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?

[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.

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

[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

[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

[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: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.

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.

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

[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?

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.

Absolutely not

[Nefarious Wheel]

I love them because they feed me.

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: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.

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).

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.

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?

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.

Re:Yes.

[daem0n1x]

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

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.