Fanaticism

Jan 28

I must write a little something about something that I’ve noticed recently. Fanatics. Granted, I’m not talking about the extreme fanatics who come to mind as choosing to give up their life to kill others. I’m talking about the simple everyday fanatics that someone like me might encounter. There are a few examples that I have seen that are fairly interesting.

Windows vs Apple (vs Linux (vs [insert OS])) Everyone is aware of this brand of geek fanaticism. Countless Apple users proclaim the goodness of their own computer. They follow every move that Mr. Jobs makes as if he were some sort of god. They are eager at every opportunity to shoot down the evil Microsoft users as geeky, sheep-following idiots. Add the Linux users who are (generally) also very eager to shoot down the users of other operating systems as lame and uncompromising in their closed-source, proprietary, corporate evil methodology. Microsoft Windows users often don’t really join in the fray because either they are not aware of the fray occurring or they don’t really care. But those who do, stick by their guns and enjoy comparing themselves with overpriced, unimpressive, don’t-live-up-to-our-compatibility products from the competition. This is an interesting battle because people have been known to be for one of the many sides, and the fact of the matter is that they shouldn’t be.

I have been especially interested in this topic because I have been looking at getting myself a Macbook Pro 15” for sometime now. I was following them and the news stories about them since before they came out (which means I’ve been reading about them for over a year now). And I also currently use Ubuntu (a Linux operating system for the uninitiated) on my home computer.

VI vs Emacs (vs Visual Studio (vs TextPad vs Eclipse, et al)) The battle of the editors is a favorite amongst programmers. It’s an interesting one because it’s similar to other battles amongst programmers (i.e. programming language battles of the sort of Java vs C++ or PHP vs Python vs Ruby on Rails) that often occur. I have come to the conclusion that programmers (in comparison to a vast majority of people) use the fact that they can understand things in their reasoning for becoming fanatics for something. Simply because they think they know, they proclaim that they know. The reality is that one must see these editors, IDE’s, programming languages, etc tools. They are things to be used when a certain task arises. Simply because one loves a particular sledgehammer does not mean that ones uses said sledgehammer to do everything. But I digress. VI has some good points (excellent use of the QWERTY layout so minimal finger travel is require) while Emacs has other good points (ability to do pretty much anything that you want). And the list goes on for different editors. But the fact of the whole argument remains that it’s a matter of preference and you can find knowledgeable and intelligent people using either. Don’t close yourself to the idea that it doesn’t really matter what one uses if they are able to get the job done. I recently encountered this a little bit at work because both of my co-workers use TextPad when they are coding. I had never heard of this program before but it’s basically a Windows application that’s has a fairly robust feature set for programming. However, I recently started using Emacs at work in order to see if I was more efficient with it. And I find that it has many features and shortcuts that I am hard pressed to give up. However, I still use TextPad because frankly it’s much more easily integrated into a Windows working environment. In addition to this, I still use VI some of the time because that is all that is on the main server (it runs a fairly old version of Unix). So I deal with it all, and it’s oh so fun. :P

There are other issues I’m sure, and perhaps I’ll add my thoughts on them when I encounter them.

Conclusions:

The truth and lesson that can be derived from this topic is one that can be applied to many unrelated issues in life. Apple has a good product, yes. Proof enough of this is in their recent success. Linux has good points as well as noted by its up and coming status. Microsoft must have something in their Windows operating system else they would not perennially be on top. But what one can learn is this:

There are many choices and we must not go and align ourselves with one or the other as if one were perfect and the others are not. We can think clearly about the matter and see that they are all lacking in certain regards. Take the good, and leave the rest.

I like this idea in other matters of life as well. The only time that I’ve found that this doesn’t fly is in the face of true absolute truth (i.e. the Bible). Suffice to say, not much else in life is absolutely true.