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Branden Robinson" , Paul Winalski , Computer Old Farts Followers X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [COFF] Re: UNIX and its users - new or old List-Id: Computer Old Farts Forum Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: On Tue, Jun 13, 2023 at 1:03=E2=80=AFPM Clem Cole wrote: > On Mon, Jun 12, 2023 at 7:50=E2=80=AFPM G. Branden Robinson wrote: >> The BSD advocates I knew back in the day suggested that this was my faul= t for not locating and apprenticing myself to such a master; >> the guild mentality was, and in some ways still is, powerful there. > > This is a fair point and is actually true of almost any system or, for th= at matter social setting, if you have a guide it's a lot easier to know wha= t to do or fool people into thinking you do; Liza Doolittle style. Forgive me, Clem, but I'm going to push back on this a little bit. The TL;DR of my position is, "guides, yes; guilds, no." I agree with the idea that having a friendly guide to help one acclimate to a system is really useful: provided that guide is actually friendly and helpful. I find that the interaction works best when people regard each other as peers, with one imparting specific knowledge to the other to fill in gaps in the latter's experience. I find it works very poorly when one side is arrogant and belittling towards the other. I believe that the "guild" mentality encourages the latter behavior, with an "in-group" that demands unearned respect. Mutual respect works much better. Moreover, adoption of this guild model (really, the mentality) with partitioning people into groups of "apprentices", "journeymen" and "masters" has allowed for the rise of charlatans and cranks across the industry. Consider people like Robert Martin: he's become known as a "master software craftsman", has published many books that sell well, and speaks at conferences across the industry. And yet, near as I can tell, he hasn't actually written all that much software; certainly not much that is publicly available. What is there shows that he is a middling programmer at best; certainly not worthy of the accolades heaped on him. Same with people like Allen Hollub, who's biggest claim to fame seems to be writing a book on compilers that is mostly material regurgitated from the Dragon Book (but in poorly-written C), and who infamously rails against things like issue trackers (seriously: tell me you've never worked on a big project without telling me that you've never worked on a big project). Then there's the rest of the agile influencer cult; mostly more of the same. >> To bang an old drum of mine, while Unix culture pats itself on the back = for economizing keystrokes with an ad hoc compression scheme for every >> name in sight, it too often overlooks what discarded in pursuit of this = form of minimality: clarity, lack of ambiguity, and ease of acquisition by = newcomers. > > Again fair - which is why I think losing things like the old UNIX (I thin= k bwk originated) 'learn system' from the stock releases is a little sad. = I used to tell newcomers - to spend an AM with learn and go through the fi= les/more files/vi scripts and then come back to me, and I'll try to help yo= u. There is a qualitative difference here. Being willing to mentor and (importantly) providing access to learning materials is very different from being disdainful for those who don't already "have a clue". Being friendly and helpful is also qualitatively different from demanding groveling behavior from the "apprentice" caste before they can be allowed some scraps from the table. I argue that the "guild" mentality leads to the latter. > My line was that UNIX always had a more difficult learning curve than, sa= y GUI based systems (or even some of the old DEC ones likes TOPS or VMS), b= ut once you learned the tools and ideas, it was much simpler to use - made = more sense (to me certainly). [Teach someone to fish, vs. give them one ide= a]. > > But as you point out, that only works if you have someone(s) to ask. ...and that person is not a jerk to you for daring to ask a question they don't already know the answer to. That, I think, is the fundamental difference that G. Branden was trying to highlight. - Dan C.