Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Barriers to Adoption: exponential userbase size increases

[Thomas Lord]

    > From: Dustin Sallings <address@hidden>

    >   Could it be true that the benefit of adopting arch is the fact that it 
    > uses shell meta characters in some of its filenames that cause 
    > confusion for some users?

If you say "a benefit" instead of "the benefit" then I would agree
that that is, at the least, a hypothesis worh considering.   Yes.

As supporting proto-evidence: I think it increases the value of arch
tremendously that there a modest handful of people doing real-world
(sometimes even deep-pocketed) work with it who embrace the
conventions that confuse newbies and, when asked, tell newbies to "get
over it".   There's a dual message there:  (a) "arch is very valuable"
and (b) "your petty concerns are woefully and harmfully misplaced".

    > > Some people run smack into arch as newbies, experience great
    > > frustration, then emerge as better unix users and better hackers
    > > generally.  One small part of that, when it happens, is a shift of
    > > perspective about the various issues that get discussed endlessly on
    > > this list.  So, what exactly is it I'm supposed to fix about this?

    >   Perhaps you should stop thinking of arch as a UNIX education
    >   tool.  

I think of all good Unix tools and projects as, in part, unix
education tools.  Why shouldn't I?  What the hell is the alternative
given the relative lengths of project lifetimes and human-career-phase
lifetimes?   Are you insane?   Of *course* the tutorial function is a
critical part of arch.

A system that holographically presents itself --- what a win.

-t