Everybody rightly criticizes Micro$tiff for selling a crappy OS, and
Linux is obviuosly better, if you have the time and the expertise to use
in it, but until this week I didn't understand exaclty why Windows is
such a POS.
Linux is NOT "obviously better". BOTH are POS!
There are TWO problems: The problem with Windoze is Bill Gates.
And the problem with Linux is programmers.
When I had to uninstall the Google toolbar because Google installed an
update tht I didn't ask for, which overrode IE5's ctrl-f command, the
reason beame clear. Windows' install/uninstall method causes bugs to
accumulate, if programs are not ununstalled in precise the reverse order
of which they were installed.
Here is the understanding in a nutshell.
1. Bill Gates (the smartest man in the universe) never even foresaw
the internet, Bill Gates thinks that HIS time is valuable, but YOURs
is not. Bill Thinks that if you use his software he "owns" your
machine.
2. Hence windoze is full of backdoors and other items which allows
Bill and his minions to enter into your machine at will, stomp around
in there, load software, run programs, examine your data, all without
your permission. Google toolbar is simply a pimple on the ass of
progress. All actions take forever wasting your (but not Bill's)
time. Ever ask yourself why in this day and age you should be waiting
15 minutes for a computer to "boot"? Hell, paper tape never took that
long! Why should it do that at all? Why should you have to wait for
ANY operation save the calculation of atomic bomb parameters? Shit.
That's a CRAY supercomputer sitting there on your damn desk! The
genius is that they managed to slow it down as much as they have!
3. Programmers are almost without exception lazy morons. They are so
caught up in details that they don't have time to ask "how would a
user interact with this program?" Nope. They grab a language, use all
the features built into that language as is with no regard to if they
suck or not. The "true test" in their view is not is this convenient
and easy for the user, but rather is there SOME way to do this
operation? Even if you have to push on walls to find guns and food, if
it does the job, it stays that way.
4. Programmers are so imbued with the worship of details they never
see the big picture. Hence, every job is done backwards from details
outward. And therefore when added to lazy, you end up with new
software being created by patching old software. This inspite of the
well-known rule that says that it always takes less time to write a
whole new program (and do it right) than to patch and modify an old
POS. Now you know what "built on NT 'technology'" means. It means our
heads are still up our lazy butts!
5. Commercial pressures add a final disaster to the mix encouraging
patching of old crap and releasing things before they are finished as
well as an emphasis on hype rather than functionality.
6. So is Vista the saviour of the world? All the sales people at my
micro-store told me they are "really excited" about Vista. Truth? Go
look at all the articles in the gaming mags telling how to strip Vista
off your machine and put XP back on. Feh.
7. OK, so is Linux the saviour of the world? Hardly. That OS is SO old
it has a beard. It's FAR too complex because it came from another era
of timeshare and terminals. Basically it's a monument to "patch
rather than write" rule. Typical Linux flake: First tells you you
don't have a certain kind of drive when booting up, but then waits 5
minutes looking for them (I presume just in case you installed one in
the last few seconds). Quote the Red Hat factory rep: "Yeah it's a
real bug but we're not going to fix it..." In other words we got
your money so bite me! Red Hat is dead so bite ME!
8. People, however ARE aware of these problems. A "save game" program
to restore you OS is an excellent investment. Too bad they seem to be
harder and harder to find and work less and less well. So what
happens when you go to the Logitech mouse site to add "full features"
to your cool wireless mouse and their "features" crash and lock the
whole OS? Obviously a "save game" is the answer. But that does NOT
answer why the morons who put together the OS known as Windoze were
allowed to sell that POS as if it were a real OS. It's not. though in
many ways it's somewhat better than some others out there (Linux).
9. So now that you understand the problem, just one question remains:
Is there at least ONE programmer out there with the ability at the
level to write a decent OS, with the time and motivation to start from
scratch, considering the way the USER interacts with it foremost, who
will respect the user's privacy and sovereignty over his own machine,
and who is willing to do all this without trying to kluge something
together from some shit that other high school students wrote in their
basement?
Well, IS THERE?
