Kind request: fix your packages

[Jef Spaleta]

 Sean Middleditch wrote:
> I tend to find them useful when explaining things, at least when talking
> to people who can think abstractly

Then you need to do a better job of picking the illustrative educational
tool for the audience at hand. Continuing to use analogy, when several
people are having trouble following you, just shows you aren't really
interested in communicating with the people responding to you..you're
just here to poke fun at those with diminished mental capacity. So far
it seems you have not done so well getting people on this list to
understand your abstract explanations...if agreement is the measure you
use for understanding. I think you should consider using interpretive
dance from now when trying to deal in the abstract on this list.

> Good point.  The difference is, a car comes with everything you expect a
> car to have.  I don't buy a car without wheels and then go to add them. 
> A computer, on the other hand, never comes with everything you want,

Everything you WANT in a computer....and everything that is EXPECTED to
come with a computer are very different...and I'm amazed you mixed the
two concepts up. Are you honestly saying that cars and planes and boats
and trains and dump trucks and dragsters..and whatever other complex
transportation machine you want to try to draw an analogy with, come 
with everything that everyone could possibly want in such a machine.
What is EXPECTED to come with a computer and what people WANT to come
with a computer are different concepts. If you are going to continue to
use the analogy of cars and trucks that people buy...then the analogy
leads to the idea that computers that people are buying should be coming
equipped with the things most people want, and not the conclusion you
are trying to beat us over the head with, that adding functionality to
computers after the initial purchase should be end-user easy. If
everyone who wanted cd players for their cars got them when they bought
their car..there would be no after market for cd players or other car
electronics. But yet there is, people buy these things for their cars
and want them installed, but few people actually install things like cd
players and electronic alarm systems themselves..and there is no real
expectation that installing car electronics is end-user easy. Where DID
the expectation that installing new software is an end-user easy task?

If the goal that you want is to have a computer be as easy to "use" as
it is to "use" a car..well thats quite easy to accomplish.  It would be
quite easy to create a computer that just ran like a car...by building a
computer that was not easily upgradable with new software unless it was
brought in to be serviced by an expert. Installing software is not using
a computer. Installing a cd player in your car is not using your car.
But that's clearly not a solution to the problem you are prepared to
accept. Because really, you aren't interested in just something that is
easy to "use", you want something that is also easy to fix and to extend
with new functionality. Your basic analogy doesn't speak to the real
nature of the problem you want solved. So stop trying to be cute by
talking around the problem...talk about the problem instead.

-jef"describing a computer as a tool box..and new software as a new
wrench you just throw in...is insulting to the subtle complexity of the
awe inspiring effort it takes to get the intricate layers of software
that builds up a computer system to pretend to work together. A wrench,
even if poorly made doesn't stand a good chance of interfering with how
the other tools in the toolbox work...no matter how cute the toolbox
analogy seems"spaleta

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/attachments/20031006/a6111e6f/attachment.sig>