*Sigh* I've lost this reply twice now... I really can't be bothered writing the long winded reply a third time. Basically:
I never said that the IT professional's loyalty lies with anybody but the organisation (their customer). They are there to do their job. No grovelling to users, its not a popularity contest.
IT teams cannot be analysed the same as a "widget manufacturing team". IT problems have varying characteristics and therefore take varying amounts of resources to solve them. Yet when there seems to be a problem managers like to blame the team. If there was a problem with the organisational widget manufacturing team they tend to blame the processes. In a widget manufacturing team, widgets manufactured per-hour is a sensible metric whereas tickets per hour is not a sensible metric for an IT team.
The only metric that can be applied to an IT team member is the satisfaction level of their performance. Are they working efficiently (as the processes allow) and competently? If the answer is YES then it is the manager's job analyse processes and find ways to increase efficiency or to just hire more man-power.
Customer/User satisfaction. If problems are solved in a reasonable way (in terms of time considering your workload, budget and expertise) then that's the only thing management should care about. You're not running a support call center where your job is to read solutions from pre-written scripts - you're solving real problems with real people. There is no script.
Management should be surveying their employees and your reports and work out if more people are needed to do general support. Are you finding time to do project work? If no, then maybe they need to hire somebody to keep users off your back a few hours a day while you do projects.
Though, being fair - I could see a way that it could be implemented while causing the least amount of distress. Also, you may be able to just turn it off, or have it pipe everything out into a nice text based log with FUCKING USEFUL ERROR MESSAGES. I don't run Windows because I can't fix it when it breaks (constantly) mostly due to the fact that you do not get useful error messages like you do in a Unix-like OS.
I could see the proposed system being useful in a large server setup where you care about logging I/O.
As much as I like their intention, I think this is crossing the line.
They're clever people - surely they can come up with a campaign that would be more respectful and probably more successful. I'd like to see the power of anonymous used in a clever/funny/positive way. Remember when 4chan thanked a 90 year old war veteran? Personally I'd be looking into doing something to communicate the message that "99% can effectively support the 99% by being open, considerate and sharing". Why should they steal from the 1% when they really don't have to?
This campaign is also pointless on a practical level. They're not stealing gold which can only be in one place at a time they're stealing credit. The banks can just re-credit the rich bastards!
The problem is that non-IT people generally view computers as a tool and nothing more. Perhaps people should be trained to use computers rather than applications and writing off anything else to do with computers as magnets/magic. If people are trained to use computers rather than applications then they will be able to choose the appropriate tool (application) for the job. Everybody wins.
This is not how things work though. When the network goes down, suits get really agitated and demand that it be "fixed". This would mean replacing the Linux systems with Windows which the poorly trained staff know how to manage.
Their lack of organisation or focus shows that this is *meant* to fail.
If they're actually serious I applaud them. However forcing both a change of platform/infrastructure is not going to work well without changing the support staff. A bunch of Microsoft monkeys simply can't handle the transition. The biggest roadblock besides having to replace support staff is surely the culture change.
Could this be a ploy to force Microsoft to come to the "rescue"?
With CentOS you get stability (Debian too, but *forget* Ubuntu) and friendly tools to help you configure your server. There are lots of recommendations for Virtualmin however I would discourage you from using this because it is full of vulnerabilities and does very little to educate you on how your server works. If you really want something like Virtualmin maybe look into an alernative like ISPconfig.
CentOS (and Debian) also both have mature and experienced communities who can help you. (Ubuntu community just suggests ugly hacks).
In CentOS (or any Red Hat based distro) you get the system-config-[blah] tools which give you friendly interfaces for the GUI, TUI and CLI and also I find the chkconfig tool useful (rcconf is similar to this in Debian). The command line takes all of half a day to learn and it is ofen the quickest and easiest way to get around and in my experience it avoids a *lot* of headaches that graphical/web based tools give you.
SELinux (blocks naughty behavior of programs) also comes with CentOS by default which is important for locking down your server. SELinux can be frustrating to learn however if you're only running a web stack you're rarely going to get into trouble with it (occasionally if you move files around their context can cause trouble in their new location) and when somebody exploits PHP or Apache it can really stop the spread of the damage.
My biggest piece of advice is to set up a few virtual machines and have a play. Make mistakes in tesing, not production. Also, if it smells like a dodgy way of doing things, it probably is.
What you say also applies to CentOS. I use both on servers. I think it is easier to strip Debain down to 20MB RAM usage (without services) so I use it on small machines, but I use CentOS for ease of configuration.
The omission of Flask and CherryPy was indeed quite curious as they're certainly very popular.
However I think that Twisted/Tornado are outside the scope of the article given that they aren't exactly web frameworks but rather components that can be used in web frameworks.
