I know I've already poured more than my share of fuel on the fire, but this 
message had some tidbits I couldn't resist :)

On Thursday 26 April 2001 15:56, Roger Vossler wrote:

>     IMNSHO, the world needs another round of Solaris vs HPUX vs
> AIX vs MaxOS X vs BSDI vs NetBSD vs FreeBsd vs GNU/Linux vs
> all of the other flavors of U**X like we need more holes in
> our heads. There is even evidence of this madness in the
> Smalltalk world. :-)

Some of these (AIX, HPUX) are basically just NIH syndrome of various behemoth 
corporations, but some (MacOS X) have *significant* functionality advances 
over any of their competitors, and some (GNU/Linux, FBSD) carry an ideology 
as well as a codebase.  I think we *do* need this kind of competition in the 
computing industry; at least until we've progressed past the witch-doctor 
style analysis of software quality.

Moreover, if these were all forked from some original code base (which they 
were not) and that original codebase lacked something as basic as shared 
libraries or heirarchical directories, I think you'd see a lot more than one 
fork ;)

>     Instead, I would rather see a Medical Squeak, a Music
> Squeak, a Movie Squeak, an Engineering Squeak, a Scientific
> Squeak, a Web Squeak, a Collaborative Squeak, etc., etc.,
> etc. Each of these implementations would be optimized
> toward  particular problem domains, and yet, share some
> common elements, depending upon the domain. [Of course,
> there could even be a Lawyer Squeak, that is, one that bites
> you in the ass when you turn it on. (Sorry about that. :-) ) ]
> Each of these various implementations of Squeak could remain
> relatively small with real performance, yet serve the needs
> of a particular problem domain quite well.

Why would this be desirable?  What if I'm a doctor who is also an amateur 
cinematographer?  I can't make movies that correlate to medical information?  
I see the (possible) fork as good because it will add some features that will 
allow us to have all of these "separate" squeaks done as modules which can 
talk to each other without requiring expert knowledge of Squeak's internals.

>     During a recent visit to my doctor's office, the RN
> behind the desk was struggling with a software package designed
> to support a physician's office. "Having a problem?", I innocently
> asked. She snorted and with a look of utter disgust said,
> "Whoever designed this piece of crap knew nothing about how we
> do our jobs around here!" I nodded in sympathy, took my seat
> to await my appointment, and hoped that my doctor was in a
> better mood. I declined to identify myself as a computer
> engineer, because I flashed on an image of this RN taking
> my blood sample with a needle the size of a screwdriver.
> Not that she would, of course. :-)

Although I've never worked in the medical industry, I've worked on custom 
vertical-market software.  This stereotypical cry of frustration, often 
idealized into the anguished cry of the virtuous user against their 
technocratic opressors, is equally often just a declaration of resistance to 
change.

"This software engineer knew nothing about how we do our jobs!" can really 
mean "I knew how to do this job with yellow sticky notes, and the interface 
doesn't remind me of the yellow sticky notes I know!"  Using technology to 
improve one's job performance or enjoyment does not mean familiarity, it 
doesn't mean that the software engineer ought to know exactly how the job 
used to be done; in fact, if the net result of buying an expensive piece of 
software is that the job gets done in exactly the same way it was done 
before, but with a $1000 computer and $500 worth of software, why would 
ANYONE buy business software?  Of course, software in those situations is a 
tool, and using a tool requires learning.  In my experience, a surprising 
number of people are not interested in or actively resistant to learning.

If the fellow who designed that "piece of crap" didn't know anything about 
how they do their jobs, why did they buy the software?  I imagine it's not 
free.  If someone ELSE bought the software (not the RN you spoke to), perhaps 
there are different ideas about how an RN does, or should do, their job.

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