Ware Ware Wizardjin (was Re: readline bashing (was POSIX bashing))

[Greg Kemnitz]

While we who have mastered the intricacies of the computer and have high
typing speeds may not "get any more work done" on fast computers with bitmapped
graphics, etc, there is an entire world of new people getting work done on
computers who would not be using them if it weren't for those Computationally
Expensive and Wasteful (tm) interfaces.  Gee, listening to some wizards, you'd
think the bad old days had come back when computer time was more important
than human time, and Herculian feats of engineering were required to make
the computer do much of anything.

I suppose some of us miss the days of yore when computers were the altars
through which the common people worshipped us, rather than being things that
the "common people" use to get their work done.  We may look down our noses
at those who think a device driver has something to do with auto racing, and
for whom the options to IOCTL are not the stuff of mortal feuds, but they are
the people who pay our salaries and justify our existence.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Kemnitz                  |      "I ran out of the room - I
Postgres Chief Programmer     |      didn't want to be killed by a pile
278 Cory Hall, UCB            |      of VMS manuals" :-)
(415) 642-7520                |
kemnitz at postgres.berkeley.edu |      --A friend at DEC Palo Alto in the Quake