From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2000 08:45:24 +0000 From: George Michaelson Message-ID: References: <39B4C71E.CEA88DDB@ysbl.york.ac.uk>, , <39B520F0.2A8F7817@arl.army.mil> Subject: [9fans] Re: Kernighan interview (w/ Plan 9 mention) Topicbox-Message-UUID: 0385a73a-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 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