Re^2: Effect of OS Platform choice for learning and doing Perl well

[Anonymous Monk]

Dear Sauoq,

Please elaborate -- your post intrigues me greatly.

Since you've worked in all three environs, your insights are most appreciated -- and desired!

I found the following, but I'm not sure they do justice to your perspectives gleaned from working in the Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris groups. Culture is important to me, thus my query.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrarianism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalistic

Thank you!!

[sauoq]

Hmm... Well, I didn't mean for my quick one word summations to be taken too seriously, of course. And these are only my interpretations of my experiences. But I can certainly elaborate.

I called the groups using Solaris "feudalistic" because they have, in my experience, tended to be more politically oriented. Different groups vying for bigger pieces of the company "territory". Middle managers growing their fiefdoms. That sort of thing. That happens in just about all companies once they reach a certain size, I guess. And I'm certainly not saying that using Solaris is a cause of this. I think it's a symptom. Successfully justifying the purchase of 4 new V880s will give your budget a nice bump and a bigger budget means more political clout... that kind of thing. By the way, I've never worked anywhere where they used Solaris on x86 platforms for anything but a random desktop here and there.

I called FreeBSD cultures "agrarian" and, of the three, this would be the one that least conveys my meaning, I think. It's also the one I have the least experience with. I can explain exactly what I was getting at though: The cultures of the places I've worked where FreeBSD was the OS of choice seemed to be more focused on fundamentals and the people seemed to be a bit more specialized in their function. There also has seemed to be a more measured and patient approach to "growth" of various kinds. More longer term planning and that kind of thing.

I called the groups using Linux "tribal" mostly in counterpoint to FreeBSD groups. In my experience, there seems to be somewhat less specialization in these cultures. Everyone tends to be a jack-of-all-trades and ends up playing many different roles as needed. Planning is more short term. And there seems to me to be a tendency to try out new and different solutions rather than analyze them first. (All of this strikes me as being more like hunting and gathering than cultivating.)

Again, I've found that the Linux cultures tend to fit me best. And, I don't mean to imply that any of these impressions of mine are absolute in any way. There is certainly long term planning among Linux-centric cultures just as there is short-term flexibility among FreeBSD cultures. I'm only trying to explain my sense of the differences between them, but highlighting those differences creates caricatures rather than true representations. In reality, there is more in common between these groups than there is different... but the differences still matter.