You'll find it here :
http://beijingtobeirut.free.fr/
The first half of the blog is in French, the second half in both French and English. Yep, I come from the country of stinking cheese and sparkling wine:-)
I have actually spent the past year backpacking across Asia : China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon. Prior to this, I did a "test trip" and went to Bolivia and Peru. While I did initially consider bringing a laptop with me, my test trip told me that a notepad, internet cafes to burn DVDs and the local post office were more than enough. In particular, the notepad has an extra advantage, which is that you can stick things in it, from bus tickets to flowers, next to your impressions of the day. Believe me, it's those little details that you're going to remember.
As to the picture problem, I had one of these 2.5" portable hard drive with a memory card slot, and it let me store as many pictures as I wanted until I could find an internet cafe (which can be very difficult to find, say, when you're in the middle of a week-long trek). It did work quite well in the salt desert in Bolivia, which happens to be rather high (4000m), and can be very cold (-10C or below). If in doubt, just bring a bunch of memory cards.
Don't forget that there are internet cafes everywhere (the less developped the country, the more internet cafes, except in case of special political difficulties, like Burma), and yes, I did blog.
As others have pointed out, Gentoo is not intended for people who are uncomfortable with very low-level configuration. If you're not comfortable following its detailed instructions, then it's quite unapologetically not the distro for you. It's not trying to be the end-all be-all distribution for everyone.
Unless I am mistaken, Joe Barr has been using linux for a while, right? The first time I installed a linux distro was probably around 1995, then I switched full time around 2001 (debian). What seems strange is that installing gentoo (at least to me, the last time I did a full stage 1 install was a while ago) isn't too far removed from what installing debian or slackware a while ago was (you have to understand what you're doing and RTFM), when you had fair amount of that 'low level configuration' (edit config files in text mode, kernel building) to do.
Obviously, there is something wrong with my reasoning. What is it?
Re:GNOME vs KDE (not flamebait!)
on
Gnome 2.14 Review
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I definitely agree with you on the fact that they now aim at completely different things.
I have been using KDE since KDE 3.0 (before that it was windowmaker), and love it. I especially like the fact that I can customize it to my exact (RSI-suffering) needs, and the absurdly powerful tools it ships with (Konsole, Konqueror). However, I do not dislike GNOME at all, quite the opposite.
The story of my "conversion" is simple : I was looking for a linux distribution for my computer-illiterate mother, and ended up installing Ubuntu , which ships with GNOME . While initially dismissing GNOME as "You can't do anything productive with it", I came to understand that from a usability point of view it was far better than KDE : while having no previous experience with it (apart from a quick go at 1.4 and 2.4), by just clicking where it seemed logical, I got what I wanted. The UI never got in my way, and it felt... strangely perfect. This has never happened with KDE. The GNOME UI is very simple, there are very few options - which suits my mother perfectly, she even told me she found it very easy -, and the menus and toolbars are not cluttered with lots of scary options. On the contrary, KDE is filled to the brim with options - which is what I need, but which my mother doesn't - which can be pretty confusing for a first time user.
The bottom line for me is that both are excellent products, they just don't seem share the same goal. I'm happy with KDE (and need the configurability , my mother is happy with GNOME and is a linux convert (she now advocates it to most of her friends).
Isn't Free Software all about choice? I'm glad we have both GNOME and KDE.
Actually, I would recommend it as a first language.
At my university (somewhere in France), we've chosen it to teach programming to 1st year students (who have actually already had 2 years of higher education, 70% of them in maths, 30% in economics). Prior to this, C was taught. A good half of our students are computer illiterate, by which I mean they have never ever used a computer before.
C was a complete failure
Python was a complete success
C was a failure because students needed to understand how a computer works (pointers, memory and other malloc-related atrocities), and had to fight with a bizarre syntax, while at the same time trying to figure out what an algorithm was. They spent most of their time puzzling why their code didn't compile, and not enough why it didn't work. And above all, most of them ended up believing that coding was for a special class of uber-gurus.
Python was a success because students could focus on understanding what was happening when the code was running (interpreter + very simple english-like syntax). The use of indentation as a logical block delimiter was also a tremendous help to them, along with the fact that you could write simple non-OO code or OO code. Finally, they could write useful programs -or fun programs, we've had quite a few games using pygame as projects- that did something and looked good.
