[OT] Grand Unified Theory of Computer Suckage (fnord)

[Jon maddog Hall]

dragonhawk at gmail.com said:
>  Sometimes it's like having your entrails ripped out with a rusty pitchfork
> and ground into the mud by a herd of stampeding llamas with mad cow disease.

Let's see.  Let's take about several billions lines of code, written by
several thousand people (and that is a conservative estimate), most of who never
communicated with each other in any way, and most of whom never read the
documentation (if it existed) all the way through, (or even started reading
it).  And they definitely, definitely never read the "erata" sheets or
"manditory update" information.

Then take those lines of code, which follow some standards (some written and
formal, some pseudo-standard) and put them through these things called
"compilers" and "interpreters", written by other people who never talk to
anyone other than their so-called "peers", which generate "instructions" to
lots of computer chips that struggle to be the same, but continually different.

These lines of code are divided into things called "operating systems",
"networking code", etc. that are supposed to work together, but still be
separate "stacks", for "portability".

All are developed by companies that want their products to be "a little
different" so they can differentiate themselves from each other, but yet
enough alike so ISVs will (reluctantly) port to them (with just a FEW "ifdefs").

Now let's administer them with professionals who work like the devil so their
clueless bosses can do as much with as little investment as possible in
infrastructure (including paying for training for the systems administrators) so the
stockholders and management can buy more Porches.

Finally, even when the systems don't work, and continuously fail, we do not
throw them out.  If other systems fail, we throw them out.  But with computers
we keep trying to use them, refusing to look at other answers.

And you wonder why things don't work?  I am continuously amazed they work so
well.

md
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
Executive Director           Linux International(R)
email: maddog at li.org         80 Amherst St. 
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