It's definitely not human nature and is, instead, an improbably well coordinated conspiracy by a gigantic corporation known for being full of internal conflict over a span of decades to engineer helplessness in users. Whereas we all know that users are normally such resilient, inquisitive souls, more than willing to engage with a piece of technology in order to understand it. Or they were, until Microsoft attacked. Alas, if only it were not for the great evil empire, all would be well. At least this very real conspiracy serves the additional purpose of flattering the community's vanities and affirming its values as both morally correct and intellectually superior. So we got that going for us, which is nice.
I do find the idea that "the GUI is a Microsoft conspiracy to use their market share to make people too dumb to use computers" instead of "the GUI is why they have their market share" kind of amusing, though.
I absolutely see the value of explicitly dictating what you want with clear, precise text commands. I love using short simple scripts to get shit done for myself. But I have absolutely no interest in using the command line to navigate directories and files. It's perfectly fine that it's an option, but as the only option it's kind of shit.
Also, if we’re gonna be talking about which CLI is easier to learn and use?
I wonder if its Linux, which has different programs for each flavor (apt get vs pacman vs yum) and whose command-set is from the 1990s where you had to use as little code as possible because of space/cpu limitations so the names for what each command does are not very descriptive…
Or is is Microsofts Powershell which has an extensive get-help command which provides a deep-dive on each and every command there is on top of all the commands being human readable in a verb-noun format that can be read by a layman and generally understood what the command is doing simply by its name. Oh and get-command so if you’re not sure what command you need, you can search for it by keyword.
Man pages can be pretty useless if you don’t already know which command you need. In Linux you don’t have as many options of learning what the command you need is, because they’re not human readable. Instead you have to search online and hope someone can clue you in to the right command/set of commands.
Linux is the better OS, but Microsoft made the right choice by making Powershell commands human readable and straight forward. If Linux was being started from scratch, this is something I would put in the pipeline: “Human readable commands in a verb-noun structure.”
The problem with powershell for me is everything needs to be typed in a dreaded Pascal + Kebab case which makes typing quite slower than linux's all-lowercase commands. Easeir to learn, perhaps, but not easier to use.
I get that, but Windows/Powershell isn’t case-sensitive, so you can type it all lowercase if you want (I do).
Linux on the other hand is case sensitive despite most GNU tools defaulting to all lower case. There’s definitely a bunch of case-sensitive switches in Linux CLI applications.
There has been optional case-insensitive file system support in Linux for a few years now, though.
I prefer using the CLI for navigating file systems. I can pipe the output through other commands, search quickly, and move anywhere in the system with ease
Brainless take. Yeah they mystified it. Or Computers are pretty magical, and it was fucking hard to do shit on them in the beginning. . and it’s delusional to think that a text console makes it easier to work with, that it’s somehow not capitalism’s but no that someone makes a gui and formats that’s just the fucking illuminati brotherhood and not someone trying to make computers usable
This person has not met Apple users. Windows users that do PC gaming, use pirated software, use good antiviruses (Kaspersky, ESET, Bitdefender), or have to modify or purge the bullshit in W10/11, often can know more even compared to most Linux users that are these days just adopting it for “MOAR performance” or ease of use with Flatpak+Steam+WINE or low malware.
Apple users on the other hand are some of the most tech illiterate users that also happen to be an incompatible annoyance to rest of the 95%+ Windows/Linux/Android users.
It’s possible that compared to the way the OP regards the average Microsoft user, they might just consider apple users more like monkeys at a keyboard and felt no need to mention them.
Being pedantic, but OP is merely the sharer of the reddit user’s take.
Although the point can seem to be missed in what I say, that the reddit user is making here - Microsoft merely made complex computing extremely accessible with an incomprehensible amount of backwards compatibility to this date. Everyone cannot be pleased, and we happen to be that group that can learn and take care of ourselves, unlike the tech illiterate users with no interest in computing. I doubt that humanity would have done any better if it was someone else instead of Microsoft, and even as a socialist, I can acknowledge the insane level of condensed advancements we have made due to roughly 20ish years of specific products (Windows, MS Office) made by these ultracapitalist tech corporations is helping shape the future planning of society and tech.
OP has a meaning highly dependent on context. Sometimes it’s referred to as the top comment, sometimes as the post author (though that’s the most common), and sometimes as whoever wrote the actual content of what’s in the post.
