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May 18, 2004
Tog on Software Design
In reading Bruce Tognazzini's book on software design, I wonder why given the choice between a Linux system and a Mac, I choose Linux.
Maybe I have some silly sense of the mystique of having to know the history of the system in order to know what to do with it. Maybe I do not like the idea of someone else deciding what I should be trying to do. Maybe I just enjoy spending time getting nowhere with my system. God is nowhere. God is now here.
What does Tog do with his spare time? His Zen Garden? Zazen?
Perhaps he has a point that computer software should be designed for maximum user productivity. Corporate buyers want to pay for that. To some extent, though, they've agreed to pay for whatever pipe dream they got swindled into by a sales dude under pressure to make numbers. As the decision rises to the CTO level, and the CTO loses clout than the CFO, the folks making the purchase decision get further away from the real world of usability.
What do they know about the usability of an embeddable OS microkernel, or even a directory server? They don't. They will only know when we overstretch, trying to do too much, in too little time, with too little idea what the users need, and things break severely. Then it costs a lot to fix everything, and the managers stick their heads in because it's causing them problems.
Why choose Linux? Because in the real world, people will try something if the purchase price is low enough. They'll eventually end up putting up with something they don't want, simply because it costs less up front.
How else did Microsoft beat Apple?
Posted by Mark at May 18, 2004 10:02 PM