GET LAMP is here

You've never worked in a mainframe shop, have you? I'm not defending Microsoft, but neither they nor their products created the sort of approach you're describing. I remember having to get all sorts of special authorization to access the scratch environment on our Amdahl. Then I developed a process that saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars a year (real dollars, paid to outside vendors) - not that I ever received any reward for that. In fact, I got chewed out - gently - for going outside my job description. I sympathize with people who just want to use better tools than those prescribed by the IT department, but I also sympathize with an IT department that has to spend endless hours helping people who don't really know what they're doing but insist on non-standard configurations. -- Ian ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chris Elmquist [chrise at pobox.com] Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 6:07 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only Cc: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: GET LAMP is here On Wednesday (08/11/2010 at 03:02PM -0700), Fred Cisin wrote: Right there's the problem-- that part about "not authorized". That's what makes MICROS~1 stuff and all the people and infrastructure behind it and around it a crime against humanity. These WERE, after all, personal computers. The OS itself is tolerable but the mindset that goes with the IT departments that deploy it-- this Nazi'esk, total control of everything, you must beg us to do anything-- way of operating is intolerable. Every organization I have been in, where MICROS~1 is _the_ choice, operates this way... and everyone from the CEO on down ends up a slave to the IT department. They decide when you will work and when you will not. They decide what your tools will be and how you will use them. They decide what is good enough for you and screw you if you want something a little different. You cannot go outside this tiny little box else you might cause IT to have to do some thinking and a little work. Does MICROS~1 offer special training that turns otherwise normal human beings into these kind of people? -- Chris Elmquist