Does this person think these are unique insights? It’s not some big secret that manufacturers and software developers have continually tried to make their products easier to use so as to attract customers.
Do you realize that those two goals go hand in hand and are not mutually exclusive? For example, there’s no benefit in OS usability to putting out a single line error code as opposed to even the slightest detail as to what went wrong. That’s not “making their products easier to use to attract customers” as there’s not a single person in existence that judges an OS on how little they have to know about an error.
That’s mystificatiom of the system.
While it’s true that an overall goal of a company like ms is to sell more operating systems, that doesn’t mean that learned helplessness isn’t in the syllabus somewhere.
Regardless of what a message box says the majority of people are gonna have to Google the issue.
Linux powerusers have a meltdown when trying to comprehend that there exists a middle ground between power user and complete idiot, I guess - which leads to small essays saying nothing at all to people who will blindly agree with it no matter what it is says because it’s anti-corporate / anti Microsoft.
Ok, but the solution to “lots of users don’t know the difference” isn’t “we might as well show so much less that we reduce the entire problem to a nondescript code that can mean several different things”
There’s literally no reason to do that except to discourage people from solving the problem in the first place, because the users you’re referring to won’t do it either way.
Weird company to target, these days I feel like Windows PC users are on average far on the “knowledgeable” side of the spectrum, not as far as Unix system users of course.
Apple and mobile OS users are the ones who know nothing about their system.
Yeah like at least windows gives you an error code, Macs basically just say “uh-oh, we did a fucky wucky and your device has failed, contact apple” and now your stuck searching up the exact text and trouble shooting a dozen potential issues and dozens more potential fixes.
Apple is just as bad in a different way. There is no perfect solution. People need to understand what they do, to do it well. That doesn’t mean that the average Joe needs to learn C. He can continue to write down the process on some sticky notes but it would help if he does look beyond the horizon e g. understand what the buttons he clicks all day actually do.
This is valid late 90’s critique on Windows. In the modern day, it’s valid critique on the entire state of computer software. There used to be a time where I could run “ps axuw” on a then modern Unix system and understand exactly what the fuck was going on and what each process was for. These days the nerd-favoured systems are also a big mess of complexity.
I think a lot of older nerds also under-appreciate the position tech has taken in the world in the meantime. Look at it like electricity. When that first popped up, people involved with it knew all the ins-and-outs, they -had- to know all the ins-and-outs. But by the time I grew up, electricity was a done deal. You flip the button, lights go on. Same has happened for the rest of the world with IT. You click the icon, facebook pops up.
You being up an interesting point. Let’s expand electricity a little bit.
If I flip a switch the lights come on. I don’t need to understand it but someone does. And because electricity can be deadly of handled wrong, everyone in your proximity handles electricity the exact same way (and this is enforced via law). This means only a few people anywhere need to have the deep knowledge of how it works for the rest of us to get light.
Compare this to computing - sure you click the button and get Facebook but that button could be designed any number of ways. Like electricity the generation who tinkered is past (well passing), but unlike electricity firm standards on how to design your Facebook button have not been written in blood.
I for one am terrified of what the next 10 years of the business IT landscape is going to look like as we need to start absorbing kids who grew up on iPads.
They intentionally choose to handle errors poorly.
Just like they intentionally choose to handle updates poorly, DON’T YOU WANT TO REBOOT FOR THE FIFTHEENTH FUCKING TIME AND LOSE YOUR SESSION WITH 29 PROGRAMS OPEN ACROSS 8 DESKTOPS WHILE RUNNING A RENDERING PROCESS?
Meanwhile, Linux: why yes, I’ll update the kernel in-place without rebooting and keep your 784 day uptime.
It moves the old kernel modules to the right location for the old kernel to still find them after you’ve upgraded. When you restart the system to use the new kernel, the old kernel module symlinks are cleaned up.
From what I understand, live kernel patching is only recommended for critical security fixes to server environments where you can’t just boot off every user. wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel_live_patching
Fair enough, and my bad, I though the original question was about live upgrading the kernel, but looking at the thread again, they were just asking about the system not breaking. Thanks for putting the effort into explaining!
An increasing amount of people don’t even own or need a PC anymore. There’s no way Windows is more of a cause of this than smartphones that automatically call the cops and void your warranty because you had a passing thought about uninstalling the forced Netflix app.
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