The net result is that most of them understand what an algorithm is, quite enjoy coding, understand that it can be fun, and many more of them now enroll in the optional C++ course. Even more interesting, since our switch to Python, they are actually better at C++, and seem to find it a lot easier. They just see it as another way of expressing things with a more arcane syntax and with pointers, and not as something inherently difficult.
I'm not saying I dont'like C, it's quite the opposite actually. It's just that it's not suited to absolute beginners.
I have to admit that it's something I'm welcoming. The autotools are hard enough to learn, having to figure out imake on top of that was a bit of a hassle. Add to this the fact that it's now modular -we can work on different bits much more easily- and it's a winner...
I am especially interested in python support. I love python but it is some times a tad bit slow. I've seen lots of interesting initiatives to really improve performance (the starkiller python to C++ "compiler" for example), and am now very curious to see how good this one will perform.
Besides, it would be quite funny to have perl and python united:-)
Particularly since the web makes pubishing said information inexpensive
While I agree that web publishing is inexpensive and would help open it to more eyes, it does not mean that it will open it to more eyes.
There is some kind of hierarchy among the various journals (the Journal of Applied Physics is for example for prestigious than say the Journal of the Optical Society of America), and when researching something (my field is probability and statistics), I do take into account the journal where a paper comes from. The peer review process is fundamental here, and knowing that a particular journal has approved of a particular paper is of great help.
What I mean is: If I find some random unknown paper on the web, that has not been peer reviewed and does not come from a well-known researcher, or is not endorsed by some journal I know, it is very likely that I will not trust its results.
Thanks for the information about religious schools in the US.
It also means that if you were to argue in the US that Turkey should not be part of the European Union because it's not Christian that most people won't understand why you think that has anything to do with anything. That argument seems to have some traction in Europe though.
You're perfectly right about this one. I personally don't care about Turkey not being Christian, but it is apparently (and unfortunately, IMHO) important for quite a few people in Europe
I don't live in France but many of the things I hear give me the impression that there separation of church and state means something more like forcing the "secular" religion down people's throats.
This is true, but since people expect this and it is the way quite a few of them think (the cultural difference I keep bothering you with), I'm not sure it's really a problem. The real problem is actually what you very accurately pointed out next:
That "secular" religion hasn't entirely disentangled itself from its Christian roots. In fact it seems fairly blind to the ways in which it is influenced by them. And it seems incapable of recognizing the possibility of a Muslim secular movement.
Very well said indeed... I could not agree more. This comes mainly from the immigration model in France: you are supposed to "blend in" and forsake your previous way of life. France has a Christian past and has therefore problems integrating people with very different traditions/religions and wants to believe these problems don't exist, hence the problems with muslims. We've had no problem assimilating (I know the word is strong, but that's what it is) the Italians and Poles (Christian) who immigrated in the past 80 years for example. Our secularism has some kind of Christian roots, and people tend to mix things up. The other reason is that most of our Muslim population isn't exactly wealthy -which tends to foster religious fundamentalism-, and comes from Northern Africa which leads people to believe that muslim fundamentalist=Muslim=Arab=bad. Frankly, I have no idea how to solve this.
By the way -- I'll take you at your word that you're not a secular fundamentalist, but in other cases people from religiously mixed families have been in my experience the most fundamentalist of secularists. They seem to have usually had a bad experience with religious intolerance and taken the wrong message away from that.
You're right. In my case it's a little particular. My father is a Middle Eastern (Lebanese) sunni Muslim who now prays every wednesday in Catholic prayer group, my mother a British Protestant. Both my brother and sister are Protestant, I am personally an atheist. Religious intolerance is something that I haven't seen much in my family. I am not offended in any way by religion, I just know that I don't really understand it. It took me a while for example to understand that for an atheist faith seems to be a question of choice, when for a truly religious person, it is not a choice, but something obvious (God exists and He's there). I know this may sound stupid, but it took me a while and a lot of talking (not arguing -I would never dare questioning one's faith- but asking questions about something I did not understand) with religious people to get this. And I'm not even sure I got it right...
Maybe continuing the debate by email would be easier?
The only religious schools receiving state funding are Christian
I'm afraid you're just plain wrong about this. Since religion does not exist for the French state, there can be no discriminatory policy based on religion as to which school gets money... It is just a question of legal status: you have to be a "private establishment under contract with the state" (meaning you can't teach everything you want basically). As to the fact that sponsoring private schools violates the separation of Church and State, please note that 1. not all private schools are religious 2.The state does not sponsor a religious school but a private school under contract.
