[OT] Debian mailinglists [was: RE: Debian or Ubuntu?]

[Avi Greenbury]

On Tue, 20 May 2008 14:59:57 -0300
Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:

> Avi Greenbury wrote:
> 
> Why?  That smacks of really poor programming in the first place.  Computer
> programming is deterministic - whenever "X" happens, then "Y" (OK, not
> entirely true, as you can add randomness, but the whole purpose of config
> files is usually to enforce determinism).  Any deterministic system can be
> completely modeled, and so there should, in theory, be _nothing_ that a
> power user would want to configure that can't be done with a config tool
> that would prevent him doing it incorrectly.
> 

I have, intentionally, made incredibly insecure and inadvisable
configuration changes to various systems in the past, because the use
to which they were being put demanded this. Or, at very least,
requested it.
If you GUI tool exists to stop the user making stupid mistakes, and
actually managed it, I would have been unable to do that.
Had it not stopped me making what, in general, are stupid mistakes, it
hardly seems better than a text file.

I've left the disputing of the possibility of your GUI to others.

> > That's one way people stop being idiots - they break and they learn.
> 
> Idiots _never_ stop being idiots.  You surely know the saying: "The
> difference between ignorance and stupidity is that the former is curable"
> (Twain, I think).

The exact wording (and opinion on the meaning of 'idiot') is immaterial.

The way people learn is they make mistakes, and learn from them. I only
know what I do because I've broken lots of things in the past. Without
that access to the core of how the system works (with options named as
what they do, not dressed up in novice-user-speak), I wouldn't have
learnt anything except 'don't click there'.

-- 
Avi Greenbury