The costs of doing your own system administration automation
There is a constant tension in system administration between doingthings by hand in the standard way, versus creating your own customsystems to automate the work. Doing things by hand takes longer and ismore tedious, so it sounds like automation should be a slamdunk, butthe problem with automation is that you've created a new local piece ofsoftware that has to be updated, maintained, learned by other people(especially new people), and understood.
(Or to put it another way, you have taken something
Jules Dassin‧Never On Sunday‧Topkapi
Jules Dassin (1911-2008), 在今年3月辭世, 享年九十六歲. 得此高壽, 可謂笑喪.
Jules Dassin晚年隱居於希臘. 他隨妻子、曾任希臘文化部長的已故希臘籍影后 Melina Mercouri (畢生心願是要求大英博物館歸還希臘石刻) 到希臘定居. Melina Mercouri
重逢（下）
自從情人節那天，我和Philip在電話裡相對無言，至今已冷戰了好一段日子了。想不到這夜我在上海的漢源書店閑逛，竟意外地遇上他！一時之間，我實在有點措手不及，只慶幸今天下了班還未落妝。我咬咬嘴唇，低頭呷
電影節賽後檢討
觀影多年, 今屆總算以較平淡的心態看電影.
最驚喜: 《如果愛‧在寶萊塢》 (Om Shanti Om)
驚喜是這麼多人欣賞、這麼多人讚嘆、更驚喜的是自己寫的「逐個捉」更被多位網民引薦, 深感光榮. 無法忘記在文化中心大銀幕看到《Dhoom
On standard interfaces
One of the things that is usually cited in favour of Macs (and Windows)is that the core of the GUI interface is more or less standardized,unlike many Unix programs. For example, consider the huge disagreementamong xterm , GNU Emacs, and Firefox about how simple copy and pasteworks; surely the Mac or Windows way is better than that.
I don't think so.
My view is that it is easily possible to overdo an adherence tostandardized interfaces, because standardized interfaces only reallymatter if you
「青文臨時小組」成立及藝術品／藏書拍賣籌款活動預告聚會
五月二日，香港淪陷
澳門站-澳氹大橋上的一捧
值得寫入歷史
這一班人
不只一次完成類似的事
這一天
我只代表我自己
一個文字工作者
一個體育工作者
我
跑了這麼一段路
我們一班人
做了這麼一件事
Why people don't automate sysadmin stuff
Yesterday's entry raises an obviousquestion: why don't people automate things ahead of time, before theyhave so many systems that they have to automate or die?
The simple answer is that it is easier for them not to automate thanit is for them to automate. But why is it that way?
There are at least two reasons:
- there is pretty much no standard way to automate things at thevarious levels, especially across different Unixes and platforms.This means that you have to build an automation