[ale] Chinese government recommendation - Linux

[Tom Freeman]

+2 or +3 or possibly more

Sad to say, most human beings of my acquaintance seem to operate on the 
level of "I learned how to do <<something>> with this <<application>> why 
should I learn how to do more? Or different? Or whatever?

Then when you also suspect that most people seem to have learned 
procedures and not underlying patterns of those proceedures - good luck 
with any change.

It only took us four siblings two years to convert our mother from 
WordStar on a KayPro II to a MacSE because the Mac didn't have the 
WordStar diamond. Now this is a woman with degrees in French, Music, and 
Education - so I don't quite think a love of ignorance is the basic 
problem. With every new word processor forced on her (more by Apple than 
her children - we still have scars from the first effort) there are loud 
fits and furies, and much complaining about how the technologiests/geeks 
of the world have made it harder not easier.

I'd love to be a bug on the wall watching somebody attempt to get her 
functional with a music editor for her harpsichord music! Or to get 
computer support of the embroidery she does. Although I suspect even that 
bug on the wall will deserve combat pay...


On Mon, 19 May 2014, Lightner, Jeff wrote:

> 
> Are you the ONE who is tasked with transitioning people in your organization
> from iPhone to Droid?   Are you the one that migrated users from Windows 95
> to Windows XP or from XP to 7?   If not then being pedantic about “easy” is
> meaningless.  You seem to think I’m arguing that migrating to Linux is a bad
> idea which I’m not.  I’m arguing that just because IT types think something
> is “easy” for themselves does NOT mean it is “easy” for end users.   Arguing
> about the degree of “easy” is specious at best when I’ve continually said
> that it is “change” not the “specific change” that is resisted.
> 
>  
> 
> However, using your example I know that KDE is NOT as “easy” as you say
> because I’ve seen many a question by Linux folks specifically about using
> KDE (or Gnome or Unity or…).   Even if it WERE that “easy” to you or me it
> does not mean it is to the average end user.
> 
>  
> 
> Years ago I learned a valuable lesson when I was taking accounting 101 in an
> evening class.   Each class the professor would give us things to do (e.g.
> make a P&L or a balance sheet or just a simple T chart) to be ready for the
> next class.   Before class several of us got together in the student lounge
> and would go over the solutions we’d come up with.  Usually when they’d ask
> me I’d start out by saying “It’s easy I just …”.   Finally one woman said to
> me “It may be ‘easy’ for a god like you but for us mere mortals it actually
> takes some effort.”  Up until then it had never occurred to me that everyone
> didn’t find something as logical as double entry accounting seemed to me to
> be “easy”.   In fact I later found out most folks took Accounting 2-3 times
> before finally eking by with a passing grade because to them it is “hard”.
> 
>  
> 
> Another lesson I learned was back in the days when electronic cash registers
> became computerized.   One guy I worked with could NOT get the “cash
> register” to work because he “didn’t know anything about computers”.   He
> had this attitude because the new register had a tiny CRT screen on it.  No
> matter how hard I tried to explain to him that he wasn’t actually dealing
> with the “computer” aspect of it I couldn’t get through his head that it was
> just as “easy” as the “cash register” he’d been using before.  (This was
> before touch screens so it still used the same type of keys the old “cash
> register” had and still used the hard copy guest checks the previous
> register did.)
> 
>  
> 
> There IS a real world resistance to change and arguing that something is
> “easy” because YOU think it is does not change the fact that it may NOT be
> “easy” to the individuals to whom you’re trying to push the change.
> 
>  
> 
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Wolf
> Halton
> Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 1:51 PM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: [ale] Chinese government recommendation - Linux
> 
>  
> 
> If they figured out an iPhone or a Droid phone, they can figure out the
> Linux desktop.  It is less of a jump from XP to KDE than from XP to Windows
> 7, and the Ubuntu desktop is very similar to Win 8.  Actually, I think that
> there is less disruption from Windows 7 to KDE than from Windows 7 to
> Windows 8 (or even 8.1). 
> 
> 
> Wolf Halton
> 
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>  
> 
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