Re: hey

Christopher Cantor (christopher.cantor@yale.edu)
Fri, 26 Feb 1999 02:00:52 -0500

Matthew Hiller wrote:
>
> On Thu, 25 Feb 1999, Brian Carp wrote:
>
> > -- the average home user (like my parents) wouldn't serach the web
> > for updates and patches very often. They prefer something that works
> > reliably and won't need to be edited or touched for years, and as far as
> > they're concerned, until it's time to "buy a new computer" (they're used
> > to keeping tabs on advances in hardware, not operating systems).
>
> Granted, but the same is true of a Windows box; they're not going
> to be searching the web for patches and updates for that either. And it
> seems to me that a sufficiently preconfigured Linux box would be just as
> good or better than the Windows box, even for pretty clueless computer
> users. So long as only stable packages are installed, there's a nice
> desktop environment with big buttons to click on, non-CLI ways to do
> things, enough software, and an interface for installing new programs at
> least as easy to use as InstallShield, that should basically do the trick.
>
> And I can't imagine keeping up with security patches would be much
> of an issue for people who'll only occasionally connect up to their ISP.
>
> Matt

I second that. No matter what the model of software development,
given that there are always bugs and hence, always bug fixes, there is
very little that isn't going to be "touched" for years. This
favors the people that put effort into pursuing the latest
developments.

There's always going to be naive end users, and I think the problem
is really that people feel entitled to have things handed to them on a
silver platter. You don't bitch when your car breaks down, you put in
the
effort to get it fixed (do it yourself or pay someone else a hefty sum
to
so it for you). Same should go for software.

-C

--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 Christopher Cantor
 Room 502, Dept. of Computer Science
 Yale University, P.O. Box 208285
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 email: cantor-christopher@cs.yale.edu
 phone: 203/432-0677 fax: 203/432-0593
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