Re: Comparing apples and oranges (was Re: Ridin' Through Gateway Country, Roundin' up details....)

["Robert G. Brown" <bob@xxxxxxx>]

>>>...not as great as OS/2 which I've been using at this point for years, but
>>>it's okay as long as you don't think of it as anything more than what it is 
>>>-- MS-DOS 7.0 and Windows 4.0." 
>>With the volume of data a lot of people are handling today, and with todays 
>>hardware, a description like that means that it just doesn't cut it...
>In the professional market, I have no quibbles with this claim. The home
>market can still be well served with "toys" more often than not. 
So are you saying that Win95 is the OS for these "toys"?

Gateway puts Win95 on ALL of it's "toys", and they don't list any alternatives;
I had to ask about NT, recall?

My notion of a "toy" is NOT a 400Mhz Pentium II, 128 Mb, 14.4 Gb of disk, 
an x2 modem, multimedia features and a 19" monitor. This sounds like a 
fairly serious machine, yet they ship a "toy" OS on that platform?!?

The mind boggles.

>> >...thrashing it, doing "weird" things... compiling
>> Wait a minute... compiling is "weird?". If I can't compile something on a 
>> box, it's actually useless to me (usually). I mean, Microsoft makes compilers
>> and IDE's (a couple of which I use in NT and elsewhere), so why's it wierd?
>
>You'll note that I put "weird" in quotes. The stuff I mentioned may be no
>big deal to us, but to most people it's black magic. Then again, most
>people have a hard time figuring out how to make their VCR's do anything
>other than flash high noon. 
Well, we're talking amongst ourselves here, and (I hope) most of the folks on
this mailing list don't think of compiling ot multiple profiles, etc. as be-
ing "wierd". ANY commercial grade OS oughta be able to handle that stuff, and 
cleanly.

>The average user certainly does not compile programs. ...
OK.  I'm someone who ordered a machine only to discover that they'de installed
MS Office Professional on it without telling me, so I deleted it and put in
the compilers I needed to do my work. I don't like some of the installation 
paths designated for certain Linux packages, so I diddle the config files
until I'm happy with it. I compile my kernel to support everything installed
on a machine, and support nothing that isn't there.

In short, I'm not your average user. I have to play at being one to imagine
what folks like that go through in this industry.

>>>running non-standard TCP/IP applications like the RC5 distributed client...
>>Why is this "weird"?, and what "non-standard" about the RC5 client. ...
>Anything that uses anything other than port 23 or 80 is black magic to your
>average user.
But we're not talking about "your average user"; we're talking about the OS
itself.

>>>logging in and out of different profiles....
>>Look, I don't know what you think is "normal", but I do know that verything
>>you've mentioned here is completely within the boundaries of normal system
>>admin and operation. If there's any question that an OS can't or doesn't
>>handle these things fairly well, it's a real problem.
>What we consider "normal" is not what Joe Sixpack considers normal.
We all understand that already. Again, it's not what my alter ego (JQ Public)
can support, but what the OS is capable of. I don't have to be an expert on
the technology that makes the "100,000 miles between tune-ups" engines
possible, but I don't have to go through those pesky service station stops
hardly at all anymore, and that's good enough for me. People using LANs don't
understand that they are (generall, these days) TCP/IP-based systems now....

>Microsoft can be thought of as McDonald's. They try to satisfy everyone and
>end up being mediocre, at best. But that's okay, because *most people*
>don't need anything better. Especially those who don't leave their systems
>on 24/7 (and who can say why they do such strange things? :).

>>There's no need to stop because this is a Linux list....
>Thank you, although I'll try to keep my primary emphasis on Linux. I don't
>advocate any system without context, though -- "better" must necessarily
>raise the question, "better for whom, and for what purpose?"
Sure. Again, we see the nessesity of leading with the question "What are 
you going to accomplish with your machine?"

>>>Your points regarding NT are valid to an extent, although again it hasn't
>>>behaved as badly... But I wouldn't use a butter knife to cut steak, either.
>>I tend to have more or less steaklike problems to solve, most of the time.
>>In fact, the steak frequently comes to me burnt to a crisp, so it's REALLY
>>tough! :) Butter knives are (almost) useless to me.
>Point taken. But the fact that DOS (with or without some form of Windows on
>top) is still in such widespread use shows that most people are content
>with butter knives -- and not necessarily always because they've never
>known anything better existed. DOS meets some people's needs quite well,...
It meets MY NEEDS quite well.. for some things. I use it for those things,
and not for others.

>>Let's look at price-performance. I paid over $1.5K for the NT software I 
>>have, and there's a goodly amount of stuff I need to do that I just cannot 
>>accomplish under NT. Add to that over $4K of time (so far), to get it config-
>>ured and keep it running. Professionally, I've spent about $2.5K in time to
>>keep Linux running, but only about $60.00 for the software. The only thing I
>>cannot do in Linux is test and compile for NT!
>Depending on one's circumstances, one can often use free or low-cost
>programs in a Windows environment. Obviously, the pointy-haired boss may
>have ultimate say in what tools you are "allowed" to use on the job, but
>there are often many alternatives to expensive commercial applications,
>even in the non-Unix worlds.
Ah, here's when we run into all that pesky practicality again. I have clients
who have standardized on certain compilers and environments. The contracts I
have specify that is "shall deliver the contracted software ready to install
on platform XXX, compliant with all the conventions used by compiler YYY".
Now, I can "choose" not to sign that contract, and go wandering about 
like a lost child, digging up scraps of food and selling things at flea
markets (or getting a REAL JOB, a frightening prospect :), or I can sign 
and get on with the business at hand.  If I don't sign, someone else will,
which doesn't excuse me from thinking but demonstrates that the market
tendency is to sign.

So in effect, if I want that business, I must support that platform, compi-
ler, etc. If I had a client that chose Win95, I'd install that, too. Just
has not happened yet; I doubt it will.


                                                More Later,
                                                    ---> RGB <---