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I think this has to lie somewhere between the two extremes... on the one
hand, the elite priesthood thing is generally a bad idea, and I agree that
it is the wrong way to head. It's gratifying to know that help, copy, and
print, will generally do something obvious, regardless of the OS or
application. Whereas I worry when I compare the number of days of training
HP offers for IMAGE with the number of weeks of training they offer for
Oracle... and can get approval for Oracle training more readily than for
IMAGE training...

But there are still skills to learn, rather like driving a car, that become
as automatic as walking, only after they have been learned. And having
passed driver's ed counts for something, if only better insurance rates
(sorry; we write auto and homeowners' insurance software here, so this is
the first thing that came to mind). And there are still best practices to
emulate; take Alfredo's example of restoring tapes constantly to make sure
those tapes can be restored. But even if you should disagree with this
example, there are still good practices that come from a combination of
education and experience, and can be learned without having to be
experienced. We are also going thru the pain of being compelled to document
what we do, everyday, every where, no exceptions. Almost every project
meaning, someone complains, because they have not had the experience of
needing this documentation, so it is an enemy and not yet a friend. I look
forward to the time when experience has taught them that good, standard
system documentation is their friend.

I don't know when networking will reach the point that it is so easy that
all the concepts are obvious and immediately appreciated and understood on
their first explanation. Until then, I prefer to know that any network
engineer I have to work with has passed someone's test, and not only learned
under the 'shade tree' of some network that 'just grew'.

-----Original Message-----
From: Wirt Atmar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, February 26, 1999 12:25 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: hp certification

The underlying intention -- or at least it should be -- when designing an
operating system is to make it as "easy" as possible, and never so difficult
so as to elevate an elite few into a brotherhood of priests.

Simple, common English words used as commands, without ambiguity and in a
consistent syntactical manner, is all I want in a business-oriented machine
operating system.

I continue to worry that we're going the wrong way.

Wirt Atmar