I think the question that matters most of the time is not really "which framework" but rather "which database/ORM" or also "which templating system".
The only answer.
Don't like the policies of the node? Leave. You lose nothing - and your friends can freely follow too.
I have no sympathy for those who buy into these closed "networks" -- and a Data Liberation Tool is no substitute for actual openness.
All the things that cause people to complain about RedHat have been dead and gone for years! I tried Fedora Core twice but ever since they changed to be just Fedora the distribution has improved hugely. F9 looked good and I started using Fedora at F10 and I have no plans to use anything else.
I still like Debian and Arch Linux but for just getting stuff done with minimal fuss Fedora is the way to go.
What pushed me away from Ubuntu (besides having the worst KDE implementation in existence) was the "Hack it, Hack it, Hack it" mentality of the project (and the community support! Ugly hacks aren't workarounds people!) which meant that everything was always broken and it just got worse every release. When you work closely with upstream like Fedora does distro specific bugs are pretty much unheard of.
Sounds like it is the *only* distribution you have used in the last 10 years. Try something else and be amazed. All those silly bugs that stop you from just *getting something done* in Ubuntu disappear.
Oh, and I would have thought what all the indignation is about is pretty obvious? They are putting out an OS for consumers to use for free, but in every single release they strip out the functionality that consumers love and replace it with something most of them hate. They are effectively compounding problems every release. Canonical loves to throw salt on the wounds.
Ubuntu users are far better off just moving to Debian (or some Debian based distribution such as Debian Mint) because all the things that they used to like about Ubuntu are there!
The old joke "Ubuntu" is Swahili for "Can't install Debian" used to be funny and understandable, but if you cannot install Debian or an alternative these days you need to box up your computer and send it back to the manufacturer. Ubuntu is *harder* to use than other distributions in my experience.
Slashdot Mirror
*Sigh* I've lost this reply twice now... I really can't be bothered writing the long winded reply a third time. Basically: I never said that the IT professional's loyalty lies with anybody but the organisation (their customer). They are there to do their job. No grovelling to users, its not a popularity contest. IT teams cannot be analysed the same as a "widget manufacturing team". IT problems have varying characteristics and therefore take varying amounts of resources to solve them. Yet when there seems to be a problem managers like to blame the team. If there was a problem with the organisational widget manufacturing team they tend to blame the processes. In a widget manufacturing team, widgets manufactured per-hour is a sensible metric whereas tickets per hour is not a sensible metric for an IT team. The only metric that can be applied to an IT team member is the satisfaction level of their performance. Are they working efficiently (as the processes allow) and competently? If the answer is YES then it is the manager's job analyse processes and find ways to increase efficiency or to just hire more man-power.
Customer/User satisfaction. If problems are solved in a reasonable way (in terms of time considering your workload, budget and expertise) then that's the only thing management should care about. You're not running a support call center where your job is to read solutions from pre-written scripts - you're solving real problems with real people. There is no script.
Management should be surveying their employees and your reports and work out if more people are needed to do general support. Are you finding time to do project work? If no, then maybe they need to hire somebody to keep users off your back a few hours a day while you do projects.
Please keep all your limbs and appendages inside the quota.
Though, being fair - I could see a way that it could be implemented while causing the least amount of distress. Also, you may be able to just turn it off, or have it pipe everything out into a nice text based log with FUCKING USEFUL ERROR MESSAGES. I don't run Windows because I can't fix it when it breaks (constantly) mostly due to the fact that you do not get useful error messages like you do in a Unix-like OS.
I could see the proposed system being useful in a large server setup where you care about logging I/O.
As much as I like their intention, I think this is crossing the line.
They're clever people - surely they can come up with a campaign that would be more respectful and probably more successful. I'd like to see the power of anonymous used in a clever/funny/positive way. Remember when 4chan thanked a 90 year old war veteran?
Personally I'd be looking into doing something to communicate the message that "99% can effectively support the 99% by being open, considerate and sharing". Why should they steal from the 1% when they really don't have to?
This campaign is also pointless on a practical level. They're not stealing gold which can only be in one place at a time they're stealing credit. The banks can just re-credit the rich bastards!
The problem is that non-IT people generally view computers as a tool and nothing more. Perhaps people should be trained to use computers rather than applications and writing off anything else to do with computers as magnets/magic. If people are trained to use computers rather than applications then they will be able to choose the appropriate tool (application) for the job. Everybody wins.
XKCD has already pinned blame for this trend. http://xkcd.com/683/
If this is true, then perhaps I am wrong. If the will, culture and training is there then this could be a great start.
