On Sat, 18 Aug 2012 20:11:58 +1000 John Briggs <johneb47@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: <snipped wisdom> As I have said in a previous post, I arrived in linux a little later than you, but for much the same reasons. On "KISS" / "The Arch Way" / "Unix philosophy" etc, it seems to me that here as in my own field (law), maxims make good servants but poor masters. Ultimately, every decision has to be evaluated as good or bad in its own right. In most cases the answer will be in terms of the quality of the software engineering and I am more than happy to accept the judgment of people much better qualified than I am to make it. On the other hand, at the highest level, engineering decisions in all fields, sadly and inevitably, have a "political" dimension. Is the supplier of this solution trustworthy over the long term? Where does this leave us if x happens? What are the implications of this choice for future choices? Engineers are not necessarily any better qualified than the rest of us to get those calls right. Geoff
