Sic Transit Gloria Laptopi

My theory is that technical people, especially when younger, get a particular thrill out of dicking around with their software. Much like case modders, these folks see it as a badge of honor that they spent countless hours> compiling > and configuring their software to oblivion. Hey, I was there too. And the older I get, the more I want things to work out of the box. Ubuntu is getting better at delivering that experience for novice users. Serious power users seem to find that OS X is unrivaled at it.

via radian.org

Ivan Krstić, formerly of the OLPC project, now at Apple, wrote a brilliant piece about free software that I somehow missed when it first came out. Minus all the OLPC political stuff, this is something I could have written myself.

I’ve been there. I’ve dicked around with hardware ad nauseum, recompiling this, patching that… but really, what does that prove? What’s the benefit? Admittedly, I like a Linux server, but that’s fairly set-and-forget. My personal computing environment is a Mac. It just works. I don’t have to worry about video card drivers (hell, I don’t have to worry about video cards, full stop); I don’t have to worry about sound cards, networking, laptop sleep issues, none of that.

I was/am paid to muck around with computers all day: fixing, building, upgrading, integrating. When I open up my OWN computer, it better be hassle-free. I have more important things to do than screw around with my computer’s bits.

I like working WITH my computer, not ON my computer.