Re: [TCLUG:4288] Not-So-Rosy article in Star Trib

[Michael Hicks <hick0088@tc.umn.edu>]

>         I think what Steve is going through, and unwilling to admit, is that he's
> having to return to being a novice at something at which he feels he should
> be an expert.  I know when I first encountered Unix many a year ago (on an
> old AT&T Unix PC -- wish I still had that thing), the first thing I did was
> write a few dozen aliases to make it behave more like DOS.  It took a while
> to unlearn my old habits and begin to recognize the OS for what it was, and
> use it in the way it was intended.  In the end, having stayed the course
> made me a much more proficient computer user.

Heh.. that reminds me of something I heard when the guys at C|Net Radio
[http://www.radio.com/] were trying out Linux.  After a while, one of
them said that you have to take off your head, bang it on a wall a
couple of times, then put it back on at a 45 degree angle -- and then
you start to understand Linux ;-)

UNIX is a different way of computing..  Devices can be represented as
files, the filesystem hierarchy seems backward at first, plus the
multi-user aspect can get really confusing to some people.

In reality, a lot of people have gone through something similar before. 
Someone migrating to DOS/Windows from Macintosh would have a lot of
trouble, and someone coming from DOS would get confused with the Mac. 
(Heh..  I remember wondering about the Mac "where are all the files?".. 
I'm sure Mac users wonder why there are so many little files sitting
around everywhere on Windows boxes..)


Oh, another thought -- I certainly agree that we should _not_ flame this
guy...  It'd probably be counter-productive.  However, if anyone would
like to invite him to the mailing list or something, I wouldn't have a
problem.

BTW, if I'm sounding really screwy today, well..  I'm tired or something
weird..  :-/
-- 
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|               Mike Hicks | Linux User Since: 1.2.13
: http://umn.edu/~hick0088 | mailto:hick0088@tc.umn.edu
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