Re: [9fans] Re: scripting installation

[forsyth@vitanuova.com]

>> > is it not your years of experience as a computer administrator that wrote
>> > those scripts

>> And others don't have that experience to pass along to new users? Excuse
>> me but Plan 9 is what 12+ years old and there aren't any significant
>> automation efforts? Hmmmmm.....

i wonder whether a `scripted' approach to installation and
configuration of something as complex as a distributed operating
system with three different components to configure, on several
physical machines simultaneously, based on hardware that is
notoriously ill-specified and furthermore constantly changing, is
similar to the difficulty of trying to speak a foreign language using only a
phrase book: it takes only one party or the other (usually the native
speaker) to step outside the precise scenario envisaged by the script's author
to leave the novice completely lost.

using a phrase book in a foreign country is of course more polite than just
starting out in one's native language, but in the end, you need to
know the underlying grammar of the other language and a reasonable vocabulary to
carry on even simple conversations.  even within their scope, phrase books
often sound stilted: that's one reason that reading phrases
out end-to-end as if they really were scripts is often so
funny.   there was a splendid programme on BBC Radio 3 a few years ago
that did just that, making little surreal stories out of them;
i think it was entitled ``My Postilion has been Struck by Lightning!''.
the effects were often similar to those i've experienced when attempting
to use ./configure scripts, let alone o/s installation.