on 07/01/02 05:28, BK at bk_newtontalk_at_yahoo.com wrote:
> On Monday, January 7, 2002, at 05:42 , Jon Glass wrote:
>
>> How about your car? How often does it break down, or cause problems?
>> Why?
>
> I have a shopping bike and use public transport or taxis.
>
> But to not give you the impression I evade your question ...
>
> I used to be a car owner a long time ago. And especially when I was a
> student, I drove the junk that other people would throw away because it
> was past its expiry date. However, even then I enjoyed better
> reliability than desktop computers give you today. But for a fair
> comparison you have to compare new with new. If you buy a new desktop,
> perhaps one of the top models, that would probably compare to driving a
> brand new Audi, Toyota, Chrysler middle/upper class car. Now, how long
> will it take before that car will start giving you trouble. At least a
> year, probably two or three. And even then, if you have your car
> regularly serviced - say every 20000 miles or so - most of the time you
> will enjoy trouble free driving.
>
> Now, how about desktop computers ? Nothing like it ! Even a brand new
> box with a brand new OS will crash on you like a 20 year old run down
> rusty heap of junk on four wheels. Even if you have an IT department
> that is paid to look after your computers permanently, there is not a
> single day in which there is not someone at work who has his "Oh my god,
> I just lost 30 minutes of work due to a computer glitch" experience. A
> car would be considered troublesome if that happened once a month.
>
> And the best of it all is that these so called computer professionals
> don't even know how to explain the various incidents. All they have to
> offer is either "Restart" or in more persistent cases "Reinstall". Well,
> if you happen to have a problem with a car and bring it to the
> professionals, they will be able to tell you exactly what went wrong,
> because they are ***true*** engineers, unlike most of those IT folks who
> call themselves engineers but they are just certified ignorants or
> wannabees.
Being forced to use NT at work, and having lost my hard disk twice last
year, with Windows specialists taking the whole machine in for about 4 days
each time on average, I tend to agree with the above. Specially since those
specialist were never able to salvage anything from the hard disks, and the
only explanation they gave me for that error was that Windows didn't close
properly!
-Laurent.
-- ===================================================================== Laurent Daudelin <http://home.cox.rr.com/nemesys> Logiciels Nemesys Software mailto:nemesys_at_cox.rr.comcreationism n.: The (false) belief that large, innovative software designs can be completely specified in advance and then painlessly magicked out of the void by the normal efforts of a team of normally talented programmers. In fact, experience has shown repeatedly that good designs arise only from evolutionary, exploratory interaction between one (or at most a small handful of) exceptionally able designer(s) and an active user population -- and that the first try at a big new idea is always wrong. Unfortunately, because these truths don't fit the planning models beloved of management, they are generally ignored.
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