9 Oct
2011
9 Oct
'11
7:01 p.m.
On 09/10/11 9:41 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 10/09/2011 09:22 PM, Toby Thain wrote:
As a sysadmin I've never wanted a GUI tool except, maybe, to consolidate
status graphs, which can be done easily enough without a networked
windowing system. Come to think of it, the web is probably what finally
killed the concept, by implementing it in an unexpected but more
versatile way.
How, exactly, is running something in a web browser "more versatile"
than running a purpose-built app with a GUI? WTF?
I think you answered your own question. It's more portable than any app,
etc.
> ...which is something that, in my opinion, makes
the whole world work
> better. I feel that the OS X graphics system, while capable of
> beautiful
> rendering, is a huge step backward in functionality. I mean, c'mon, a
> non-networked windowing system, post-2000? What is this, Windows?
> WTF?!
> I will stick with X11!
Well you have to admit that the motivating model for a networked window
system - thin clients, approximately, or remote computing services -
has
largely evaporated in favour of a model of expensive per-person
workstations with more CPU and GPU than they can ever use. I'm not
arguing that the latter wasteful craziness makes any sense, but it does
make a lot of money for the scum^H^H^H^H Gateses and Dells of the
world.
Thin clients aren't the only place where a network-enabled windowing
system is useful. I have a balls-ass powerful machine on my desktop, and
I use X11's network capabilities daily. Granted it's more people like me
(while wearing my "network administrator" hat) than the average
nontechnical end-user, but still, that doesn't nullify the usefulness of
the capability.
I'm a command line guy, but I do use GUIs for some stuff. I don't WANT
to install the Veritas NetBackup client on my desktop workstation,
though, for example. I run it on the big Sun downstairs, and display it
up here.
Well, there you go. I'd rather not deal with NetBackup :)
--T
-Dave