As to the muslim head-scarves, the situation is a little more complex than what it seems. One of the reasons it's been talked about is that many people see it as a way of oppressing women, especially when girls are forced to wear it by their family. Add to this the fact that people are weary of muslim fundamentalism (we've had quite a few bombs here), don't understand a thing about Islam, stir, and you've got a rather explosive situation: people mix up everything and get emotional.
Which politician said Muslim girls who wear headscarves do not want to be French? Sounds like a far right thing to me, hardly the opinion of the majority of the population...
I will repeat what I said before: secularism is deeply rooted in French culture. I totally agree with you when you say that making diversity visible has more positive effects than negative effects in a healthy society. Except when people misunderstand what they see (muslim head scarf), and when, at school, our secular culture says, superseding everything else "no religious stuff at school". You said A more balanced approach would be to prohibit proseletyzing : this is precisely the problem here. In our extreme secular culture, quite a few people see any kind of religious symbols as some kind of proseletyzing. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, just the way people see it.
It is, I believe, a matter of cultural differences.
Please note that I am not some kind of secular fundamentalist. Half of my family is christian (catholic or protestant), the other half is muslim.
I have one question: What is "a religious school" in the US? As it is often the case, I fear we're having a misunderstanding over what we're talking about.
Well, I understand what you mean, but that's not the way people think in France: it seems we're debating over cultural differences (meaning that each of us is right in his own way).
In France, religion belongs to the private sphere of your life and is not a public matter. Church and State are separated, there is no "in god we trust" on our banknotes and a church wedding has no legal value (you need to go the mayor). This separation between church and state is fairly old and is a very important thing over there.
One of the consequences of these things is that religion (a private thing) is not to be broadcasted at school, which, being a state school in a secular country, doesn't want to have any link with religion.
Note that you still have the possibility to go to private schools (which are not necessarily expensive, since teachers in private schools are paid by the state as well) in which religion will play a part and will be taught.
Now, as to your comment,
the notion that religion has no place in school goes against the notion that you
shouldn't be free to practice it. Religion is an integral part of who you are, it's not something you check at the door.
Well, this is precisely where the cultural difference appears: when the French public system was designed, this is precisely what people had in mind. France has a strong history of anti-clericalism. Religion, is something you're supposed to check at the door.
Banning all religious symbols from school has nothing to do with freedom of religion. If it only applied to muslims, I would agree with you. However, this is not the case.
Maybe we don't agree on the meaning of "freedom of religion": By "freedom of religion", I mean "freedom to choose your religion and practice it".
The only thing to understand about this matter is that in France, religion has no place at school.
I'm afraid you're missing something fundamental about France here: France is a *secular* country. One of the consequences is that people are not supposed to wear blatantly religious symbols at school, be it a kippa, a very large cross, or a scarf. The very fact that France is a secular country guarantees freedom of religion!
Well, as somebody who does *not* work in 3D graphics at all (I'm an actuary!), I failed to see where he was completely wrong. Could you please tell us where he "doesn't get it" ?
As to the "Pixar killed ExLuna" thing, doesn't the "their" in "their lawyers" refers to pixar's lawyers?
I especially like the " revolutionary compact 88-bit Kernel, which accelerates common system instructions." I think they should have used a 37 bits kernel, since 37 is a prime number.
When I was a kid, I used to copy lots of game disks for lots of friends, and I ended up having no time to actually play those games. However, it got me interested in how to use a computer and how it worked ( how the hell does ARJ manages to compress those megs onto only TWO disks??).
A few years later, I completely stopped gaming, being too busy coding various graphic effects. And then thinking at what I did when I was a kid, I decided not to become a game programmer because my games would get pirated anywhere and I would not make a living, and started studying maths &physics.
This just looks like a debate about power & extensibility vs ease of use (from a programmer's and sometimes user's point of view).
Basically, you can choose between a small and easy program that will do just what you need but is not designed to do anything else, and a very big and complex framework that will allow you to do whatever you want, but at the cost of making even small things very complex, because they will depend on the whole framework. Having a nuclear power plant behind you just to make a "Hello World" program is perfectly pointless.
This is also true from an UI point of view. When a new version of a special piece of software is released, I sometimes feel that I preferred the old one. The programmers wrote a Very General And Complete Thing which can do Anything They Want, but lost simplicity, both within the code and within the UI, since the user can now do zillions of things.
