I cannot join in with the Linux community because of you people. You're just *too awful*. Instead of accepting that this stuff happens and it's bad, you childishly nerdsnort and start writing Microsoft with a dollar sign instead of an S, acting as if this stuff is some amazing manifestation of idiocy rather than a likely consequence of using a mainstream OS developed with time and budgetary constraints. It's going to have stupid bugs. Get the fuck over it.
I would like to join in with the Linux community, but all I ever hear is this pathetic nyerr-nyerr-nyerr garbage.
If you want to attract intelligent, grown-up people to Linux you need to stop doing certain things.
1) Don't act as if users of other operating systems are less intelligent than you. It turns out that Linux-advocacy isn't the entire world, and that leaders in different fields (or even this one!) might be using Windows. They're not "lusers", they just have priorities different from your own.
2) Don't act as if Linux hasn't had equally stupid stuff happen to it. Yes, it's a different process altogether, and I would dare say that bugs are less likely due to its open source nature, but they still happen. One that I can remember off the top of my head is Debian's guessable SSL keys.
3) Try—for ten minutes—to give the impression that half of your time isn't devoted to bashing an OS you believe is irrelevant.
4) For good measure try cutting out the xkcd worship and meme-spouting. We might be able to relate to you people if you acted as if you weren't cut from the same distasteful mold.
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Anonymous2009-10-08 6:35
>>40
your "argument" seems to be exactly the same......
OP post is essentially: Linux fanatics harm the whole process of "Linux adoption"(defending obvious flaws and halfbaked-solutions with excuses such as "freedom" and "learn and DIY").
>>47
There are freedoms and "freedoms". For example the so-called "freedom" of speech is worse than any slavery, as it allows some people indoctrinate others via books. The same is true in regard to code: reading or contributing to other people's code forces one to adopt the "established" coding styles such as indenting or variable naming and blend into the masses, instead of developing one's own unique, personal style, free from age old prejudices and cargo cult.
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Anonymous2009-10-08 9:59
Finally, some philosohpical discussion for me to jump in and debunk everything.
>>50 For example the so-called "freedom" of speech is worse than any slavery, as it allows some people indoctrinate others via books.
It is worse to have others believe you than having them locked down? Most wouldn't agree. Those that would agree, wouldn't believe.
The same is true in regard to code: reading or contributing to other people's code forces one to adopt the "established" coding styles such as indenting or variable naming and blend into the masses
What? No. First, it's not "the masses". You're talking about a single person or a development team of 5 guys (unless it's a major project). Second, just because you wrote code according to some style guideline doesn't mean you're now owned by the style guidelines. Thirdly, there's no analogy, tehrefore you can't say "thes ame applies to/for...", like you did.
, instead of developing one's own unique, personal style, free from age old prejudices and cargo cult.
Nonsense. Is experience prejudice? Cargo cult? Moronic.
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Anonymous2009-10-08 10:55
It is worse to have others believe you than having them locked down?
Why them, the indoctrinators should be locked down, not the indoctrinated. I have nothing against personal exchange of ideas, mind you, it's the statement that everyone has the "right" to duplicate her opinion in hundred million copies and poison hundred million people that irks me. The only thing that can be mass-produced is conformism.
You're talking about a single person or a development team of 5 guys
No, I'm talking about the masses exactly, the masses that would bash you and declare you a dangerous lunatic for daring to suggest that maybe indentation is not so good as advertised, or that hierarchies of hierarchies of include and object files can be replaced with a single include file containing everything you'll ever need, or that `goto` has its uses.
It doesn't matter if you state one of these things to a single developer, or a hundred, the reaction would be identical, "we always did it like that, our textbooks and examples always had it like that, you are insane, we don't even want to discuss it". It's like if you were talking to a bunch of featureless golems, ones of the million identical copies. It doesn't matter that the rest of them are not actually present, it doesn't matter that this particular group is different from the others in some unimportant detail of The Religion (and will engage in flamewars with a zeal only such trifle differences can provoke).
