[Web4lib] blue sky thinking

Thu Jul 27 17:51:46 EDT 2006

Ok... just *one* more comment and I'll zip my lip.

I'm not a big fan of GUI's (I'm not saying you shouldn't use them... I'm just not a big fan) for two reasons:

1) They generally hide what's going on under the hood.  If something does go wrong, it can actually be harder to figure out what it is.  Also, you aren't forced to get comfortable with what's going on under the hood.

2) When looking for help online, it's a *LOT* easier to find stuff posted about command-line interface than about the GUI (click this, then type this, etc.).

I have a *much* harder time finding answers to windows (or XWindows) problems than I do to Linux ones.  That's just me.

BTW, I elected to *not* install the GUI for Ubuntu.  It's *still* relatively simple to manage.  I don't mean to downplay other platforms.  They have their strengths.

As has been posted... do what works for you.

Keith

----- Original Message -----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org on behalf of "Wong, Channing" 
Sent: Thu, 7/27/2006 5:18pm
To: web4lib 
Subject: RE: [Web4lib] blue sky thinking

On the contrary, the for a person coming from the windows world, a mac
does make a lot of sense.  The mac comes with Apache 1.3 with mod_php,
perl, and apache built in, along with a bsd unix implementation as said
in the first post.  

All you need to do is to install mysql, which can be done via a
graphical user interface rather than build from a command line.  To make
things even easier, you can download prepackaged version of Apapche,
PHP, and MySQL as a development environment via a community project
called MAMP.  If you want a terminal and all the goodness of vi, there's
the terminal app which gives you full command line.

This might be a little for teething for new *nix users.  I wouldn't
suggest a new user grappling an xterm if what they want are the web
components for a development environment.

-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle
Sent: Thursday, July 27, 2006 1:12 PM
To: web4lib
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] blue sky thinking

This should be a running joke in the computer world: Whenever there's a 
problem, someone will suggest "buy a Mac" as the solution. :-) I know 
that Mac users consider their chosen machine to be "easier". Funny, most

of the posters here also consider THEIR chosen machine/software to be 
"easier." (Or "easiest"). When you know how to do something, it's easy, 
ok? Or perhaps, you do what you find to be easy, whatever that is.

What our conversation here is about, or could be about, is that there 
are skills issues that are keeping many libraries from being able to 
take on certain technologies. My own "test" was in response to folks 
saying about a particular product: "It's easy. Why aren't more libraries

using this?" And I proved to myself that anyone with three weeks of 
time, lots of manuals, friends, and near-infinite patience could 
possibly get it up and running; I have no idea what ongoing maintenance 
would be like. But that's not what most libraries need as a solution. 
(And I'm trying to avoid making this argument specific to the particular

app I was aiming at, because I think this is true for many "informal" 
applications -- i.e. those that aren't part of a library systems
package.)

I love the stuff that people are doing with new technologies, but 
getting them into the mainstream of libraries is another thing. Sadly, 
it seems that many libraries will only get technology when library 
vendors start including it in their offerings, as has happened with the 
OpenURL resolution services, and ERM systems. But I wonder if we haven't

overlooked a market possibility: if outsourcing your server could give 
libraries greater potential, why hasn't anyone created a library or 
non-profit specific service for this? Or if they have created it, why 
don't more libraries know about it? I know that libraries are not rich 
so as customers they aren't terribly appealing, but it seems that there 
are a lot of unmet needs and yet no one is appearing to profit from 
them. Maybe our concept of "library system" needs to expand so that it 
can include the library's web site and a bunch of interesting web 
services. On second thought, we probably first need to expand our 
concept of "library" to include a web site and interesting web services.

kc

p.s. BTW, I also did the "Mac" experiment, albeit about a decade ago. I 
got a Mac and used it as my only home machine for 2-3 years. I never 
liked the interface, nor the computing metaphor of the Mac. It's like 
the difference between being a "visual" person vs. a "word" person, or 
the different ways that people learn. There's no one way that will be 
best for all of us, which is why monopolies in the computing field are 
bad. I really appreciate that Linux gives you a choice of GUIs -- I wish

we had that with other operating systems.

