11 Jun
2009
11 Jun
'09
8:14 a.m.
2009/6/10 Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>:
On Jun 10, 2009, at 2:25 PM, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Of course this isn't the only group of technical people. ?The disturbing
thing is, there are a sizable group of "technical" people who thing
Windows
is all there is, and either don't realize anything else exists, or that
anything else still exists. ?These are the people that really scare me.
?Same here, but I don't really consider them to be "technical people".
?Being that I don't use (or work on) Windows machines, I tend not to work
with those people professionally, and I certainly don't associate with them
on a social level...they give me that "not so fresh" feeling. ;)
? ? ? ? ? ?-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
I reckon Zane is bang on the nail, actually.
*Most* "techies" now know nothing except the x86-32 PC and Windows.
DOS is a forgotten mystery; Windows 9x is historical and unknown. PCs
have always been 32-bit and the 64-bit transition scares them. They
have never seen or used any networking protocol other than TCP/IP (and
that is a mystery except to specialists). They don't know how to use
the command prompt and increasingly they have never used floppy disks.
And yet, these are the "technical experts" who are building the
systems upon which we all rely.
These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 on a
server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and then run
multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 or other
flavours of Windows. They think virtualisation is new and clever and
it doesn't occur to them that not only is this wasteful of resources,
but it's a nightmare to keep all those copies patched and current.
They think that encapsulating SCSI over TCP/IP is an efficient way to
connect servers to disk farms.
They think that a full-screen GUI session at 1024x768 in 16,385
colours, carried over 100Mbit Ethernet, is an efficient way to
remote-control a server. They can just about stand to use such a
session carried over an 8Mbit ADSL connection, but they'll whinge
about it.
And these people build the systems that keep us alive in hospital,
that contain and manage our money and taxes, that schedule and control
our planes and trains.
I find it terrifying, myself.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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>
> The other amusing thing about which people here (at least) should know
> better is the visibility factor. ?VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are
> *everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the
only
> thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows. ?Do these
> people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions,
> maintain hospital databases, or run railroads?
I agree with this statement, and out side of this audience how many
people
even know anything besides Windows exists? ?There are a lot of people
that
think all computers run Windows.
Well, this isn't the only group of technical people in the world. ?As far
as knowing about what the real data processing world uses, it's not classic
computer enthusiasts vs. the rest of the world, it's knowledgeable computer
people vs. the rest of the world.