Re: [tlug] Red Hat dropping MySQL

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Martin" == Martin Bähr <mbaehr@example.com> writes:

    Martin> On Thu, Mar 18, 2004 at 06:12:22AM +0100,
    Martin> patrick.niessen@example.com wrote:

    >> How is that? The great admin and development tools with bells
    >> and whistles run on windows, while the actual server software
    >> runs on Linux / Unix and provides command line administration.
    >> These tools provide extra value but are not essential.

    Martin> the point is that we do not want to use windows, hence
    Martin> windows tools do not provide extra value for some of us.

No, that's not the point.  This is really important, Martin.  It's OK
for you stalled maniacs to stick in your "die unless $free_software"[1]
rut, it's been a great service to all of us, because otherwise there's
a fair chance there never would have been a full-blown free software
OS with all the trimmings.  But most users of free software are now in
it for the open source, ie, economic, benefits, not because they're
members of a political movement.  We use whatever works[2], and you
certainly aren't going to convince Patrick of anything except your
snobbishness by implying that your political views are of any
relevance to his business decisions.

Patrick's point is that for some people, they either like or must use
Windows, and he is correctly pointing out that if those tools are
actually are great it _is_ added value.  However, I didn't (and don't)
deny that.  My point was that I doubt they're "great".

Ie, (1) I've never met a (native) Windows development tool that wasn't
either directly concerned with creating GUI (usually unmaintainable by
anyone but the original author, and that having a half-life of 7 days
or next beer, whichever comes first) or easily replaced by vi or
emacs, depending on how I you want your DE to be.  vi and emacs are so
old now that they can no longer be considered "excellent"; having
their features is the cut-off for entry to the race.  I suppose you
can create an excellent development organization based on Windows
tools, but from what I've seen it's very hard, and you certainly can't
cross-develop for non-Windows systems using the basic Windows tools---
you have to start all over again.

It is possible that (for example) the Windows-based MaxDB tools for
creating databases are excellent (and that would be classed as
"development" in most organizations), but then you have to be a little
suspicious.  They're supposed to be creating SQL databases, no?  SQL
has a standard data description language, no?  Why won't they work for
PostgreSQL just as well, subject to functionality differences?  Or
maybe they do, and MySQL is just not going to tell you that.  Hm.

And (2) as for excellent Windows admin, cf.

http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp/Tools/Attitude/elitism.html#gui-evil.



Footnotes: 
[1]  Sorry about that, but I don't know the Pike idiom and Python's is
too verbose.

[2]  So far I have yet to find a case outside of Minesweeper,
Freecell, and my daughter's Kureyon Shinchan puzzle game where Windows
works for me, but those are proof of concept, in some sense.  :-)  And
Mac OS X, which is proprietary from where it is BaSeD all the way on
up to the Aqua UI, is excellent.  The file browser (Finder) is just
_hot_ <!tsssssshhh>, and I rarely find myself wishing for extra
buttons outside of apps that are ports from X11.  I do miss the idea
of a selection, of course---having to paste everything to the
clipboard to copy it sucks big time.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.