It is a perfect analogy. One man writes down some idea, it spreads and spreads and spreads and then suddenly everyone is a clone and you are a freak if you do not conform. Not because of your arguments, nobody would even listen to them, but solely because you dare to go against.
Is experience prejudice? Cargo cult?
Some of it is not, of course. It's just that most of it is, and trawling for rare pearls of truth, avoiding being poisoned by the rest, is more taxing than discovering everything on your own. The latter also builds character and gives the kind of experience and expertise you'll never acquire by ingesting preprocessed "truths".
>>52
Who is forcing you to work with people you don't like? I would only understand this if it were in a commercial context.
Indentation? If what you use differs from what the other developers are using, you can use an indent tool to change between styles.
It seems you're talking about C here, but in the wild you can see a variety of C coding styles, some very different from another. I've also seen plenty of developers who don't dismiss goto and use it when it matters (fast error handling). Conventions/guidelines are there because some people can't control themselves when they write code, and other people might not be able to work with their code that way, but you're free to do what you want, however that may influence wether other people will want to work with you or not.
You're also arguing against indentation, which makes you sound a lot like FV. Indentation is fine for visual cues, but if you don't like it, but others require it: just use indent to re-format your source code before commiting your code.
A replaceable code monkey working by schedule cannot appreciate individuality and freedom to tinker.
They will never be hackers. They will never use "black magic" in their coding. They will never be famous or significant.
They will never be famous or significant.
That's where your megalomany shows - you think you will be, and you think being famous is something to strive for. The same bollocks in >>52
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Anonymous2009-10-08 12:13
>>55 They will never use "black magic" in their coding. They will never be famous or significant.
Bill Gates.
You, Sir, are an idiot.
>>57
I do not think that the person you are addressing is in fact Sir Bill Gates. You must be mistaken somehow.
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Anonymous2009-10-08 14:35
All of these mistakes notwithstanding, one should not overlook the success of X as free software. X predates version 1 of the GPL by some five years. Once the GPL came out, Richard Stallman was a regular visitor to the X Consortium's offices; he would ask, in that persistent way he has, for X to change licenses. That was not an option, though; the X Consortium was supported by a group of corporations which was entirely happy with the MIT license. But in retrospect, Keith says, "Richard was right."
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Anonymous2009-10-08 16:52
>>59
Does that mean X got successful because it did not adopt GPL or that X sucks because it didn't adopt GPL?
Stallman should be ashamed of himself for trying to take away people's freedoms. MIT is more permissive than GPL.
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Anonymous2009-10-08 17:08
>>61
Stallman uses a different definition of freedom under which GPL is more free than MIT. It's a choice whether you want to be part of his dogma or part of another dogma.
>>62
I think Stallman would agree that the MIT license is more free, in the sense that it grants the user more rights, namely ``the right to sell themselves into slavery''
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Anonymous2009-10-08 17:25
>>63
Couldn't they just use a modified MIT licence with a thirteenth amendment clause?
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Anonymous2009-10-09 9:46
>>62
Only ignorant people claim that copyleft style GPL is more free than liberal style MIT. It's a fact that liberal style is more free than copyleft style. The GPL is all about ensuring four specfic freedoms; Anything else is allowed as long as the freedom does not conflict with the four specific freedom.
>>65
Read >>62 again and realize there's nothing you added which >>62 didn't say.
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Anonymous2009-10-09 10:03
>>66
I'm contending this point ... GPL is more free than MIT.
He's using a definition of freedom, but nobody declares this definition as more free.
We say these particular freedoms are more essential to a free society. We say that any act that conflicts with these essential freedoms are harmful to society.
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Anonymous2009-10-09 10:38
GPL is more free than MIT.
It's the code that is supposed to be free, not the licensee.
>>62 is right.
If you look at it from the point of the license:
MIT is more free, as it gives you more freedoms.
GPL is gives more freedoms to the code, not the idividual.
So depending on which kind of freedom you're considering, one would be more free than the other and vice versa.