On 06/15/2011 04:19 PM, åç åç wrote: > Sorry, JB, I usually avoid posting (hence the trash email address), but > not today because this hit home. > > On Wed, 2011-06-15 at 22:06 +0000, JB wrote: >> Clyde E. Kunkel<clydekunkel7734<at> cox.net> writes: >> >>> ... >>> All this said, I am beginning to believe Fedora is more and more an >>> experiment in social engineering. >>> ... >> >> That's a well-chosen remark :-) >> "Social engineering is the art of manipulating people into performing >> actions...". > > Sometimes this does seem the case, but on the other hand considering the > size of the open source community these days (as opposed to say, 1994, > before there was a real label for it) there is no way to make a decision > that everyone will agree with. There are too many people to please and > no possible way everyone can communicate everything to each other and > discuss prior to making a decision on something. Of course, these days > blogging has trained people to be more self-important *and* noisier than > ever. Another way of saying this is perhaps that the self-important used > to do more and say less, and by simply doing they were de facto in > charge. Argument from irrelevant people clogs lists more than it used to > -- or perhaps I am getting old and nostalgic. > > Of course the "quietly doing" part above is, and forever will be, the > secret to having things your way in open source -- or actually in any > tech. Working implementations of ideas carry far more weight than any > argument in a mailing list. > >> I am also surprised (have been for long time) by seeing Linux projects violating >> UNIX principles of software development. >> In this particular context, I am disappointed that they, apparently, lack >> oversight by management, starting with the design phase. > > This does not surprise me in the least. As open source has become more > high profile it has attracted the attention of and absorbed the vanity > developers who used to write their pet apps in Pascal, QBASIC or Java on > Windows (or OS/2 if they were l33+), and now play with whatever vanity > language is popular this week from within the confines of whatever open > source project they think will make them famous(ish). This sort of > developer often can't tell you who Fred Brooks, Eric Raymond, Donald > Knuth, Ken Thompson, or anyone similar are and haven't read anything > they've written for our benefit about design or the Unixy way to solve > problems. > > Chicken lipstick is in high demand, automated text processing through > intelligent use of shell scripts is down, overly complex solutions are > up, overweight software is up, the number of people who have ever > learned to configure their system starting with a minimal install (not > even touching the number of users who can't build their own system from > source) is way down, etc. > > These are simply signs that the community has changed because the people > who remember what the Unixy way of doing things was has become a much > smaller percentage of the population as we've absorbed a million haX0r > d00dz from the Windows world. That expansion is not bad and the new guys > certainly mean well, but we've definitely not done enough to familiarize > newcomers with the history of Unix, who the original old guys were, what > they were thinking, and the depth of thought that went into a project > before the first line of code was written back in the day. > > It doesn't help that C and Lisp are considered "too hard" to teach in > allegedly credible CS undergrad courses these days. Specific discussion > in class about what happens within a compiler and how processors > actually process things has been replaced with rather vague generalities > (those are "deep subjects that you don't need to worry about") and freed > the instructors to focus on teaching elementary problem solving in Java > and Python as if it is deep CS skill. In other words, elementary problem > solving logic and problem deconstruction theory is now masquerading as > deep computer science -- the technicals are scary so they are to be > avoided (what if my students aren't smart enough to pass?!? I might look > like a bad instructor -- best avoid pointer math and recursion this > go-around...). > > Without achieving that critical mass of fundamental knowledge it is very > difficult for newcomers to the community to identify exactly why the > Unix way is better than the Windows way. Their choice to join the open > source community is therefore based largely on emotional and social > factors -- this is counter-cultural, it's against The Man/M$/Whoever, "I > think I have better security (but I don't know what that means on a deep > level)", its cheaper, etc. -- not on technical grounds. Any reason is > adequate in my view, but without a firmly set social more that guides > newcomers to familiarize themselves with the roots of Unix and do their > basic homework we cannot realistically expect Linux to remain Unixy > forever. > > Just my $2.00. > > -Iwao +1 Very elegantly written. I could not with you more. If anybody would like an authoritative treatise I recommend the Unix "Blue Book" from Bell Labs (my memory fails me but I think it was also Ritchie). > > > -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
