One Trait of the Noob Unix Admin -- snobbery
Paul Venezia squeezed this gem out on his Nine traits of the veteran Unix admin:
Fucking LINUX has built-in games: does that make it unacceptable to Paul? Just because the options are there, doesn't mean one needs to use them or even install them, but I worry this indicates the idea of a modular suite of tools could be too new a concept.
No, he's just biased against emacs, which is normal. I used vi for a while, early on in my career, suffering with the archaic two-mode system that I still cannot fathom. I had no bias at that time, and as such didn't have the built-in snobbery that comes with using an obsolete tool that even its creator agrees is "built for a world that doesn't exist any more." Yes, and after giving emacs the same amount of unbiased time I gave to learning vi, I never went back. I assessed the two without bias, and I made a choice.
I'd challenge Paul to do the same.
I've listened to the ranting of the vi bigots for a generation, and I've worry how similar this new crop sounds to the old. I like Paul, and I agree with him on many topics, and I enjoy reading most of what he writes. Occasionally, though, when he displays an error as fundamental as this one, I wonder at the thought processes.
But, he's only been doing the sysadmin for just over a decade, so he's still almost new.
Veteran Unix admin trait No. 2: We use vi, not emacs, and definitely not pico or nanoand the best part:
While we know that emacs is near and dear to the hearts of many Unix admins, it really is the Unix equivalent of Microsoft Word. Vi -- and explicitly vim -- is the true tool for veteran Unix geeks who need to get things done and not muck about with the extraneous nonsense that comes with emacs.
Emacs has a built-in game of Tetris, for crying out loud... and it's here that Paul suggests he has no clue but a good helping of editor bias.
Fucking LINUX has built-in games: does that make it unacceptable to Paul? Just because the options are there, doesn't mean one needs to use them or even install them, but I worry this indicates the idea of a modular suite of tools could be too new a concept.
No, he's just biased against emacs, which is normal. I used vi for a while, early on in my career, suffering with the archaic two-mode system that I still cannot fathom. I had no bias at that time, and as such didn't have the built-in snobbery that comes with using an obsolete tool that even its creator agrees is "built for a world that doesn't exist any more." Yes, and after giving emacs the same amount of unbiased time I gave to learning vi, I never went back. I assessed the two without bias, and I made a choice.
I'd challenge Paul to do the same.
I've listened to the ranting of the vi bigots for a generation, and I've worry how similar this new crop sounds to the old. I like Paul, and I agree with him on many topics, and I enjoy reading most of what he writes. Occasionally, though, when he displays an error as fundamental as this one, I wonder at the thought processes.
But, he's only been doing the sysadmin for just over a decade, so he's still almost new.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home