[GRLUG] Failing Firefox

[john-thomas richards]

On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 08:03:55AM -0400, Ben Rousch wrote:
> ----- "john-thomas richards" <jtr at jrichards.org> wrote:
> > On Mon, May 07, 2007 at 07:59:38PM -0400, Jason Kisner wrote:
> > > On 5/7/07, Jason Kisner <airplanejay at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >redid it, with *:* . Nothing happened.
> > > 
> > > Wow! Commands work now!
> > 
> > The default in the world of Linux commands is to not output messages
> > unless the command failed.  In other words, when "nothing happened"
> > something did happen and so you were not told that something broke. 
> > In
> > still more words, most commands will only indicate the command
> > failed,
> > and will indicate nothing if the command worked.
> > 
> > Wow.  Does that make any sense?
> 
> It makes sense in the old Unix world where you know the programs you are using are well-written by competent programmers and will work most of the time. So in this case it makes sense to only let you know when something went wrong so you can quickly move on to other things.
> 
> In the Windows world you know that your programs are slapped together by the lowest bidder with Visual Basic and will almost never work as advertised. In this case it makes sense to let you know when things actually went right so you don't sit there waiting for the inevitable error message.
> 
> No, I'm not bitter about some of the Windows programs we use at work. Not at all.

I love Linux.  Since my machine worked yesterday, it should work today.
If it does not work today, barring hardware problems I can probably fix
what broke.  In my early Linux days I would install and reinstall
(mostly for trying distros) but since I switched to Debian five or six
years ago, I rarely install.  In fact, my main box has the original
Debian installation on it (I think it was Debian Potato, now running
Etch) that has been apt-get dist-upgraded along the way.  I was
thinking about this the other day.  As much as I love Debian, I have
been through the full install only four or five times.  Ever.  I have
two boxes at home running it.  I have installed it on a couple of other
boxes.  I have never *re*installed it.  I cannot tell you how many
times I had to reinstall that other operating system because something
failed.
-- 
john-thomas
------
Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to
the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.
George Bernard Shaw, dramatist, critic, novelist, and Nobel laureate
(1856-1950)