The result is that I often feel the new version should most of the time have a new name instead of software 2.0. Sure, it keeps quite a few things in common with the earlier version, but after a while, it will become so much more complex than what it was in the beginning, that I'll stick to the earlier version, or switch to another competitor.
Slashdot Mirror
You'll find it here : http://beijingtobeirut.free.fr/ The first half of the blog is in French, the second half in both French and English. Yep, I come from the country of stinking cheese and sparkling wine :-)
I have actually spent the past year backpacking across Asia : China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon.
Prior to this, I did a "test trip" and went to Bolivia and Peru. While I did initially consider bringing a laptop with me, my test trip told me that a notepad, internet cafes to burn DVDs and the local post office were more than enough. In particular, the notepad has an extra advantage, which is that you can stick things in it, from bus tickets to flowers, next to your impressions of the day. Believe me, it's those little details that you're going to remember.
As to the picture problem, I had one of these 2.5" portable hard drive with a memory card slot, and it let me store as many pictures as I wanted until I could find an internet cafe (which can be very difficult to find, say, when you're in the middle of a week-long trek). It did work quite well in the salt desert in Bolivia, which happens to be rather high (4000m), and can be very cold (-10C or below). If in doubt, just bring a bunch of memory cards.
Don't forget that there are internet cafes everywhere (the less developped the country, the more internet cafes, except in case of special political difficulties, like Burma), and yes, I did blog.
Unless I am mistaken, Joe Barr has been using linux for a while, right? The first time I installed a linux distro was probably around 1995, then I switched full time around 2001 (debian). What seems strange is that installing gentoo (at least to me, the last time I did a full stage 1 install was a while ago) isn't too far removed from what installing debian or slackware a while ago was (you have to understand what you're doing and RTFM), when you had fair amount of that 'low level configuration' (edit config files in text mode, kernel building) to do.
Obviously, there is something wrong with my reasoning. What is it?
I definitely agree with you on the fact that they now aim at completely different things.
I have been using KDE since KDE 3.0 (before that it was windowmaker), and love it. I especially like the fact that I can customize it to my exact (RSI-suffering) needs, and the absurdly powerful tools it ships with (Konsole, Konqueror). However, I do not dislike GNOME at all, quite the opposite.
The story of my "conversion" is simple : I was looking for a linux distribution for my computer-illiterate mother, and ended up installing Ubuntu , which ships with GNOME . While initially dismissing GNOME as "You can't do anything productive with it", I came to understand that from a usability point of view it was far better than KDE : while having no previous experience with it (apart from a quick go at 1.4 and 2.4), by just clicking where it seemed logical, I got what I wanted. The UI never got in my way, and it felt... strangely perfect. This has never happened with KDE. The GNOME UI is very simple, there are very few options - which suits my mother perfectly, she even told me she found it very easy -, and the menus and toolbars are not cluttered with lots of scary options. On the contrary, KDE is filled to the brim with options - which is what I need, but which my mother doesn't - which can be pretty confusing for a first time user.
The bottom line for me is that both are excellent products, they just don't seem share the same goal. I'm happy with KDE (and need the configurability , my mother is happy with GNOME and is a linux convert (she now advocates it to most of her friends).
Isn't Free Software all about choice? I'm glad we have both GNOME and KDE.At my university (somewhere in France), we've chosen it to teach programming to 1st year students (who have actually already had 2 years of higher education, 70% of them in maths, 30% in economics). Prior to this, C was taught. A good half of our students are computer illiterate, by which I mean they have never ever used a computer before.
- C was a complete failure
- Python was a complete success
C was a failure because students needed to understand how a computer works (pointers, memory and other malloc-related atrocities), and had to fight with a bizarre syntax, while at the same time trying to figure out what an algorithm was. They spent most of their time puzzling why their code didn't compile, and not enough why it didn't work. And above all, most of them ended up believing that coding was for a special class of uber-gurus.Python was a success because students could focus on understanding what was happening when the code was running (interpreter + very simple english-like syntax). The use of indentation as a logical block delimiter was also a tremendous help to them, along with the fact that you could write simple non-OO code or OO code. Finally, they could write useful programs -or fun programs, we've had quite a few games using pygame as projects- that did something and looked good.
The net result is that most of them understand what an algorithm is, quite enjoy coding, understand that it can be fun, and many more of them now enroll in the optional C++ course. Even more interesting, since our switch to Python, they are actually better at C++, and seem to find it a lot easier. They just see it as another way of expressing things with a more arcane syntax and with pointers, and not as something inherently difficult.
