I contract for an organization who's core business is developing software for the stock markets. While we use Linux in our test, staging, and production environments, I am constantly asking myself why the hell I am stuck developing on a laptop with XP? Why the hell am I stuck trying to emulate our Linux environment with Cygwin? Why are we maintaining two sets of scripts to make sure everything works (bash/batch)? Why am I forced to run performance crippling virus software?
There are a number of supposed reasons. You've heard them before:
"We need Windows for Outlook and Office"
- I'm a developer, I need EMail and I hate documentation. Please let me use Firefox and if need be, I'll use OpenOffice.
"The learning curve of Linux is too big for some developers"
- Fire them, or give them different jobs. Why are you wasting my time, and others who could be more productive because of one or two nine-to-fivers?
"Management of Linux would be more difficult for network support"
- What you really mean is your support staff has let their skill set elapse and they have focused on Windows technologies. I'm sorry, but fire these people too. Your organization is being held hostage and is losing money by inept people.
As a Canadian, I love to see our Dollar gain in strength. We get our hockey players cheaper and vacationing in the States becomes more attractive. However, I decided to cancel my iPod Touch because it is still priced $40 more than what US citizens can get it for. I can accept a small premium because of shipping and handling, but $40!! Come on!
I wonder how much of an influencing factor in Apple's delay was due to the slow market uptake of Vista. Would Apple still have delayed the release if MS was seeing more sales in their new product? I'd like to think Apple is above that, but business is business.
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I contract for an organization who's core business is developing software for the stock markets. While we use Linux in our test, staging, and production environments, I am constantly asking myself why the hell I am stuck developing on a laptop with XP? Why the hell am I stuck trying to emulate our Linux environment with Cygwin? Why are we maintaining two sets of scripts to make sure everything works (bash/batch)? Why am I forced to run performance crippling virus software? There are a number of supposed reasons. You've heard them before: "We need Windows for Outlook and Office" - I'm a developer, I need EMail and I hate documentation. Please let me use Firefox and if need be, I'll use OpenOffice. "The learning curve of Linux is too big for some developers" - Fire them, or give them different jobs. Why are you wasting my time, and others who could be more productive because of one or two nine-to-fivers? "Management of Linux would be more difficult for network support" - What you really mean is your support staff has let their skill set elapse and they have focused on Windows technologies. I'm sorry, but fire these people too. Your organization is being held hostage and is losing money by inept people.
As a Canadian, I love to see our Dollar gain in strength. We get our hockey players cheaper and vacationing in the States becomes more attractive. However, I decided to cancel my iPod Touch because it is still priced $40 more than what US citizens can get it for. I can accept a small premium because of shipping and handling, but $40!! Come on!
...the thief only wanted my $250 iPod, but took my $3000 MacBook Pro to make it work.
I wonder how much of an influencing factor in Apple's delay was due to the slow market uptake of Vista. Would Apple still have delayed the release if MS was seeing more sales in their new product? I'd like to think Apple is above that, but business is business.