5d ago

What hill will you die on?

Fancy cupcakes are 70% icing, really not that nice and a waste of money

402 comments

People that tell you to use *nix are so limited in a technical sense, they cannot be trusted
It's just a tool, it's like somebody telling you that you need to use a certain brand of Philips head screwdrivers because they're the best tool
It's revelatory that the person does not have a robust understanding of technology really
And before you come at me, I spent more than two decades in tech, two of them were professional game developer and web startup dude, don't even try me.
- The KISS (keep it simple, stupid) philosophy often results in *nix being the best tool for the job (philosophically speaking). Other OSs obviously have their merit, but when the goal is simplicity (in terms of "moving parts") then LFS, DSL, or Gentoo are going to be the simplest (in terms of moving parts) options for most tasks.
  
  You have proven my point, you don't seem to understand that *nix and all it's variants, and all the FOSS built on top of it it's just one set of tools in a gigantic suite of available tools, and there are specific uses, and it's totally inappropriate to ever talk about it as the best tool for anything, ever.
  
  What alternatives would you suggest then? Genuinely, because I as you have pointed out don't understand there's this whole gigantic suite of tools available to me that I haven't managed to come across in my searching for the things to meet my technological needs thusfar.
  -a 20 year Linux user
  
  Just take a step back and look at how you are deciding what is good before you understand the application the tool is being put to
  You're asking me to suggest alternatives... FOR WHAT? You apply tools to specific problems, you do not pick a tool and then decide it's the best tool.
  
  It seems to me you live in some kind of fantasy land where people have unlimited time for installing new tools to make sure they have the perfect one for every situation. This is not the case, which is why the *nix folks love to just install our infinitely extendable swiss army knife chassis and go get the precise tools we need. DIY distributions supply you an environment in which to employ whichever tool you deem correct in a given moment, it's a tool box in a garage, a place to keep tools, not a tool itself.
  My initial impression was that you were implying that for general computing there was an option better than nix that may meet my needs, but you've responded in a way that tells me that no, nix has been and will continue to be the best general purpose computing environment for my needs.
  Before saying that we are limited, you should look at the priorities that have led us to make our choices.
  While you see a limited toolset, I see exactly the tools I need, with nothing I don't. No strings attached, and costs only my time.

402 comments