I'm not saying I dont'like C, it's quite the opposite actually. It's just that it's not suited to absolute beginners.
I have to admit that it's something I'm welcoming. The autotools are hard enough to learn, having to figure out imake on top of that was a bit of a hassle. Add to this the fact that it's now modular -we can work on different bits much more easily- and it's a winner...
I am especially interested in python support. I love python but it is some times a tad bit slow. I've seen lots of interesting initiatives to really improve performance (the starkiller python to C++ "compiler" for example), and am now very curious to see how good this one will perform. Besides, it would be quite funny to have perl and python united :-)
Particularly since the web makes pubishing said information inexpensive While I agree that web publishing is inexpensive and would help open it to more eyes, it does not mean that it will open it to more eyes.
There is some kind of hierarchy among the various journals (the Journal of Applied Physics is for example for prestigious than say the Journal of the Optical Society of America), and when researching something (my field is probability and statistics), I do take into account the journal where a paper comes from. The peer review process is fundamental here, and knowing that a particular journal has approved of a particular paper is of great help.
What I mean is: If I find some random unknown paper on the web, that has not been peer reviewed and does not come from a well-known researcher, or is not endorsed by some journal I know, it is very likely that I will not trust its results.
Thanks for the information about religious schools in the US.
It also means that if you were to argue in the US that Turkey should not be part of the European Union because it's not Christian that most people won't understand why you think that has anything to do with anything. That argument seems to have some traction in Europe though. You're perfectly right about this one. I personally don't care about Turkey not being Christian, but it is apparently (and unfortunately, IMHO) important for quite a few people in Europe
I don't live in France but many of the things I hear give me the impression that there separation of church and state means something more like forcing the "secular" religion down people's throats.
This is true, but since people expect this and it is the way quite a few of them think (the cultural difference I keep bothering you with), I'm not sure it's really a problem. The real problem is actually what you very accurately pointed out next:
That "secular" religion hasn't entirely disentangled itself from its Christian roots. In fact it seems fairly blind to the ways in which it is influenced by them. And it seems incapable of recognizing the possibility of a Muslim secular movement.
Very well said indeed... I could not agree more. This comes mainly from the immigration model in France: you are supposed to "blend in" and forsake your previous way of life. France has a Christian past and has therefore problems integrating people with very different traditions/religions and wants to believe these problems don't exist, hence the problems with muslims. We've had no problem assimilating (I know the word is strong, but that's what it is) the Italians and Poles (Christian) who immigrated in the past 80 years for example. Our secularism has some kind of Christian roots, and people tend to mix things up. The other reason is that most of our Muslim population isn't exactly wealthy -which tends to foster religious fundamentalism-, and comes from Northern Africa which leads people to believe that muslim fundamentalist=Muslim=Arab=bad. Frankly, I have no idea how to solve this.
By the way -- I'll take you at your word that you're not a secular fundamentalist, but in other cases people from religiously mixed families have been in my experience the most fundamentalist of secularists. They seem to have usually had a bad experience with religious intolerance and taken the wrong message away from that.
You're right. In my case it's a little particular. My father is a Middle Eastern (Lebanese) sunni Muslim who now prays every wednesday in Catholic prayer group, my mother a British Protestant. Both my brother and sister are Protestant, I am personally an atheist. Religious intolerance is something that I haven't seen much in my family. I am not offended in any way by religion, I just know that I don't really understand it. It took me a while for example to understand that for an atheist faith seems to be a question of choice, when for a truly religious person, it is not a choice, but something obvious (God exists and He's there). I know this may sound stupid, but it took me a while and a lot of talking (not arguing -I would never dare questioning one's faith- but asking questions about something I did not understand) with religious people to get this. And I'm not even sure I got it right...
Maybe continuing the debate by email would be easier?
The only religious schools receiving state funding are Christian
I'm afraid you're just plain wrong about this. Since religion does not exist for the French state, there can be no discriminatory policy based on religion as to which school gets money... It is just a question of legal status: you have to be a "private establishment under contract with the state" (meaning you can't teach everything you want basically). As to the fact that sponsoring private schools violates the separation of Church and State, please note that 1. not all private schools are religious 2.The state does not sponsor a religious school but a private school under contract.
