

If someone has a perception, even an incorrect one, there's reason for it. - nailer

<i>Hi HackerNews. This is an extended version of a response to a complaint about new Linux users suggesting changes to Linux packaging http://ubuntusyndrome.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/johnny-come-lately-linux-heroes/. The point I'm making is not just about Linux though. I thought HN may get a kick out of it...</i><p>If someone has a perception, there's a reason for it, even if that perception isn't itself correct.<p>In regards to the article above, yes, apt makes things easy when you learn how to use it. The modern day 'App Store' concept is an extension of this concept. But there's a world of difference in the user experience of 'Synaptic Package Manager' versus App Store. End-user apps aren't separated from libraries and development tools, categories are aimed at software developers, descriptions of a package called 'foo' read 'This is a package of foo' or 'This is a graphical interface for libfoo' without explaining what it is that foo does. Just as the "Johnny come lately" in the article is ignorant of technical rationale behind packaging, long term Linux users are typically ignorant of user experience problems, which hurt their platform more than the ignorant suggestions do.<p>This idea isn't just worth keeping in mind for technology, but for life too. At 17 I was working as a sysadmin for a PR company, and was called into a meeting with senior management for not doing another person's job - support for end-user desktops, once my domain, was given to a cheaper contractor while I worked on the servers exclusively. One of the company principles had email problems for days, and the desktop support gent hadn't been able to solve the problem (nor had I been made aware of the problem). However the staff knew my face better from having handles their desktops in the past, and the change hadn't been successfully communicated.<p>The perception was that it was my responsibility the user's desktop wasn't fixed. This wasn't correct, but as a contractor, it was ultimately up to me to communicate the change in support more clearly to end users, as my pay depended on it. Users may have been ignorant of who handles their support, but I was ignorant of how to communicate to the people who determined by success of failure that their colleagues had outsourced the job.<p>The end result was I came close to being fired for not doing someone else's work - I'm the one who was affected, therefore it was my responsibility to resolve the issue. What's true or untrue didn't matter, perception was reality.<p>It's a hard lesson to learn for a technology person - we're used to treating proven truths as the ultimate deciders of right or wrong. But it's a very important one.
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Herring
_> But there's a world of difference in the user experience of 'Synaptic
Package Manager' versus App Store. _

I think new users are supposed to use add/remove instead of synaptic.

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pbhj
"I'm the one who was affected, therefore it was my responsibility to resolve
the issue"

It wasn't your responsibility - before berating you for not performing your
duties they were responsible to know what those duties were.

You needed to resolve it, nobody else was going to, it was not your
responsibility. Semantics? Probably.

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vinutheraj
Ofcourse linux has problems, in software installation, yes it does. But I am
more irritated at the audio problems in linux, because I couldn't get my 4.1
speakers to work in linux, I mean I couldn't just plug and play it, I had to
write some code for it to work, and that's asking a bit too much of the
average user.

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Confusion
Initially I thought: "ehmmm, thanks Captain Obvious?", but I guess there is a
point in your life (or at least in the life of nailer and me) where this isn't
as obvious.

Now learning can be both gradual and sudden and although I learned this
particular lesson gradually, it seems someone else may learn this with a
sudden revolutionairy flash of insight. I now consider this obvious, which
makes me wonder what other things I don't realize now, but will think obvious
in five years time...

