Intellectual Comfort

“Linux sucks as a desktop.”

“Windows is insecure.”

“OS X is for rich, trendy art majors.”

Depending on who’s in earshot, spouting off any of these statements in the
company of geeks is likely to get you anything from a dirty look to a severe
tongue-lashing. Geeks tend to take their choice of operating system and
applications very seriously, and this has both its benefits and
disadvantages. On the good side, it’s a great feeling for developers when
they see such quasi-religious followings behind their products, and it can
help get the word out about potentially helpful tools. But on the negative
side, many people tend to take this loyalty to an extreme – losing sight of
more important truths in the process.

The Classics

Many battles between similar information technology tools have raged on for
years and even decades. Some of these include Vi vs. Emacs, C vs. Java,
command line vs. GUI, Pine vs. Mutt, and Linux vs. BSD. In the more
mainstream tech arenas, the ranks are formed along the lines of Windows vs.
Mac or Linux, IE vs. other browsers, Mcaffe vs. Symantec, AdAware vs.
Spybot, and Zone Alarm vs. competing personal firewalls. This, of course, is
just scratching the surface.

These debates are quick to invoke anger, aggression, and condescension from
those participating. They often start off in a somewhat civilized manner,
but most end up analogous to the French guy shouting at the knights over the
castle wall.

The Linux Case

Even within sub-groups you have severe infighting. One particular battle
that I have watched for a few years now is that over which Linux
distribution one uses. Recognize that most people using Linux in the first
place have in common the fact that they’ve turned their back to Microsoft
and Windows. you’d think this would give them some sense of community, but
in forum after forum the users of different distributions insist on treating
each other as enemies. This is particularly true from the top down. In other
words, those who use some of the more advanced distributions, such as
Gentoo, Debian, or Slackware, tend to give those using more user-friendly
versions like RedHat or Mandrake a very hard time. This of course, makes
them eager to upgrade to a more “Leet” distro so that they can in turn make
fun of the people that use what they just came from. It’s quite hilarious.

It’s even possible to unofficially document these trends on a large scale.
Around 4 years ago (when I started paying attention) anyone using Linux at
all was fairly respectable. There were the highly-skilled people then too of
course, and most of them were using Slackware or Debian, but just making the
jump to Linux from Windows was worthy of some measure of respect. As Linux
became more popular, however, people started coming on board with Redhat and
Mandrake at a rather brisk pace. This killed the novelty of using Linux as a
whole, since more people were now able to do it. As a result, the only way
to preserve one’s superiority was to make the distinction as to what kind of
Linux they were using.

Humans are funny

This continued on until the coming of Gentoo. Gentoo Linux shook up
everything and quickly became the “in” distribution. Both wannabes and
power-users alike flocked to the source-based paradigm offered by the
newcomer, and it was (and continues to be) a resounding success. Ironically
(or obviously) enough, that same success then led to a backlash from the
“hardcore” crowd — a phase that we are largely still in, by the way. Many
Linux gurus steadfastly refuse to use Gentoo simply because it’s so popular.
They instead elect to “get back to the roots” by sticking with Debian or
Slackware. Again, this is often (but not always) an attempt to separate
themselves into the ever-coveted “more geekierest than thou” group.

Recently, this desire for identification as part of the elite has led to an
exodus to BSD. it’s the funniest thing — it’s as if the only thing cooler
than saying you use Slackware instead of Mandrake is to say you use FreeBSD
instead of Slackware. (See “it’s more Unix-like”). Ultimately, someone will
dig up some of the first Unix builds, modify them so they are barely able to
be used, and they’ll become the new craze.The general rule for these types
is that if something they like becomes either too popular or too easy to
use, it must be abandoned in favor of something relatively obscure and/or
cumbersome. (see punk bands)

Hardcore Insecurity

Even more frustrating than watching geeks fight among themselves over the
tools they’re using is watching old-school, highly-skilled (either real ones
or the wannabes) tech users struggle with an older application because they
steadfastly refuse to use a more modern (often superior) tool. Don’t get me
wrong, I know there are times that the older tools are just as good or
better than newer tools that do the same thing. There are also many people
who simply started with one of the older tools and have been putting off
trying the new one. For these folks, it’s not that they are against using
the new tool — it’s just that they haven’t got around to it yet.

These people, however, aren’t the types I am talking about. I am referring
to the guy who thinks using bash instead of sh is a sign of weakness and
inferiority. It’s the guy who’d rather use stty every single time he logs in
so he can use the backspace key. And it’s not even as if the person uses any
of the advantages of that particular shell over the newer one (if that were
the case it would be understandable). They could be doing nothing more than
a bunch of directory changes, repetitive commands, etc. — all of which would
benefit from using bash or tcsh. But no — they refuse to change to one of
those because what they think their peer group would think of them. When a
person is willing to do way more work solely to avoid being thought of as
“newbie-like”, they have some issues.

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What these people have in common with those above is that above all else he
wants to get the rush of being old-school, and therefore superior to the
next guy. Nothing makes people like this happier than being able to say,

“Oh, you use Bash?” I like the plain ol’ sh better. (cracking knuckles)”
“Oh, you like Thunderbird? I use Pine. (snicker)”

The people I am talking about live for opportunities to say these things.

Why It’s Not Important

Ok, so I’ve highlighted a few of the issues that various geek sub-cultures
seem to have, but what’s the point? Well, my point is this: If someone
insists on judging another person, it should be based on what they do with
their tools — not what tools they use to do it.

I am not condoning judging someone based on this ether, all I’m saying is
that it makes a lot more sense. There are people out there running FreeBSD
or Gentoo as their desktop because it gives them a high to know that few
people are doing the same. Well, what do these users actually produce with
these highly superior environments? That’s the real question. Many in this
category create little or nothing at all; they instead spend their time on
USENET and in forums for “lesser” products berating the mouth-breathers for
not being as advanced as they are. You seldom see them using their vast
powers to actually create something useful.

Objectivity and Perspective

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what tools one uses to accomplish a given task
— it’s only the output that matters. Of course, if one tool does the job
better than another, by all means use that one, but that should be the
primary consideration. People caught up in the camp politics of “my x is
better than your y” can’t help but become resistant to truth when that truth
implies something negative about their golden OS or application. It’s much
more healthy in my opinion to not care one way of the other and focus on
what the tool allows one to do.

I’ll leave you a picture of two people. Bob is a highly technical Linux user
running a dual processor, 64-bit workstation with 2GB of RAM. He spends his
time putting down Windows in public forums and generally wreaking havoc on
anyone who doesn’t use the same applications he uses. Alice, on the other
hand, is a WindowsME user who’s running Word 97 and a 4 year old Pentium II.
In her spare time, she writes proposals for increased science education in
local middle-schools.

Who commands more respect?

For me it’s clearly Alice. Why? Because she has a worthy goal. The goal in
her case is to get more money for field trips to the planetarium this year.
Bob doesn’t seem to have much of a goal — other than convincing people that
were he to have one, he’d be able to go about accomplishing it better.

As geeks, I say let’s focus on respecting people less based on what they
use, and more on what they accomplish.