17th of November, 2002 POST·MERIDIEM 10:18

What news; was in Fibbers Friday, with Ste^[1] & Ciarán, got asked for ID; umm, perhaps I wasn’t dressed for the place. Let me revise (—ize? phonetically yes, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before) that; I definitely wasn’t dressed for the place. Anyway, it’s still the same hole, but now with live music.

From http://​ask.​slashdot.​org/​comments.​pl?sid=44997&tid=109&cid=4681514

« Anyway, there are a lot of Windows programmers out there who barely scrape by... my theory is that it is just so damn easy to throw a crap program together to “get by” with VisualBasic and the like compared to the very user-unfriendly Unix and Unix-alikes. PC running Windows = easy, low learning curve. Machine runing Unix = high learning curve. Low learning curves mean more people using it and more average or below programmers who can use Windows and Windows development tools who can’t use Unix/Unix-alike tools. Most of the apps I use (and have used) on Unix/Unix-alike machines look like they were written by engineers. Concepts like workflow, discoverability, and “foo-foo” features like intellisense are all but non-existant. The guts of the app may be the fastest McFlugglefarther algorithms and it can crank out solutions fast - when you get it started on your problem - because very highly skilled engineers wrote them. But much of the app development pretty much ends at that point. The engineers slap together some clunky GUI to handle the 1324213423 parameters (with a button/box for each one on one screen) and put the product out for use. The app may be great for speed and flexibility but the usability flat blows, making it hard to use.

Autoconf ... Emacs ... VI ... makefiles... stuff that you have to know something about to use very well. Windows you “mash” buttons and have an editor that requires no sacrifices to pagan gods to use. »

I’m losing interest in Albert Speer^[2]’s autobiography, even though it’s now the interesting bit, where he was managing the economy and doubling (arms) productivity from 1942-44, and the depressing politicking seems over. Maybe it’s that he’s making bad decisions, which he admits to, like pushing the V2 as an offensive weapon instead of putting more work into its defensive counterpart, and acceding to ill-thought-out demands that the Me 262 be tasked with bombing, and not shooting down Fortresses and Lancasters.

[1] http://​netsoc.​tcd.​ie/​~ste/​index3.​html

[2] http://​www.​amazon.​de/​exec/​obidos/​ASIN/​3550076169/​ (I’m reading a French translation.)