functional.

Re:Yes.

[PopeRatzo]

No, I do not "feel exactly the same way" any more than I hate my piano because it's hard to play and took me twenty years to play well.

Do we all silently hate the complexities and idiosyncrasies computers have

Absolutely not. If I wanted something I could just turn on and have work, I'd still own a television. I bought a Commodore 64 and an Apple II and Macintosh and then a string of PCs of various brands and flavors because of their "complexities and idiosyncrasies" not despite them. And yes, I worked for several years while going through grad school, fixing computers and supporting end users. It might have altered my view of the intelligence of the average person, but it didn't change my delight with complex, idiosyncratic computers that I could install the software I want and configure it the way I want and use it for the purposes I want. Which, by the way, is the main reason I've lost a great deal of respect for Apple (and Sony).

The beauty of the personal computer was that I could wipe the hard drive and put it together the way I wanted. I could put a different operating system on it, or a newer (or older) version of my current operating system. I could open the box and mess with the noodles. I could download sketchy warez and pay the price if I wanted. I could learn about busses and mac addresses and baud rates and overclocking. I could haunt the back aisles of computer shops buying parts and I could make it MINE in a way that is only seen in ham radio, amateur electronics and certain segments of the automotive culture. Personal computers represented everything that homogenized consumer culture was not.

And, of course, that attitude, that ethic, that weltanschauung is why I started coming to Slashdot. That, and the opportunity to occasionally be shocked with a photo of a man wrenching open his poop-chute. But mainly the first stuff.

"Hate computers"? Not a chance. But I find it sad that the sysadmin in TFA has found himself in a life he hates. I hope he figures out that time is short, and it's best to do stuff you love.

I've always thought the opposite!

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers are great, the endless possibilities and beautiful complexity built into a simple box.

At the same time I hate the things we do with them. All the brilliance just created so we can send pointless 140 character messages saying how we enjoyed our
porkchops for dinner (with nice apple sauce too!).

Re:No.

[Cid Highwind]

"...but, in the end, the computer still is that magical logical machine. That's my view -- is it yours?"

No. At some point any sufficiently complex piece of deterministic logic becomes indistinguishable from randomness, and PCs are past that point for me. The beauty of the underlying logical machine is totally obscured by the apparent randomness of errors that go away after rebooting (or sometimes just issuing the same command again). Some days my map prints perfectly, some days it comes out with extraneous pink lines all over Florida, some days it crashes the plotter so badly it needs a hard reset. Logically, I know the problem isn't "luck" or satanic printer gremlins, and that it must be some subtle, deterministic interaction between the source data, the GIS software, Windows, HP's print driver, and their plotter firmware, but damned if I have the time or the skill or the source code to track it down. It's easier to just mumble obscenities about wasting ink and paper and try again (faster, and more likely to result in a correct print, too).

Re:Yeah, me too

[honestmonkey]

So, I replied before actually reading TFA, but I went back to read it and - the guy's right. 100% correct. And I had an epiphany. The iPad is actually something cool, not a fanboy money-grabbing POS. Well, maybe it's that too. But, from my understanding, it is this one piece deal, not a bunch of wires connecting monitor, keyboard and mouse, not something you open up and install new shit in when the old shit runs 10 milliseconds slower now. Just "Here, this does cool stuff, and no, you can't really dick with it." Now, I got no notion about the software, so that probably sucks, but the idea of the hardware is cool.

I know too much about the internal structure of my PC. And I'm still running XP, because it's good enough for my purposes. Did we really need Vista? Is Windows 7 that much of an improvement? Or did MS just want to make another few billion dollars? I suspect most problems with computers is the latter. "Sure, you've got 10 pixels _now_. But wouldn't you like to have _11_ pixels?" No, no I would not.

So wait, how much would 11 cost me?

25 years of sysadmin work - love/hate relationship

[macfanboy]

I see every type of computer there is at my job supporting large systems in NYC. Every computer I personally owned rebooted itself, blue-screened or froze, leading me on a quest for something better. My bad experiences with PCs led me to explore Solaris on a UltraSparc system, fresh from ebay. Sun makes a great OS and great machines, but not too consumer oriented, limiting software to pretty much open source titles for individual computing purposes. Many people dismiss apple for their high prices, but since I switched to the mac five years ago, I love the computer again. It just works, no problems, drag and drop installs and a very friendly user interface. With the OCZ Vertex solid state upgrade for the disk, the computer never makes me wait for anything. Bootup is 30 secs from button-press to desktop. Shutdown is 2 sec. Apps open instantly. Windows runs perfectly in bootcamp or Fusion (vmware). All in a 64-bit hardware and software system. What drives me crazy with computers is a long list, so here goes: - devices without a facility for firmware upgrade - manufactures that don't offer firmware updates for devices - Anyone that doesn't work/sell in the datacenter thinking they know anything about computers - DRM - non FOSS (GPL) licenses - People too stubborn to believe there is something better than the PC running Windows - people who don't realize they need to update the firmware in their GPS, cellphone, camera, picture frame, television, radio, mp3 player, car audio system, etc.

I hate computers, but love customers

[rjamestaylor]

So, ever since family and friends found out I could help with arcane errors and problems with their Apple ][+ computers (did I mention I'm old? That was back in the early 80s) I've been standing between computers and users and trying to reconcile both to each other.

Eventually, this turned in to a great opportunity for me to help people with their use of current technology. Are computers and software packages irritating? You bet! But being in the middle position between the user and CPU has been something I've enjoyed for more than a decade.

Sure, I've been a developer and struggled directly with computers on one hand and produced software that unintentionally frustrated users on the other. But it's standing in the gap between the technology and humanity that I find myself the most valuable.