Roy Tennant wrote:
> Karen,
> There are ways to do things and then there are ways to do things. For
> example, steps 1-3 could have been accomplished simply by buying a
Mac.
> Macintosh computers come not only with Unix installed, but with a pile
of
> basic applications such as Apache, MySQL, etc. Then, many other Unix
> applications come in simple packages you can download and install as
you
> would a shrink-wrapped software application. And now that Macs can run
> Windows, I can't imagine why anyone would buy anything else.
>
> I know that isn't your particular situation, and I feel your
installation
> pain. I certainly have been in my own "dependency hell" before, where
you
> want to install something but first you have to install ten other
things
> upon which it depends. I also had a situation one time where the
particular
> version of something caused another application to fail completely
upon
> installation. It took months of chipping away at as I had time before
I
> solved it. The error messages are often completely cryptic and don't
always
> point to the root cause.
> Roy
>
> On 7/27/06 8:25 AM, "Karen Coyle" <kcoyle at kcoyle.net> wrote:
>
>   
>> Keith D. Engwall wrote:
>>     
>>> Aside from having a good firewall to sit behind, what is the biggest
reason
>>> against doing this in-house?
>>>
>>> We just put together an Ubuntu linux server for about $600 with 1 GB
of RAM
>>> and 400 GB of storage space.
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> Having heard many statements/arguments for using open source
software,
>> about a year ago I decided to do the experiment myself. I meant to
keep
>> notes about how long things took me, what problems I ran into, etc.
but
>> it was so frustrating that I just couldn't immortalize it in a fixed
>> form. But it went something like this:
>>
>> 1) Get operating system and burn to disk. Since I was starting with a
>> blank slate, I had to find a copy of the OS and get it onto a CD so I
>> could install it. The particular application I was aiming at wanted
that
>> to be Debian. This was easy, maybe a half hour (note: I read the
install
>> documentation before downloading most software).
>>
>> 2) Insert disk and boot up. Answer install questions. Here I got
stuck
>> for an entire afternoon, believe it or not. First, there were lots of
>> questions to which I did not know the answer, so I was back to my
other
>> machine to read more documentation. Then there was one menu that
>> absolutely stumped me -- not because I didn't know the answer, but
>> because I didn't know how to make an "x" appear before my choices. I
>> moved the cursor (tab tab tab) to the right spot and typed "x" -
>> nothing. I typed "a" "b" -- basically I went through the entire
keyboard
>> - nothing. Added "ctrl" before them - nothing. Shift - nothing. I
looked
>> at the online documentation. It just said "select the ones you wish
to
>> install." Nothing on how to select. The next day I tried again, and
only
>> by accident did I hit the space bar - BINGO. So I wasted 4 hours
because
>> nowhere did it say that the way to select an item in a menu is to use
>> the space bar. OK. I got over that.
>>
>> 3) I now had a basic OS installed, but in order to run my app I would
>> need things like MySQL, Apache, etc. I would need "packages." I have
>> some experience with Red Hat (until they abandoned all of us desktop
>> users), with Suse, and with something else that I don't remember now.
>> Each has its own way to install software. I was on the phone to a
friend
>> who is quite well versed in Unix, so he offered to help me go through
>> the package process. The first thing he told me to do was type
>> "dselect". De-select? To get things? No, it means something like
debian
>> select, and you go through menus to get to a huge list of possible
>> software packages to select and install. All I can remember about
this
>> is hours spent going through lists, selecting something I needed,
only
>> to get a screen saying something about dependencies, but no
explanation
>> of what I should DO about them. Many many hours. Eventually, I had
stuff
>> installed, but no idea if any of it would work. I didn't write it
down,
>> but this took days -- days because I would occasionally install the
>> wrong thing and then want to uninstall it, or I'd go to install
>> something and it would ask me questions I couldn't answer. In the
end,
>> the thing that always frustrates me about Unix is that I don't know
>> WHERE my installed software is. There's a logic to it all, I'm sure,
but
>> I've yet to find a clear explanation.
>>
>> 4) Now I installed the app I wanted to run, although it then needed
some
>> changes to things like Apache, etc., to work properly. I spent
another
>> day or so doing all of this. In the end, I actually was able to start
my
>> app. But at that point I had run out of steam, and the machine has
been
>> turned off since then. Maybe I'll spend my summer actually getting
the
>> app up and running as a functioning system. Then again, maybe not.
>>
>> kc
>>     
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
>
>   

-- 
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
------------------------------------

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