> should head on over to http://www.linuxdoc.org and if you tell me that documentation is poor quality
The documentation at linuxdoc is incredibly sub-par. It's better than nothing, of course, but it's really not that good.
This is the deal: The Linux documentation that does exist tends to be the kind of stuff that ether breathing geeks find useful to themselves and their ilk. So it dives straight into the details without any regard for the big picture. I cannot tell you how many times I've stumbled upon documentation that dives straight into obscure nonsense without telling me the basic functionality of the thing it's documenting! I can read pages and pages and not even know what the damn thing does! Absolutely amazing. It all stems from hackers and their egocentric view of the world. No sense or care for the mere mortals (or even geek-diety-wannabees) who just want to know what something does and why.
It's poor discipline and lack of professionalism. There are plenty of bright and inspired geeks who can write useful code. But it takes an even brighter and wiser individual to recognize the need to articulate that code's purpose in language that is comprehensible and meaningful to a general audience.
What we need to measure is LOD: Lines of Documentation. We measure that against SLOC (Source Lines of Code) and we would learn that Linux is, by any rational account, very poorly documented. And, compared to (more-or-less) intuitive full GUI environments, Linux really needs documentation. GOOD documentation.
Which might help explain another number that keeps cropping up: 5% of the OS market.
Seems to me that even if the GPL mandated that you handed your first born son over to the FSF -- if you don't like the terms of the agreement, then DON'T USE THE STINKING SOFTWARE! Microsoft makes it sound like we're all somehow FORCED to use GPL'ed software against our will. We're not. Nobody is forcing anybody to use GPL code. Don't like the GPL? Don't use GPL code. That simple.
Unfortunately, I have no doubt many folks will be persuaded by Microsoft's argument, simply because they failed to think it through. *sigh*
OK buddy reality check: Go to www.distributed.net and read the page and ask yourself "Did it answer the question: 'What is distributed.net?"? and ask yourself "Did it answer the question: 'What is RC5?'?"
The answer to both questions is: "No".
Geek documentation is full of details. But it all too frequently fails to answer the question "What is it?" Because geeks, so utterly consumed with themselves and their own little world, make the erroneous assumption that EVERYBODY knows what 'it' is. www.distributed.net is no exception. "What is RC5?" is a pretty major piece of information. I shouldn't have to click on a half dozen web pages or "infer" or "deduce" it's meaning. It should be right there in plain ol' english: "RC5 is..." in terms my mother could understand.
And easy does it with the name calling, OK? Completely unnecessary.
In oh-so-typical fashion, neither the Slashdot post or even distributed.net came right out and told me what the RC5 and Keyspace actually IS. I figured it out, eventually. But it is exceedingly arrogant and presumptive to simply assume that your audience knows what this stuff is! A short "distributed.net is a..." description along with a short "RC5 is a..." description would have been exceedingly useful to us non-uber-geek types who actually have stinking JOBS to do and don't have 16 hours a day to dig into the nooks and crannies of the internet in our PJ's!!!
You're running a DB server on a Cube? Why? I'm not trying to be sarcastic, really. I'm genuinely curious as to why you're running a server on Mac HW when the Intel HW is generally cheaper and more adaptable. Is there some other modivation I'm not aware of?
... but with OS X out combined with Intel hardware being so cheap I find the whole notion of a Linux distribution for PPC to be rather pointless. Either use OS X (a better unix for PPC than anything else by a mile) or use Linux on Intel. There is no substitute for common sense here, folks.
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kuntsler.
Both books are enlightening as well as entertaining. Just like Fast Food Nation.
btw - I wish you people would give Katz a break. He does fine. Also, many of you no not what you speak. I'm growing weary of reading bold assertions that are groundless and incorrect. If you aren't 100% sure of what you're talking about, just be quiet and listen. You might learn something.
Balony. You probably struggled (like a lot of hacks I've seen) because you refused to get your brain around the Unidata command prompt and write Unidata BASIC code. PICK is much more difficult if you're accessing it via Perl or something. Plus, my guess is you didn't work with it enough to get it all figured out. Anything is a pain in the ass if you don't know it well enough to use it effectively. Suggesting that Universe/Unidata isn't friendly would strike ANY true Universe/Unidata programmer as one of the most ridiculous things they've ever heard!
... and I completely failed to mention code re-use! No need to include or require or package or whatever to invoke functions sitting in other code files. One simply invokes CALL it it just works! If Java could do something like this I might actually use it.
Ah PICK! Without question, the most beautiful and powerful database system I've ever seen.
