[9fans] Re: Kernighan interview (w/ Plan 9 mention)

[George Michaelson <ggm@azure.dstc.edu.au>]

I took the roadsigns about this stuff seriously. When they seemed to say

	"don't play here if you are thick, or lazy, or both"

I made a simple call, and decided I fitted both categories. While its not
nice to have to self-assess as 'provably unsuitable for plan9' I think I
made the right decision. Whats more, I believe "you" all breathed a sigh
of relief inside when I did.

Face facts: you don't want larry, curly and moe anywhere but on VCR. Would
you ask them in for coffee? I hate people like me. I strive to avoid them!

In my own defence, I have tried quite hard to make smart,active people
in my employer (I work in a 'research' company whatever that means in
computer science these days) look at 9 or Brazil or Inferno and the
stunning indifference got too wearing. I don't know why C# or Java or
Corba heads get such strong NIH when you talk about the alternative,
but I just couldn't make it fly. Interestingly there were people down in
OZ who were in the space, and who seemed to be willing to have overtures
made, and even do some legwork from their side (hi Bob) but you can only
ask people so many times without a win. Perhaps my asking was a poisoned
chalice. I hope not. [I did try to do a better job than this text suggests]

Instead of worrying about this, I suggest people keep the faith, and
make it work better for themselves. You might like to think about what
it would mean to make Plan9 work as a root level nameserver running
not-bind DNS code, or as a sealed-box NetAPP offering NFS or NTFS as
commodity service. Do you really want whiners like me trailling along
with silly questions? Would you want the 24*7 headaches of reassuring
brain-dead users? I know some of you have been there (Hi Charles) and I
cannot imagine you want to go back. Boyd Roberts on the helpdesk. Wow.
(mind you, anybody who will find bugs for whiskey gets my vote)

[L]users want bevelled edge windows. They want reassurance. Plan9 is 
interestingly scary. It's not reassuring. Being made to feel dumb doesn't
inspire one to confidence.  Look at sendmail-vs-mmdf. history is not on
your side. cat -v. less. vim-emulator-for-emacs. the existance of
skins, netscape/mozilla, and themes.org -The list is endless. God, why
do they want a button called [Start] in the left hand corner? But if by
accident they drag that bar to the top, all hell breaks loose!

PS. please bring back Mark V Shaney. I miss him loads. Where is inspired
lunacy when you need it?

cheers 
	-George