On Thu, 17 Aug 2000, Adam Koch pushed some tiny letters in this order:
>
> In the tradition of applying an automotive analogy...do you know how the
> tumblers in the cylinder of the switch on your steering column work? Do you
> know how that switch activates your starter motor? Do you know what
I'm not saying that you need to be a mechanical expert to drive a car, but you
do need to know how to start it, how to control the foot pedals, what side of
the road to drive on, etc. To me, being at a command line is like popping the
hood of your car. If you want to mess with internals then you should learn a bit
about the tools you need to use before you use them.
>
>
> While the above may be true, there will always be people who have no
> need/interest to know how and why their computer does what it does. For
> them it is a tool, plain and simple, like a hammer of a spoon. It just
> needs to work. The beauty of the ongoing evolution of Linux is that it will
> eventually fulfill both the need for the geek and the grandfather looking at
> emailed pictures of his grandkids. This is the direct opposite of most
> other OS's which use operating obfuscation in the name of user friendliness
> (and it ain't jus MS, ever tried to really get into the guts of the Mac OS?)
> Linux has amazing potential, but it ain't there yet.
>
I fully agree that computers can be more intuitive for the newer users, Linux
especially. The poster I replied to was saying that in the future interfaces
will be so dumbed down that it will be hard to get any real work done. Maybe
it's just me but I hate having to click through all the "Are you really sure?"
messages that pop up every time I want to do something.
