Why the insults? Re: Firefox or Opera? Evolution or T-bird?

Jeff Kinz jkinz at kinz.org
Tue Mar 8 21:54:19 UTC 2005


On Tue, Mar 08, 2005 at 06:51:20AM -0800, Pat Pleate wrote:
> I find that when one has to flame another, it's time
> to leave a group like this.
> Why do persons have to be so rude to call another a
> degrading name?  

..........Stuff deleted

>>I'm using Firefox and Thunderbird because they are both so simple, 
>>stupid - just like good applications should be - no unnecessary GUI 
>>config or unrelated functionality (a calendar in my mailer???) that gets 
>>in the way.

Pat - no "person' was being called a name here.  The "stupid" was
referring to the programs "Firefox" and "Thunderbird" and in
the way it was used it was actually praising the software, not insulting
it.


For example see this paper:

RISE OF THE STUPID NETWORK

"The Rise of the Stupid Network was originally written during a single
long weekend in May 1997 by David S. Isenberg while he was an employee
of AT&T Labs Research. It was officially released onto the Internet by
AT&T in June 1997. "

Mr. Isenberg  (or Dr.?) is referring to IP based networks, like
the internet, as being "stupid".  He is referring to the fact that
generally speaking all data which flows over the network is treated the
same.  The "network" is too "stupid" to do anything special for any
particular type of data.

He concludes (roughly) that this is where the power of the Internet
comes from.  Being stupid, (or better named "transparent") is a "good
thing". (TM)


To read this well written and easily understood seminal paper please
see:
http://www.hyperorg.com/misc/stupidnet.html

It will give you an excellent background on why 

      "Stupid is Good"

-- 
Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.




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