Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: 'optimized for your system' -- huh?

[Mike Edenfield]

On 2/5/2009 7:01 AM, Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:

> no. He is an idiot if he does not read the docs. Simple. Like people who don't
> read the manual to their car or vcr and then complaining if something does not
> work. Idiots.

"They should read the manual" is *not* a valid design goal for a system. 
  At best, it's a justification or rationalization when outside 
constraints force a design to be non-intuitive.

Given the choice between two otherwise equally functional systems (of 
any sort -- electronic, mechanical, digital, etc); if one requires me to 
spend extensive time reading an instruction manual to use and the other 
is designed to be easy to use out of the box -- the "idiot" is the 
person wasting their time reading instead of being productive.  To use 
your own example, I have no problem figuring out how to start my car, 
turn on the A/C, tune my radio, and drive to work without reading the 
automobile manual.

If Gentoo's installer *has* to be difficult because it's the only way to 
supply additional benefits or features, that's a perfectly reasonable 
argument.  If Gentoo's installer is *stuck* being difficult because 
there is a lack of resources interested in making it better, that's an 
upsetting, but equally reasonable argument.

If Gentoo's installer is difficult *on purpose* just to make Gentoo hard 
to use, that's ridiculous.

--K