*BSD News Article 41623


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From: henryh@well.sf.ca.us (Henry Hwong)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux thoroughly insulted by Infoworld!
Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Date: 27 Jan 1995 03:32:09 GMT
Organization: The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
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References: <950116203411@lambada> <3g34fr$jri@nkosi.well.com> <3g3g14$1vd@galaxy.ucr.edu> <3g3pbt$13a@nkosi.well.com> <D30Kyy.695@bonkers.taronga.com>
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Peter da Silva (peter@bonkers.taronga.com) wrote:
: In article <3g3pbt$13a@nkosi.well.com>,
: Henry Hwong <henryh@well.sf.ca.us> wrote:
: >What?  My argument makes perfect sense. I don't know where you work, but
: >if you want to retain people, you must retrain them in new technology.

: Yeh. Right. Classes taught by people who don't know the technology and
: are just reading from a script, usually. If you want to learn a new
: technology, don't waste your time with classes... curl up with the docs
: and the system for a week instead.

: All the classes do, most of the time, is give people an excuse to spend that
: week messing around with the hardware. There are a few exceptions, but how
: often do you get a course in TCP/IP programming from Stevens or Sendmail
: from Allman?

Okay. I promised myself I'd stop, but I guess after soaking up all that
BS, I'm too full.

Not all people can just curl up with a manual and understand it. If 
anything, classes give people a head start and give access to a person
who happens to know about it.

Now, I guess my experience in classes has been a little different. The
classes we send our client people are taught by people who know what they
are talking about. If you haven't been to those, I'm sorry to hear that.
However, I don't think it's fair to condemn all training for your experience.

And who says you need Stevens or Allman to teach classes? Do you need 
Shakesphere to teach you about English literature?  Do you need Oppenheimer
to teach nuclear physics? Of course not. Just because the person is not
the sole "expert" of the field does not mean they cannot effectively teach
that subject. If that were the case, then all schools should be closed
and universities shut down -- we don't have enough "experts" to teach.

: >I guess I'm just jaded from all the marketing BS that happens all the
: >time in technology.

: You seem to have soaked up a bunch of it.

And we wonder why flame wars start. 

: (personally, I'd push BSD over Linux simply because it's more likely to have
: code in common with the commercial UNIXes you have around the place... most
: especially in the networking code, since just about everyone except Linux is
: using the BSD networking code)

So we actually have common ground. I'm happily running NetBSD myself.

-Henry