OK, we all spend a lot of (..ahem…too much) time in front of a screen or in back of a rack of servers on a daily basis, and we begin to take a lot of things computer-wise (especially code wise) for granted. We just expect stuff to work, and when it doesn’t…well, of course it’s not user error.
I was just fiddling with this and that today, and it occured to me that I take this and that for granted.
What follows is just a short, incomplete, unordered list of things that just work – yet we never stop and thank them….
Things We Ignore That Rock
- Perl – Whenever I have a problem to quickly solve, I turn to Perl. I’m not a strong Perl coder – hey, my code is still readable, good Perl looks like “/%@=>\/\/?^” – but it’s the most useful language out there. I hate it when I’m on jobs that need a quick (or permanent) Perl solution but the company is disinclined to use Perl because of platform or politics.
- Ethernet – The little cable that could. Yeah, wireless is cool, wireless is more flexible….Ethernet is just blazingly fast, secure, cheap (I have a boxful of old NICs, esp. on Linux, all work) and pervasive.
- HTML – For all the bitching we all do about HTML and – especially – its limitations, well, look at all that has been done in spite of its quirks and limits. Could you have imagined this ten years ago? Browser based banking/brokerages/shopping? Come on….the bastard child of SGML has done good.
- Windows – Let the flames begin! Like it or not, most of the world that can use a computer know only one OS: Windows (pick a flavor). Much like HTML, Windows has helped enforce (or do you say “force”?) a standard. Standards are good. And like it or not, if you need a software package, odds are your chances of finding it on Windoze is better than any other platform. Monopoly? Probably. Reality? Positively.
- Broadband – I’ve written on this before. While most ads and people who gush over broadband gush over the multi-media capabilites and all that crap, I still maintain that the best things about it are twofold: 1) Always on; 2) Fast for ordinary tasks. (To be fair, ordinary tasks of today are the extraordinary tasks of yesterday, and I expect this trend to continue). Think about your connectivity at work – oh, wait: You don’t think about that. It’s just always there. Always on. Always fast. You kvetch if a page loads slowly… Get my point?
- The Community – Whatever the hell THAT means. But people are so willing to put stuff out there and, while it does not supplant books or courses or mentoring, it is a great resource. Contributing to the Linux kernel, a page on how to JavaScript mouseovers, why this monitor sucks and this one doesn’t. It’s all out there for the taking. For free. Sometimes that’s all it’s worth, but…it’s there for the taking.