On 3/15/20 9:35 AM, Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
> Anno domini 2020 Sat, 14 Mar 23:54:07 -0700
> tom scripsit:
>> On Sat, 14 Mar 2020 15:08:37 +0000
>> Mark Rousell <mark.rousell@???> wrote:
>>
>>> I am not opposing your central message in any way, but...
>>>
>>> On 13/03/2020 02:59, Steve Litt wrote:
>>>> involves programming, and most people can't
>>>> do that.
>>>>
>>>> Oh really? 12 lines of code and they can't do it (or have a friend
>>>> help do it)?
>>>
>>> Really. There is no way on earth that the average computer user could
>>> even come close to writing a program or script and this applies to
>>> most of their friends too.
>>>
>>> Some people might be able to use a macro recorder or a graphical tool
>>> that allows them to assemble functional blocks to create a script, but
>>> even that much would be too much for most end users in my experience.
>>> End users want to use, to consume. Creating/programming is not in
>>> their mindset.
>>>
>>>
>>> It strikes me that back when I first got into computers (the early
>>> 80s), there was a sense of optimism that the rapid growth of widely
>>> affordable technology would result in a new golden era of technical
>>> literacy. Oh dear, how naive.
>>>
>>> Instead, the techies, geeks and entrepreneurs made technology
>>> *easier*. We made it so that it was easier for end users to consume,
>>> to use what was offered to them. There was no need for the
>>> non-technical end users to learn anything. It all just works. Or, if
>>> it doesn't work, they throw it away and try something else. And so
>>> that golden age of technical literacy has never really arrived. What
>>> we have now is billions of consumers and, proportionately speaking,
>>> fewer and fewer people who actually know how it all works.
>>>
>>> Thus, the average user (even the average Linux user, I suspect) is not
>>> going to be scripting stuff any time soon (other than maybe by typing
>>> in stuff they Googled).
>>>
>>
>> I strongly feel like this kind of user should stay away from Linux and
>> just use Windows. When those kind of users displace the original
>> user-base of literate people they start making the system as a whole
>> worse for the core community who built the thing in the first place.
>>
>
> Errr .... this is what just happend in the last decade(s), peaking in systemd and gnome3.
>

users are not to blame. devs/sysadms wanted linux to prevail on
desktop/compete with windoze, and those are the results/accomplishments
so far. (= systemd, gafam leading opensource world, more m$ clones and
wsl)..

p.s. elitism doesn't really help, in either side...