This is not how things work though. When the network goes down, suits get really agitated and demand that it be "fixed". This would mean replacing the Linux systems with Windows which the poorly trained staff know how to manage.
Their lack of organisation or focus shows that this is *meant* to fail.
If they're actually serious I applaud them. However forcing both a change of platform/infrastructure is not going to work well without changing the support staff. A bunch of Microsoft monkeys simply can't handle the transition. The biggest roadblock besides having to replace support staff is surely the culture change.
Could this be a ploy to force Microsoft to come to the "rescue"?
Liquid water is wet!
Welcome our Replicator overlords.
With CentOS you get stability (Debian too, but *forget* Ubuntu) and friendly tools to help you configure your server. There are lots of recommendations for Virtualmin however I would discourage you from using this because it is full of vulnerabilities and does very little to educate you on how your server works. If you really want something like Virtualmin maybe look into an alernative like ISPconfig.
CentOS (and Debian) also both have mature and experienced communities who can help you. (Ubuntu community just suggests ugly hacks).
In CentOS (or any Red Hat based distro) you get the system-config-[blah] tools which give you friendly interfaces for the GUI, TUI and CLI and also I find the chkconfig tool useful (rcconf is similar to this in Debian). The command line takes all of half a day to learn and it is ofen the quickest and easiest way to get around and in my experience it avoids a *lot* of headaches that graphical/web based tools give you.
SELinux (blocks naughty behavior of programs) also comes with CentOS by default which is important for locking down your server. SELinux can be frustrating to learn however if you're only running a web stack you're rarely going to get into trouble with it (occasionally if you move files around their context can cause trouble in their new location) and when somebody exploits PHP or Apache it can really stop the spread of the damage.
My biggest piece of advice is to set up a few virtual machines and have a play. Make mistakes in tesing, not production. Also, if it smells like a dodgy way of doing things, it probably is.
What you say also applies to CentOS. I use both on servers. I think it is easier to strip Debain down to 20MB RAM usage (without services) so I use it on small machines, but I use CentOS for ease of configuration.
Considering that most people these days have an attention span of 140 characters it was indeed in-depth.
The omission of Flask and CherryPy was indeed quite curious as they're certainly very popular.
However I think that Twisted/Tornado are outside the scope of the article given that they aren't exactly web frameworks but rather components that can be used in web frameworks.
I think the question that matters most of the time is not really "which framework" but rather "which database/ORM" or also "which templating system".
We don't need to test our software on our limited range of software.
The only answer.
Don't like the policies of the node? Leave. You lose nothing - and your friends can freely follow too.
I have no sympathy for those who buy into these closed "networks" -- and a Data Liberation Tool is no substitute for actual openness.
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server is a proven HPC solution if management kicks up a stink and demands commercial support.
I've worked with SLES and have been fairly happy with it.
Scientific Linux is probably the optimal choice though ;)
You may be interested in the Microtouch. http://www.ladyada.net/products/microtouch/index.html Have a look at the code for the demo programs. https://github.com/rossumur/microtouch
I completely agree with you.
All the things that cause people to complain about RedHat have been dead and gone for years! I tried Fedora Core twice but ever since they changed to be just Fedora the distribution has improved hugely. F9 looked good and I started using Fedora at F10 and I have no plans to use anything else.
I still like Debian and Arch Linux but for just getting stuff done with minimal fuss Fedora is the way to go.
What pushed me away from Ubuntu (besides having the worst KDE implementation in existence) was the "Hack it, Hack it, Hack it" mentality of the project (and the community support! Ugly hacks aren't workarounds people!) which meant that everything was always broken and it just got worse every release. When you work closely with upstream like Fedora does distro specific bugs are pretty much unheard of.
Sounds like it is the *only* distribution you have used in the last 10 years. Try something else and be amazed. All those silly bugs that stop you from just *getting something done* in Ubuntu disappear.
Oh, and I would have thought what all the indignation is about is pretty obvious? They are putting out an OS for consumers to use for free, but in every single release they strip out the functionality that consumers love and replace it with something most of them hate. They are effectively compounding problems every release. Canonical loves to throw salt on the wounds.
Ubuntu users are far better off just moving to Debian (or some Debian based distribution such as Debian Mint) because all the things that they used to like about Ubuntu are there!
The old joke "Ubuntu" is Swahili for "Can't install Debian" used to be funny and understandable, but if you cannot install Debian or an alternative these days you need to box up your computer and send it back to the manufacturer. Ubuntu is *harder* to use than other distributions in my experience.
So my ambulance levy pays for my ambulance service to run on Windows? Effectively I have no ambulance service.
Now you know how it feels. Outrageous data prices... smoke your cap in a few minutes and then get charged $5/MB excess.
Why don't you come back to my place in G-Town?