hartman@ide.com (Robert Hartman) (02/15/91)
In article <433@bria> uunet!bria!mike writes: >In an article, ms.uky.edu!kherron (Kenneth Herron) writes: > >In my "not-quite-so-humble" opinion, armchair sysadmins deserve DOS. >You are talking about two things here: system administration and end-use. >In the DOS world, "end-user" and "administrator" are one in the same. >Not so in the UNIX world. Just because this has been the way things are in UNIX doesn't mean that it can or should stay that way in future. Do you use a workstation with windows, or are you still time-sharing with dumb terminals? Have you ever become root on your workstation to mount or unmount a filesystem? Whenever you do that, you become an "armchair sysadmin." >The end-user does not and should not need to know about anything other >than logging in, reading/sending mail, and using the application(s) that >meet his/her job requirements. This same end-user has no use for NU. An end user sometimes needs to retrieve a deleted or clobbered file. This is a perfectly reasonable requirement that UNIX has always ignored. Sine UNIX won't do it, it leaves the door open for NU, who will. No one's forcing you to buy it. >There is a tradeoff here. It seems to me that making things easier for you, >things get more convoluted for me. No thanks. ... > ... A DC6150 is cheaper than a 150M disk, methinks. Well, that's your choice. If someone else chooses to spend their money on NU and a bigger disk, why should this bother you? If, in fact, people want this feature in UNIX, and you don't like the idea of these DOS people horning in on your market, why not write a PD undeleter and post the source? >> ... The space taken by these backup >>files is reported as free by all the system calls, and is automatically freed >>for real if you need it (backup files are dumped in a user-configurable way). > >Oh, that's lovely. So, you unlink a file, but in reality it moves it >somewhere else, and to add to that, the system lies to me when I ask >how much free space there is? In my opinion, that _sucks_. Well, I agree that reporting the space as free is somewhat ugly. However, if it frees the space on demand, thus making it transparent to you, I don't think that sucks at all. Still, if you want do see what space is accounted for by files pending deletion, you could include a modified df in your PD package. >People who are interested in being secrataries or accountants are not >going to waste their time writing useless shell scripts that beep, or >draw boxes, or whatever. Well, here you seem to want it both ways. The best assumption underlying the design of UNIX is that you can't know beforehand what a user will want to do. Since the user base is broadening, you can no longer limit this to what a computer professional might want to do. We must include amateur users in our thinking. So if an amateur user wants to cook shell scripts that beep, it would be a good idea to provide him/her with a straightforward way to do that in the shell. >If you're an accountant, then do accounting, not programming. You're right. I'll do the accounting or whatever, and if something about UNIX gets in my way, I'll go buy someone else's package to get it out of my way. Your disdain for my computing problems means that I won't buy the package from you, since you obviously don't understand my needs or care about them. >> ... The days when ordinary mortals bowed down to the >>computer priesthood are supposed to be over. For the sake of the other >>employees of your company, I hope you don't manage any computers but >>your own. > >Oh, I _do_ just love little digs like this. I reject the argument that >everyone should be able to administer a computer system. > ... >As an aside, why is it that there is always the argument that computers >are being used by "real people" for "real work", but the disussion has >to do with some esoteric nonsense that no end-user would even dream of >trying to do? Just a thought. Retrieving a clobbered file is not, by definition, a job for a sysadmin. There's nothing privileged about it. And people want to do it all the time. From the end-user's standpoint, the fact that I can't do it myslef is simply a flaw in the implementation. You may have grown accustomed to it, and even grown to love it. However, after working with UNIX for over 10 years, I still see it as a flaw, even though it hasn't bitten me in a very long time. So, if someone comes along with a fix, I say good for them! > ... Hire someone who can do the job right. Well, NU and a bigger disk is certainly cheaper than that! -r
mike (02/17/91)
In an article, ide.com!hartman (Robert Hartman) writes: >In article <433@bria> uunet!bria!mike writes: >An end user sometimes needs to retrieve a deleted or clobbered file. >This is a perfectly reasonable requirement that UNIX has always >ignored. Sine UNIX won't do it, it leaves the door open for NU, who >will. No one's forcing you to buy it. My flame was not attacking the _concept_ of undeletion. My objection to NU was the way that it was done (hooking onto the operating system, and munging with calls like statfs() so that they lie about the _true_ state of things). It's nothing but a kludge. The ability to undelete files should be a capability of the kernel and underlying filesystem, not some external hack. >>People who are interested in being secrataries or accountants are not >>going to waste their time writing useless shell scripts that beep, or >>draw boxes, or whatever. > >Well, here you seem to want it both ways. The best assumption >underlying the design of UNIX is that you can't know beforehand what a >user will want to do. Since the user base is broadening, you can no >longer limit this to what a computer professional might want to do. We >must include amateur users in our thinking. So if an amateur user >wants to cook shell scripts that beep, it would be a good idea to >provide him/her with a straightforward way to do that in the shell. No, I don't want it both ways. I strongly believe in power to the user. However, I do NOT beleive that NU provides anything in the way of script gizmos that aren't already available for _free_. This is why I ridiculed it. Oh, and you seem to be lumping "computer professional" in with "amateur user". Again, it is _unlikely_ that an amateur user is going to whip out shell scripts. It is very likely that the computer professional will. Therefore, tools should be geared towards the computer professional. With these tools, the computer professional can make life easier for the amateur user, rather than requiring that the amateur user become a computer professional himself. As a computer professional, NU does nothing to advance my art. If anything, it seeks to further isolate me from the object of my passion. >>If you're an accountant, then do accounting, not programming. > >You're right. I'll do the accounting or whatever, and if something >about UNIX gets in my way, I'll go buy someone else's package to get it >out of my way. Your disdain for my computing problems means that I >won't buy the package from you, since you obviously don't understand my >needs or care about them. If you are an accountant (and many of the poeple that I work with are), then your needs _are_ important to me. My job is to make sure that if something gets in your way, I remove it. _I_ am the admin, _you_ are the end user. I will administer, you will use. 'Nuff said. >Retrieving a clobbered file is not, by definition, a job for a >sysadmin. There's nothing privileged about it. And people want to do >it all the time. From the end-user's standpoint, the fact that I can't >do it myslef is simply a flaw in the implementation. You may have grown >accustomed to it, and even grown to love it. However, after working >with UNIX for over 10 years, I still see it as a flaw, even though it >hasn't bitten me in a very long time. So, if someone comes along with >a fix, I say good for them! I agree with this completely. There should be the ability for a user to recover deleted files. My point is that it should be a function of the kernel, and not an external kludge. Should I compare methodology, I would much prefer a tool that goes hunting through the freelist and recovering only part of my file, rather than Pete Norton sticking his fingers in my kernel. -- Michael Stefanik, MGI Inc., Los Angeles| Opinions stated are not even my own. Title of the week: Systems Engineer | UUCP: ...!uunet!bria!mike ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remember folks: If you can't flame MS-DOS, then what _can_ you flame?