On Sun, 23 Oct 2011 15:12:34 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 10/23/2011 11:01, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> That's a Windows answer to most problems, sadly.
> 
> It's actually the answer to most closed-source proprietary systems. If
> you combine code from lots of independent developers without any way of
> checking that it's done correctly (i.e., you have no source, and no
> central repository), then there are not uncommonly situations where
> there are race conditions, or one program is using a resource the other
> program expects, or etc. When you get in a bad state, the fastest and
> easiest way to fix it is to reboot. If you don't have the source or
> detailed insight into the system to see what's wrong, and all you care
> is whether it's working, it's a decent solution.
> 
> If your google search times out, what do you do? You refresh the page.
> What could *I* do? Something a bit deeper, most likely. You don't have
> that visibility, tho.

If a search times out for me, I try pinging google.com to see if the 
problem is at my end.  I then also try things like checking my router, 
checking the route, and using "downforeveryoneorjustme.com" to see if the 
site is actually down or if it's something beyond me.

But maybe I'm an abberation.

>> a function of your teammates or their nationality, it's the way
>> Microsoft has trained people to "troubleshoot".
> 
> And how do people fix such problems in MacOSX, or on their Android
> phone? It's not Microsoft. It's just that Microsoft provides a huge
> proprietary platform with no checks on who can use it.

Well, I can tell you that when I run into trouble, I actually do take the 
time to try to figure out what's going wrong rather than just refreshing 
or rebooting.

Because I would far rather not run into a preventable issue over and over 
again.  I get bored with the same problems cropping up, so I try to 
resolve them.

>> That can mean there's a hardware issue (e.g, bad memory), or in the
>> program that's running in the VM there's a memory leak or some other
>> oddity.
> 
> Or a race condition, which is not at all uncommon.

True.

Jim

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