On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 10:22:30PM -0400, David F. Skoll wrote: > Hi, > > I'd like to explain my anti-Apple stance. This will be long(-winded), > so feel free to skip it. :) > > As a kid, I was always a tinkerer. By about 12, I was fooling around > with electronic kits, home-made gunpowder, etc. (Believe it or not, in > those days, the local drugstore delivered potassium nitrate AKA > saltpeter directly to our apartment, no questions asked!) > > When I was about 14 years old, I bought a book on BASIC. I didn't have > a computer, but I read the book and started writing programs anyway. > I wrote them with pencil and paper, and "ran" them in my head.
OMG! I thought I was the only one who ever did that! I'm a little older, but my first experience was also with BASIC on a time-shared mainframe, connected to a teletype in my school via an acoustic modem (personal computers hadn't been invented yet). I liked the experience so much that over the years until I got my own computer, I learned and wrote programs in Fortran, APL, and a variety of other languages. I wrote them and ran them in my head; they'd never see the light of day on a real computer. > > The next year was my first year of high school. I finally got > access to a computer (a Commodore PET). Its dialect of BASIC was a bit > different from what I'd learned, but I adapted my programs and typed > them in. Of course, they failed miserably. :) > > But I was hooked. I could see that this computer thing was amazing, that > it could take my abstract thoughts and make them concrete. > > Over the years, I did an undergraduate and Masters degree in > electrical engineering, but software was always my first love. After > graduation, I worked at a couple of places as a software developer > before striking out on my own by founding Roaring Penguin Software Inc. > in 1999. > > A few years before that, in 1994, I had discovered Linux. I was > completely amazed when I saw the famous "X" cursor running on *my* > (ex-)DOS PC. Discovering Linux brought forth the same rush of feeling > I had when I was 15 and first got my BASIC program to run on that PET. > It was once again the sense of limitless possibilities. I was working at a Microsoft-based development house in 1996 when I found something called "Linux On A Disk (LOAD)". I had some minor experience with Xenix a few years before and thought that was kinda cool, if a little primitive. With LOAD, I could swap out my hard drive and have a Linux environment. After a week or so, I was hooked. I've had Linux as my main desktop ever since. And I write code, even when I'm not getting paid for it. > > I don't have anything in particular against non-free software. My > company makes its money, in fact, by selling non-free software. (We > supply source and you're allowed to modify it; you just can't > redistribute it or a derived product.) But I do have strong feelings > against proprietary companies that try to limit what you can do with > your hardware, or that try to hide the innards of their systems from > tinkerers. To do so is a tragedy; it deprives us of future hackers. > > Some say that Apple fills a niche by providing products that "just > work" or are "simple to use." Well, my parents and kids find that > their Linux machines "just work" and are "simple to use". (They'd > never been exposed to Windows or the Mac, so I guess the first > computer system you learn becomes the yardstick by which you measure > simplicity.) You're absolutely right. This "just works" thing is a myth that Apple has successfully peddled since the beginning. And I've seen ample evidence that it's not true. Whatever you first learn on is generally what's easiest for you. Period. > > But should they choose to, they can delve into the innards of the > system. I'll never forget the day I found my middle daughter using > the "View Source" feature of Firefox to get past an online game's > quiz. That's thinking like a hacker. And when she got her > electronics kit, I could see the spark in her eyes. Sure, the > circuits are far beyond her understanding. (I barely even remember > how they work and I studied the stuff.) When I explained that > capacitors were like water tanks and resistors were like thin pipes, > she sort-of got it. But when she tinkered with the circuit by > changing capacitor or resistor values, she *really* got it. It was > obvious that a bigger capacitor held more water (well, charge) and > took longer to charge up, so the circuit worked slower. And higher > resistors were like thinner pipes, so the water (charge) took longer > to drain. > > This kind of learning involving deep, gut understanding is simply > impossible without tinkering. > > In my various jobs, I've interviewed about 24 software developers. > Without exception, the ones who were "tinkerers" as kids, who enjoyed > writing software just for fun and who thought like hackers were far > superior to those who just studied computer science because they > thought they'd get well-paying jobs. > > Apple directly opposes and threatens the hacker culture. > (Well... Apple is a big company, and big companies are always > multi-faceted, so I'm sure there are many open-source and > hacker-friendly people in Apple. I'm referring here to the direction > in which Steve Jobs is taking the company.) > > Apple seeks to create a walled garden of locked-down gadgets, > Apple-approved applications and even Apple-approved development > methodologies. It seeks to exclude contentious or "obscene" content, > and it can terminate your right to sell applications on its platforms > at its pleasure. > > If I came to computers as a 14-year-old given an iPhone or iPad > instead of a PET, I probably would have played with the thing for a > few months and moved on. I'd never have experienced the beauty and > creativity of crafting a piece of software. And that would have been > tragic for me. > > For the sake of the next generation, we have to tell the world that > Steve Jobs' vision of computing is a sterile, stifling, ultimately > poisonous vision. And if that means putting "puerile" code in ./configure > scripts, then I proudly wear the label "puerile". What's funny is that Apple started out as the computer "for the rest of us". I recently ventured into the Apple world by buying a Mac Pro for my wife (she does graphics, and has always worked on Windows until Vista just about made us barf). Having no direct experience with Macs, I bought a couple of "hacking" type books for the Mac and tried to set up the Mac to work on our network, etc. etc. I was appalled at what Apple has done to the underlying O/S (Mach/BSD). They've made it *very* difficult for anyone with experience in the *nix area to work with the system. The Mac purchase is an expensive decision I will always regret. We could have waited for Windows 7 and gotten a better O/S than Vista, done the same kind of work, and for a whole lot less stress and money. Leopard, for all its glitz, is, in my opinion, a very broken system. Paul -- Paul M. 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