As long as computers and software suck there will be a need for people like me. And, as it turns out, people prefer to turn their problems over to other people -- not wizards, FAQs, etc. -- for assistance.

The trick is not considering users as the problem but oneself as a key to the solution.

Hate

[Ryan MacLean]

I've been reading Slashdot since '98 and am finally posting something. Personally, I can understand his hatred. I'm 29 now, and at 3 I got my first computer. (Mac 128k) At around 6 I got my first IBM PC. (Packard Bell) At 11 I started volunteering with a program at my school rebuilding donated PCs. With no manuals, swapping cards and guessing jumper settings was always fun. At 13 I started my first BBS. Unfortunately, about 2 weeks later the internet came to my town, I was not pleased. At 16, for the first time I made some money with computers. I reinstalled Windows for a friend of the family, made myself 20 bucks, was quite pleased. At 18 I started college for Network Administration. 4.0 GPA, top of my class, breezed through everything. Got a job writing Access databases for $18 an hour. (!!!) At 19 I was making over $100,000 a year, cash, with my own business. Networking small business, selling PCs and dumb terminals, wiring rich peoples houses in Boca Raton. Dropped out of college, found I didn't have a need for it. At 20, I had 2 businesses, 10 employees, and was the East Coast Tech Manager for a blooming digital photography company. I had to constantly raise prices to be able to make my appointments. I was charging $100 just to show up. Flying to New York twice a month just to go clubbing. Every night was a party, shopping sprees every few days, no money went unspent. Just before I hit 21, I gave the my work cell to a friend and joined the US Marine Corps. If I hadn't, my lifestyle would most likely have killed me. They gave me a job as a firefighter and that's what I've been doing since then. Sure, I'll help someone out from time to time. I ran an ISP in Afghanistan for about a year and a half for the 60 of us in the fire hall plus some neighbors. I built myself a gaming rig (never played anything on it but Spider Solitaire). I read about tech constantly, check Slashdot and Engadget at least 10 times a day. I've never looked back. Computers had been fun for me since I was in short pants. Working in the field, although profitable, sucked ALL the enjoyment out of it. I couldn't take the complaining and the stupid problems any more. I once drove 2 hours each way on a warranty call because the lady was pressing the floppy eject button to try and restart her computer. I hate my job now, much more than working in computers, but at least I can get some satisfaction from playing with my toys now. Tinkering is fun again. In my case, doing what I loved for a living turned out to be miserable. Like the author, I can honestly say I hated computers, and still hate them now. There is always something that doesn't work quite right, some little issue preventing me from doing just what I want to do. At least now, on my own time, I can try to figure out which of the 12 USB devices I have plugged in is causing them all to stop, or try to get the damn sound to come out of the right damn output for my Blu-Rays. I think we all get the thrill from the chase, and when your chasing the same stupid thing day in and day out you just get tired of it. Good on him if he goes and becomes a plumber. He'll probably hate that too, but maybe he'll get his love for computers back, and to me that makes it worth it.

Re:Yes.

[daem0n1x]

I also hate computers. I just chose to become an engineer because I hate people more.

Why hate your tools?

[garyisabusyguy]

Especially when your ability to use them results in a decent paycheck?

I would much rather have the people who hate computers just stay the hell away from them, while "me and mine" take advantage of their prejudice and earn a living.

Re:Yes.

[Larryish]

That is why I use Linux.

The bitch is ugly, but she has big boobs and gets the job done.

Also, none of my friends want to "use" her.

Re:I told you so!

[taustin]

"Computers don't make mistakes!"

"Then why is there a multi-billion dollar a year industry to fix them?"

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Ubuntu because she's a negro.

Re:Yes.

[GameboyRMH]

I always saw Linux as the smart bookish chick who dresses frumpy, doesn't put too much effort into how she looks and seems kind of plain at first, and she busts your balls a bit when you try to initiate a relationship, but then when you get to know her she lets her hair out and unbuttons her shirt a bit and DOOOINNNGGG! Keeper. And none of your friends know how hot she really is.

Of course she's very sarcastic, it's up to you whether you see that as a good thing or a bad thing.

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu

lol you may be a geek compared to most, but you still have to learn a lot before calling yourself a geek on tech forum.

Re:Yes.

[Billly Gates]

I was thinking of a mac is more like going gay.

No nagging, elegant, powerful, and extremely graphic with orgy of video and sound with a BIG screen and HARD aluminum keyboard.

Re:No, you hate software, not computers.

[jvin248]

You forget that Microsoft benefits from the virus problem:

1- you install anti-virus software and your machine slows down. You want faster software so you buy a new PC with new windows .. MS gets cash.
2- virus kills your copy of windows. you buy new windows to reinstall .. MS gets cash.
3- virus spams all your friends via email .. MS gets cash - from all of them.
4- virus grabs your credit card - automatically purchases new copy of Windows .. MS gets cash!

So that virus problem that Windows has is really a feature in disguise .. MS gets cash.

Re:Yeah, me too

[gad_zuki!]

Do you really need XP? Is it such an improvement over 2000 or even NT4.0?

I dislike this arbitrary line drawn in the sand. Its like you're my grandpa saying something like "and thats how we liked it." I would easily argue that the UAC, improved UI, and dozen or so needed features make Win7 a larger jump from XP than XP ever was from 2000.

Where's all this XP love even coming from? Its a mess of an OS that got by on dumb luck and MS finally getting the second service pack right. Admin by default, fisher price colors, insecure as anything, long boot times, shitty installer (floppy drive need for RAID/SCSI, really?), IE6 nightmare for several years, etc.