Powerful dictionaries with I descriptors permitting virtual fields, multi-valued and multi-sub-valued data structures, incredibly intuitive query language. And a programming language that has a native understanding of the database system it's working with.
If only Dick Pick had jumped on the GUI client/server bandwagon when he had the chance. Instead, the system has languished in character based screen mode.
I was weaned on PICK. When I moved to SQL I was amazingly disappointed.
What would be truly beautiful is if IBM were to open source the entire product! I can dream, can't I?
One very excellent control panel interface is the one offered by XO (formerly ConcentricHost). But it's proprietary, of course. Cobalt Networks (now Sun) has a very nice interface. Also proprietary. There are others.
I'm bothered by the Cliff's comment that I have a hard problem with products that claim to do administration and that the users need "absolutely no Linux experience" since I've seen many products that successfully hide the complexities of the OS quite admirably. Maybe he's only referring to open source products?
The 'moderation = censorship' this is ridiculous when you consider that any reader of/. can choose to read all the posts if they want to anyway. The only form a censorship going on is of the self induced variety.
Quite frankly, I find this whole debate, including the premise, to be meaningless and boring. Let's move on...
The block of book info up top says the publisher is McGraw-Hill, yet the cover of the book looks extremely critter like. Very critter like. Like, like, O'Reilly perhaps? I thought so.
Correct. I was an idiot. Not for posting twice (which was, amazingly, intentional), but for failing to get my subject line right the first time.
Thanks for the spirited rebuttal however. Can't get away with slop on Slashdot. Gotta like that.
OK I'm annoyed that such a ridiculous acronym was not defined. But I am slightly more curious to find out what it means than annoyed that you didn't define it in the first place. So clue me in, please.
Slashdot Mirror
> should head on over to http://www.linuxdoc.org and if you tell me that documentation is poor quality
The documentation at linuxdoc is incredibly sub-par. It's better than nothing, of course, but it's really not that good.
This is the deal: The Linux documentation that does exist tends to be the kind of stuff that ether breathing geeks find useful to themselves and their ilk. So it dives straight into the details without any regard for the big picture. I cannot tell you how many times I've stumbled upon documentation that dives straight into obscure nonsense without telling me the basic functionality of the thing it's documenting! I can read pages and pages and not even know what the damn thing does! Absolutely amazing. It all stems from hackers and their egocentric view of the world. No sense or care for the mere mortals (or even geek-diety-wannabees) who just want to know what something does and why.
It's poor discipline and lack of professionalism. There are plenty of bright and inspired geeks who can write useful code. But it takes an even brighter and wiser individual to recognize the need to articulate that code's purpose in language that is comprehensible and meaningful to a general audience.
What we need to measure is LOD: Lines of Documentation. We measure that against SLOC (Source Lines of Code) and we would learn that Linux is, by any rational account, very poorly documented. And, compared to (more-or-less) intuitive full GUI environments, Linux really needs documentation. GOOD documentation.
Which might help explain another number that keeps cropping up: 5% of the OS market.
Seems to me that even if the GPL mandated that you handed your first born son over to the FSF -- if you don't like the terms of the agreement, then DON'T USE THE STINKING SOFTWARE! Microsoft makes it sound like we're all somehow FORCED to use GPL'ed software against our will. We're not. Nobody is forcing anybody to use GPL code. Don't like the GPL? Don't use GPL code. That simple.
Unfortunately, I have no doubt many folks will be persuaded by Microsoft's argument, simply because they failed to think it through. *sigh*
Thanks for the links. Aside from Blogger I have seen none of them before.
OK buddy reality check: Go to www.distributed.net and read the page and ask yourself "Did it answer the question: 'What is distributed.net?"? and ask yourself "Did it answer the question: 'What is RC5?'?"
..." in terms my mother could understand.
The answer to both questions is: "No".
Geek documentation is full of details. But it all too frequently fails to answer the question "What is it?" Because geeks, so utterly consumed with themselves and their own little world, make the erroneous assumption that EVERYBODY knows what 'it' is. www.distributed.net is no exception. "What is RC5?" is a pretty major piece of information. I shouldn't have to click on a half dozen web pages or "infer" or "deduce" it's meaning. It should be right there in plain ol' english: "RC5 is
And easy does it with the name calling, OK? Completely unnecessary.
