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I really do not agree with this comparison. Yes, it is true, that on Linux there are many, many things which are best done through command line fiddling. But
by hooby 3y ago
I really do not agree with this comparison.
Yes, it is true, that on Linux there are many, many things which are best done through command line fiddling.
But installing a system update, that update borking things, belching up a totally cryptic error message, and then forcing you to clean up the mess through the command line, is nothing something I've experienced on Linux so far. For me, apt updates have always been super reliable - and error messages have mostly been quite specific and easy to google.
So, this specific case seems nothing like Linux to me.
- jstummbillig 3y ago> For me, apt updates have always been super reliable - and error messages have mostly been quite specific and easy to google. The ocean between. While you or me might appreciate a good error message and handy debugging options, the standard windows user experience is optimised to not confront users with errors at all. Either approach comes with its trade offs and is implemented with varying degrees of success.
- swells34 3y agoAh yes, the classic "if I can't see the bad thing, it doesn't exist" approach to problem solving.
- jstummbillig 3y agoDifferent design goals. While there's tension between Windows/Linux (which, interestingly, has over the years partly been released by each adopting pages of the others' playbook) there are a lot of complex or critical systems in the world, where displaying an error message to the user is clearly not a great design choice.
- swells34 3y agoYes, and some people just want to take their car to the mechanic, while other people want to fix theirs. It's a classic struggle in any area. The big difference though, is if I use my car in a professional capacity, I want to know how to change my own oil, because I'm not an idiot. I want to be able to fix simple issues, because that's just being professionally responsible. Windows discourages this kind of professional responsibility, hides everything it can that would give you an inkling of what's going on under the hood. Microsoft wants you to be dependent on them for doing ANYTHING out of the ordinary. And of course, when anything out of the ordinary occurs, there is wailing and gnashing of teeth from millions of windows users, billions of dollars lost by their employers, and all the Linux users just stare in disbelief that y'all don't know how to change your own oil. If you use a computer for work, should probably know how it works. Microsoft has intentionally made it difficult, so... Have you tried Linux, the backbone of modern computing, installed on more devices than Windows by at least a factor of two?
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoMight be a bit of hyperbole. Microsoft had extensive documentation of nearly every API they support, and some they don't. Comprehensive documentation with notes and caveats. Automatically available from their tools. Compare, for instance, with Apples almost total non-documentation of anything. Mostly just scraped comments with arguments barely described e.g 'a string'. No notes, no architecture, nothing.
- swells34 3y agoYes, my comment contained more hyperbole than it should have; I was frustrated at the idea of "hiding information about a problem" as a good design goal, and let that frustration influence my writing. Apologies to jstummbillig for that. Thank you for being the voice of reason in the room, Joe. Interesting, I've never found Microsoft documentation for Windows thorough enough to reason about a problem, especially when compared to Arch or Gentoo's docs. I always feel like I'm reading the abstract of a paper, with no access to the rest of it. Is there some kind of special access or login requirement for deeper documentation, or am I just spoiled by the great Linux docs? Apple products are the king of the "you don't own your device" mantra. I just refuse to develop anything for them, because the time expense of trying to guess how to get the OS to comply hasn't been worth the reward. That being said, I've found the documentation for Swift to be extremely good, better than most other languages I work with.
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoYeah Microsoft is definitely not much better than a walled garden for much of their technology. I was privileged(?) to have access to source under license for years, contracting with a company that ported Windows to various industrial platforms. So my view is similarly colored. Linux is definitely the king, no argument there.
- apexalpha 3y ago>For me, apt updates have always been super reliable - and error messages have mostly been quite specific and easy to google. Lmao, come on now. "Error: unmet dependencies"