[Gllug] Controversial Joel Spolsky article

[Bruce Richardson]

On Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 04:04:53PM +0000, Tethys wrote:
> But I think the difference is that Unix admins tend to bring an "enterprise"
> mentality to their home systems, where Windows admins tend to bring a home
> PC mentality to their work systems, which goes a long way to explaining why
> so many businesses have problems with their Windows PCs. Yes, it's a trite
> answer, but there's too much truth to it for comfort...

For the most part, the PC industry grew up in isolation from what had
gone before.  The lessons that had been learned on mainframes and
minicomputers weren't passed on to the microcomputer people, partly
because those working on the former had no interest in microcomputers
(or held them in contempt).  This means that a whole new industry grew
up largely in ignorance and with no correctives to its bad practices.
By the time microcomputers became complex enough to run decent operating
systems, these poor practices had effectively become industry standards.

Many of the poor practices and design decisions of companies like
Microsoft - binary configuration files, poor modularity etc - are part
due to this small-computer, cottage-industry heritage.  But it also
means there's a whole self-contained IT society which operates in
unknowing ignorance, lacking the breadth of knowledge to recognise these
faults.

Most Linux admins started from within this blinkered society but had the
curiousity to look beyond its limits.  They discovered and embraced the
good practices and disciplines that the Unix world offered.  Otoh, all
too many Windows admins are unjustifiably complacent and unaware,
ignorant even of the limited capabilities of the opaque OS they rely on.
It can be very depressing to have to work alongside such people and it
is difficult to overstate their lack of curiosity and ignorance of basic
computing principles and mechanisms.  As a rule, such people are
actively suspicious of automation and the many productivity-enhancements
that a skilled admin can make to computer systems.  They will choose the
interactive, drag-and-drop solution over the automated solution because
they trust what they can see (even though what they see is just an
animated representation of an action).

I could give examples but I'd have to go kick a hole in a door
afterwards.

-- 
Bruce

Remember you're a Womble.
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