The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

ESR 0, CUPS 1

Now this is how a rant should be. Funny, informative, and gives ideas on how to fix the broken misfeatures.

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html

Snotnose
Friday, February 27, 2004

"If the designers were half-smart about UI issues (like, say, Windows programers) they'd probe the local network neighborhood and omit the impossible entries. If they were really smart (like, say, Mac programmers) ..."

As soon as I got to this comment, I stopped reading the article.

You are not allowed to have a different opinion than me.

Wayne
Friday, February 27, 2004

The printer sharing feature in Mac OS X is quite nice. You select (from a dropdown) the type of sharing (Rendezvous, Ethernet, etc) and a list of available printers appears. (printer sharing must be enabled on the host machine through the "Sharing" Control Panel).

While setting up my home network I was quite surprised at how simple it was. I'm sure someone has a horror story, but my experience was so basic and easy that I presumed it couldn't possibly be working (until paper came out of the printer). When the UI guides the user very clearly, things are wonderful.

And please, will someone think of the users and stop with all the Wizards for adding a local printer. The Mac dialog is primarily contained in one window. Drop-down shows the list of available printers, select one, done! There's little worse than being Wizarded to death for no good reason.

Lou
Friday, February 27, 2004

Since CUPS is Open Source, Eric, you can change it to meet your needs! See this chapter, you may find it familiar..

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s03.html

Anyway, a lot of the pain has to do with how it is packaged. It was trivial to install CUPS on Gentoo Linux/KDE in a similar configuration that ESR described, and I have very little knowledge of CUPS...

joev
Friday, February 27, 2004

Actually, I got more information out of the rant than I ever got our of the CUPS HOWTO!

hoser
Friday, February 27, 2004

JoeV, what a clever troll.

pdq
Friday, February 27, 2004

pdq, joev's not that clever - he's just reciting half of the messages posted to /. about this story.

The other half are agreeing with ESR; there seems to be some progress in the thinking over there (not that I think that the average /. troll has anything in common with most of the people that write OSS).

RocketJeff
Friday, February 27, 2004

To me Linux dudes are much like a guy I knew in high school. He actively sought out cool bands on alternative and college radio stations that nobody had heard of (REM, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Sugar Cubes, etc). Then when enough people found out about them, he lost interest and went searching for new ones.

I think that explains why despite the hype to the contrary, Linux will not be on many desktops for years to come. The folks that love it the most don't want to lose that cloak of mystique that they have wrapped around themselves as being uber geeks.

break -gimme(1)
Friday, February 27, 2004

What Cramer (as in Cramer & Kudlow on CNBC) says about MSFT stock price - article on RealMoney.com ($$ subscription), excerpted:

But the maniacal focus on deferred revenue with Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - commentary - research) is a bit mystifying, if only because the numbers for it are so small compared with the larger picture. In fact, even if the deferred revenue had been blown away, I don't know how much it would mean.

Yet somehow, I think it doesn't hold the key to the stock. On the positive side, the key is still held by the need to upgrade on the corporate front. On the negative side, I think the key is Red Hat (RHAT:Nasdaq - commentary - research) and the Linux challenge. In fact, I think the Linux challenge is what underlies the real weakness of the stock.

There ya go. Linux no longer the stronghold of garage band groupies, but the watch word note of Wall Street suits.

hoser
Friday, February 27, 2004

Lou: The printer sharing feature in OS X is nice, except when you have an unsupported printer. Then you have to use... CUPS.

Nate Silva
Friday, February 27, 2004

My intent wasn't to troll (and this wasn't up on /. until after I posted), but to point out that a) ESR is also guilty of this, and b) some distribution vendors are solving this problem on their own. An application is only as good as its interfaces, so some distribution vendors are trying to bury CUPS into their systems more deeply, with a better interface on top. In this case, I pretty much agree with ESR, but the way he presents his opinions never sits well with me.

joev
Saturday, February 28, 2004