Waxing Philosophical

[Davis Johnson]

Mike Barnes wrote:

>What is it about the Alpha that's got me doing this? Why spend twelve
>months compiling, tweaking, hunting down patches and clues to build a
>system on this platform when I could go out, spend a couple of hundred
>dollars on a PC, and just download and install a recent Fedora Core
>build?
>
I can't tell you why you do it. I can tell you a bit about why I do.

I can remember professionals who truly believed that if it wasn't a 360 
decendent it wasn't a computer.

I've met programmers who thought that portability meant running on 
RT/11, RSX/11 and RSTS.

I can remember when "All the world's a VAX" wasn't a joke - people 
believed it.

And now we have Windows on Intel -- I don't think I need to elaborate.

I beleive that you don't really know computers if all you know is one 
platform and operating system. I want to actualy know computers. Part of 
this is because I've seen plenty of folks left high and dry when one of 
the world views I listed above ended. The rest is because I want to know 
computers for my own satisfaction.

Linux on Alpha is reasonably different from Windows on Intel.

I want to do somthing that has some chalenge and sophistication to it. 
Somthing to stretch my brain muscles.

My current windmill to tilt at is simultaniously/in parallel building 
linux-from-scratch ( http://www.linuxfromscratch.org ) on i386. alpha 
and sparc32. I'm rolling my own scripts as I go. I've got ppc  and mips 
machines that need miscelanious bits of kit.

Alpha may be the last archetecture designed by an actual computer 
company. It is definatly the last one designed by a particular computer 
company.

If you want to work on intel you are only one little fish in a big sea. 
Ask the wrong question in the wrong place and you either get flamed or 
ignored. I can come here and ask dumb questions and get good, respectful 
answers.

And Alpha is cool.