Re: Clueless users are bad for debian (was Let's CENSOR it!)
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On Thu, 25 Mar 1999 11:08:07 -0500, Pablo \(Tombstone\) Averbuj wrote:
>This usually scares them off. If they insist on installing Linux, I tell
>them that I will not answer any question that I feel could have been
>researched and answered in less than 30 minutes.
As an aside, when I was an AOP on dal.net's #linux I flat out refused to
answer any question which a single Yahoo! or man -k search would answer. At
work, where I'm on call during the evenings if something goes down, I told
the two graveyard people they are to operate under the 20 minute rule. If
they haven't spent 20 minutes trying to figure it out before waking me, I'll
raise hell with their supervisor in the morning.
>It is worth noting that mouse driven interfaces are extremely
>counter-productive since moving from the keyboard to the mouse and back
>consumes a considerable amount of typing time [2].
Case in point, GUI IRC clients. The hands are on the keyboard, not the
mouse. People always wondered why I'd use bitchx (or any IrcII spin-off)
when there was Circus, Zircon, etc. My hands are *here* not *there*.
OTOH, there are cases when a GUI comes in handy. For example, X with a
good WM (IMHO, icewm is a fine example) with "sloppy focus." You can
monitor the output from several xterms/rxvts at once and a quick flick of
the mouse will move you to the one that you want w/o having it raised. The
monitoring of multiple windows provides more context and off-sets the time
to move the hand to the mouse, IMHO. And being able to see all of one
window while typing in another which is mostly hidden is certainly an
underappreciated feature.
>This breaks the Unix tradition of chaining together powerful utilities to
>perform a complicated task. Instead you must envelop the entire task in a
>single monolithic program that will usually not share it's code with another
>program. [3]
system("tar -cf - $files | tee /backup/$locmount.tar | tar xpvf - -C
/backup/local/$locmount > /backup/$locmount.cat");
My personal favorite to date. :)
>users who would rather not download and recompile 'awk' but still have the
>option to download apache source, recompile it, and integrate it as the
>binary package would have.
Actually, I'd like to see Debian advance to the point where one could
use the packaging system to download, compile and install a package for
those who want to have everything compiled on their machine. This is one of
the last arguements that a coworker who is a slack slave gives me regardless
of how much I tell him that he can custom compile on Debian. From what I
hear, that is going to be an option in apt.
- --
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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