As to the muslim head-scarves, the situation is a little more complex than what it seems. One of the reasons it's been talked about is that many people see it as a way of oppressing women, especially when girls are forced to wear it by their family. Add to this the fact that people are weary of muslim fundamentalism (we've had quite a few bombs here), don't understand a thing about Islam, stir, and you've got a rather explosive situation: people mix up everything and get emotional.
Which politician said Muslim girls who wear headscarves do not want to be French? Sounds like a far right thing to me, hardly the opinion of the majority of the population...
I will repeat what I said before: secularism is deeply rooted in French culture. I totally agree with you when you say that making diversity visible has more positive effects than negative effects in a healthy society. Except when people misunderstand what they see (muslim head scarf), and when, at school, our secular culture says, superseding everything else "no religious stuff at school". You said A more balanced approach would be to prohibit proseletyzing : this is precisely the problem here. In our extreme secular culture, quite a few people see any kind of religious symbols as some kind of proseletyzing. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, just the way people see it. It is, I believe, a matter of cultural differences.
Please note that I am not some kind of secular fundamentalist. Half of my family is christian (catholic or protestant), the other half is muslim.
I have one question: What is "a religious school" in the US? As it is often the case, I fear we're having a misunderstanding over what we're talking about.
Well, I understand what you mean, but that's not the way people think in France: it seems we're debating over cultural differences (meaning that each of us is right in his own way).
In France, religion belongs to the private sphere of your life and is not a public matter. Church and State are separated, there is no "in god we trust" on our banknotes and a church wedding has no legal value (you need to go the mayor). This separation between church and state is fairly old and is a very important thing over there.
One of the consequences of these things is that religion (a private thing) is not to be broadcasted at school, which, being a state school in a secular country, doesn't want to have any link with religion.
Note that you still have the possibility to go to private schools (which are not necessarily expensive, since teachers in private schools are paid by the state as well) in which religion will play a part and will be taught.
Now, as to your comment,
the notion that religion has no place in school goes against the notion that you shouldn't be free to practice it. Religion is an integral part of who you are, it's not something you check at the door.
Well, this is precisely where the cultural difference appears: when the French public system was designed, this is precisely what people had in mind. France has a strong history of anti-clericalism. Religion, is something you're supposed to check at the door.
Banning all religious symbols from school has nothing to do with freedom of religion. If it only applied to muslims, I would agree with you. However, this is not the case.
Maybe we don't agree on the meaning of "freedom of religion": By "freedom of religion", I mean "freedom to choose your religion and practice it".
The only thing to understand about this matter is that in France, religion has no place at school.
I'm afraid you're missing something fundamental about France here: France is a *secular* country. One of the consequences is that people are not supposed to wear blatantly religious symbols at school, be it a kippa, a very large cross, or a scarf.
The very fact that France is a secular country guarantees freedom of religion!
Well, as somebody who does *not* work in 3D graphics at all (I'm an actuary!), I failed to see where he was completely wrong. Could you please tell us where he "doesn't get it" ? As to the "Pixar killed ExLuna" thing, doesn't the "their" in "their lawyers" refers to pixar's lawyers?
I especially like the " revolutionary compact 88-bit Kernel, which accelerates common system instructions." I think they should have used a 37 bits kernel, since 37 is a prime number.
When I was a kid, I used to copy lots of game disks for lots of friends, and I ended up having no time to actually play those games. However, it got me interested in how to use a computer and how it worked ( how the hell does ARJ manages to compress those megs onto only TWO disks??). A few years later, I completely stopped gaming, being too busy coding various graphic effects. And then thinking at what I did when I was a kid, I decided not to become a game programmer because my games would get pirated anywhere and I would not make a living, and started studying maths &physics.
This just looks like a debate about power & extensibility vs ease of use (from a programmer's and sometimes user's point of view).
Basically, you can choose between a small and easy program that will do just what you need but is not designed to do anything else, and a very big and complex framework that will allow you to do whatever you want, but at the cost of making even small things very complex, because they will depend on the whole framework. Having a nuclear power plant behind you just to make a "Hello World" program is perfectly pointless.
This is also true from an UI point of view. When a new version of a special piece of software is released, I sometimes feel that I preferred the old one. The programmers wrote a Very General And Complete Thing which can do Anything They Want, but lost simplicity, both within the code and within the UI, since the user can now do zillions of things.
The result is that I often feel the new version should most of the time have a new name instead of software 2.0. Sure, it keeps quite a few things in common with the earlier version, but after a while, it will become so much more complex than what it was in the beginning, that I'll stick to the earlier version, or switch to another competitor.