Linux, Rejection and "Best Year for Linux" quotes

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Postby miasmata » 2013.01.06 (20:22)

I know this thread was made three years ago, but seeing as how the "linux is less efficient" argument popped up I figured I'd place this here. Problem #5 is what you want, though if you plan on making a foray into Linux from Windows or Mac at some point in time, I highly recommend reading the whole article as it is very enlightening.

My personal stance is that Linux is for people who want to use Linux. If you feel like learning something new, having complete control of your OS, don't mind some things not working not (and learning how to fix them), then you might enjoy Linux. If that does not appeal to you, I would say don't bother. Popular distros such as Ubuntu might make it much, much easier, but as far as I can tell adding bloat on top of programs for the sole purpose of making things easier for the user goes against both the Unix and the Linux philosophy. Or maybe just mine.

If you want everything to "just work" in a simple and familiar environment, use a major OS. Linux probably isn't for you. I'm not being condescending or arrogant, I'm just speaking the truth.
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Postby Donfuy » 2013.01.09 (12:40)

miasmata wrote:I know this thread was made three years ago, but seeing as how the "linux is less efficient" argument popped up I figured I'd place this here. Problem #5 is what you want, though if you plan on making a foray into Linux from Windows or Mac at some point in time, I highly recommend reading the whole article as it is very enlightening.
Christ, I read that #5's subproblem 5a.

The thing about the paste, cut, copy Control commands is that they can be universal to all applications. It's an extremely common operation on many programs.
Imagine having those shortcuts on a file manager, per example. When I type "d", with no modifier, I expect it to go to a folder or file starting with the letter d. Also, this guy clearly doesn't know how fingers + keys work. He gotta learn he does not need to depress Ctrl-Shift- when selecting. I would go further but I'm sleep-drunk.

But I understand what's the concept he's trying to explain. And funnily enough, that same concept is now currently striking back at Microsoft with their Windows 8 offering.

oh, oh, I just read a bit subproblem 5b. This guy most definitely loves the Ribbon interface by now! Woo, one-click bold!
wait a second, what, this guy is asking if I ever saw anyone writing code on MS Word!

and like that I finish my post
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Postby miasmata » 2013.01.11 (22:52)

Donfuy wrote: The thing about the paste, cut, copy Control commands is that they can be universal to all applications. It's an extremely common operation on many programs.
Imagine having those shortcuts on a file manager, per example. When I type "d", with no modifier, I expect it to go to a folder or file starting with the letter d. Also, this guy clearly doesn't know how fingers + keys work. He gotta learn he does not need to depress Ctrl-Shift- when selecting. I would go further but I'm sleep-drunk.
True, though bear in mind the writer was referring to word processors, not file managers or any other type of application, and specifically MS Word vs vi (and having used both, I can say that vi indeed has much more potential to be an efficient powerhouse than Word. But even completely disregarding that, it doesn't make what he said any less true. Actually, I would like to call attention to one word you used- 'expect'- because that is the whole point this guy is making. The word processor thing is just an example, but the overarching point is that people have certain expectations about how things will work based on how similar things people have used have worked. The writer is not saying that this is necessarily a wrong approach to take; certainly, man has primarily his own experiences to take into account when dealing with something new, he is rather saying that this expectation and belief of things to be what we are used to is not always true.

5a/5b is merely expanding on this point and saying that just because something is familiar, does not mean it is efficient. You could spend years doing something one way and get pretty good/fast at it, and then have someone else come along and tell you that what you are doing is inefficient compared to another method. Sure, you are used to the first method and use it much faster than the alternative initially, but once you use the second method for some time and learn it, it will end up being much faster with less energy expenditure.
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