"One of the basic problems with computers -- and one that CS has done depressingly little to address -- is that computers suck. Of course I don't mean they suck at computing, but rather that they suck to use."- from a comment on The Geomblog
"The present situation, where administration of a Windows/Linux machine is a near-impossible task for most users, is untenable."
I too have been thinking, why are computers so complicated that you have learn so many things to just use it ? To program the computer, you'd always need to learn things, but why have a big learning curve for users too? It's as if we had to learn car mechanics to drive a car! But things are getting better with time, and I hope and believe that the "appliance" computers they talk about in that post, computers where you plug it in and "it just works", aren't too far in the future. I love programming, but I love my users more - they are the reason my profession exists, and it's my duty to make things as easy as possible to them.
(Why such a short post from my side? To steal from Ars Mathematica
: "My normal tendency is to write long posts that I never finish. I’ll start [...] with small posts to see if I can break the habit.")