In oh-so-typical fashion, neither the Slashdot post or even distributed.net came right out and told me what the RC5 and Keyspace actually IS. I figured it out, eventually. But it is exceedingly arrogant and presumptive to simply assume that your audience knows what this stuff is! A short "distributed.net is a ..." description along with a short "RC5 is a ..." description would have been exceedingly useful to us non-uber-geek types who actually have stinking JOBS to do and don't have 16 hours a day to dig into the nooks and crannies of the internet in our PJ's!!!
End of Rant.
I had completely forgotten about Fiona Richie. She has a very nice voice indeed!
I found her picture. View at your own risk.
http://www.npr.org/programs/thistle/aboutshow/
(She's lovely. But hardly the mental image I conjured up.)
Makes no difference on the air! Her voice is no less sexy to my ears!
Is it just me or does Terry Gross have THE sexiest voice on radio? I could listen to her for hours. ... and this is ... FRESH AIR!
You're running a DB server on a Cube? Why? I'm not trying to be sarcastic, really. I'm genuinely curious as to why you're running a server on Mac HW when the Intel HW is generally cheaper and more adaptable. Is there some other modivation I'm not aware of?
... but with OS X out combined with Intel hardware being so cheap I find the whole notion of a Linux distribution for PPC to be rather pointless. Either use OS X (a better unix for PPC than anything else by a mile) or use Linux on Intel. There is no substitute for common sense here, folks.
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kuntsler.
Both books are enlightening as well as entertaining. Just like Fast Food Nation.
btw - I wish you people would give Katz a break. He does fine. Also, many of you no not what you speak. I'm growing weary of reading bold assertions that are groundless and incorrect. If you aren't 100% sure of what you're talking about, just be quiet and listen. You might learn something.
You did mention that you weren't too database savvy at the time. I missed that. Forgive me.
That was a pretty darn strong opinion you made, however! Might expect a strong reaction!
Balony. You probably struggled (like a lot of hacks I've seen) because you refused to get your brain around the Unidata command prompt and write Unidata BASIC code. PICK is much more difficult if you're accessing it via Perl or something. Plus, my guess is you didn't work with it enough to get it all figured out. Anything is a pain in the ass if you don't know it well enough to use it effectively. Suggesting that Universe/Unidata isn't friendly would strike ANY true Universe/Unidata programmer as one of the most ridiculous things they've ever heard!
... and I completely failed to mention code re-use! No need to include or require or package or whatever to invoke functions sitting in other code files. One simply invokes CALL it it just works! If Java could do something like this I might actually use it.
Ah PICK! Without question, the most beautiful and powerful database system I've ever seen.
Powerful dictionaries with I descriptors permitting virtual fields, multi-valued and multi-sub-valued data structures, incredibly intuitive query language. And a programming language that has a native understanding of the database system it's working with.
If only Dick Pick had jumped on the GUI client/server bandwagon when he had the chance. Instead, the system has languished in character based screen mode.
I was weaned on PICK. When I moved to SQL I was amazingly disappointed.
What would be truly beautiful is if IBM were to open source the entire product! I can dream, can't I?
That was Cliff's comment, not the original poster's. Read it again. Carefully, this time.
One very excellent control panel interface is the one offered by XO (formerly ConcentricHost). But it's proprietary, of course. Cobalt Networks (now Sun) has a very nice interface. Also proprietary. There are others.
I'm bothered by the Cliff's comment that I have a hard problem with products that claim to do administration and that the users need "absolutely no Linux experience" since I've seen many products that successfully hide the complexities of the OS quite admirably. Maybe he's only referring to open source products?
The 'moderation = censorship' this is ridiculous when you consider that any reader of /. can choose to read all the posts if they want to anyway. The only form a censorship going on is of the self induced variety.
...
Quite frankly, I find this whole debate, including the premise, to be meaningless and boring. Let's move on
The block of book info up top says the publisher is McGraw-Hill, yet the cover of the book looks extremely critter like. Very critter like. Like, like, O'Reilly perhaps? I thought so.
Correct. I was an idiot. Not for posting twice (which was, amazingly, intentional), but for failing to get my subject line right the first time. Thanks for the spirited rebuttal however. Can't get away with slop on Slashdot. Gotta like that.
Either way it's stupidity.
TROLL ALERT! Either it's troll or it's stupidity. Either way it's stupidity.
Actually, I've read everything Heinlein ever wrote! TANSTAAFL didn't stick, I guess. Ah well, I must be getting old.
OK I'm annoyed that such a ridiculous acronym was not defined. But I am slightly more curious to find out what it means than annoyed that you didn't define it in the first place. So clue me in, please.