Aaaaarrghhh! Another $Job issue! We make software that runs on Linux (RedHat, to be specific) servers. Our usual server boxen are rack-mounted Dell 1U boxen. The desktop side is all WinXP, of course.
So they're building a new installer. It now requires Xwindows (on a SERVER!!) to run, and has to be run on each machine, PHYSICALLY, in the data center!! So to install all 14 servers in the usual setup, it will take over 2 hours, standing in an ice cold datacenter playing sneakernet with CDs. This is, of course, if they happen to have a graphical monitor (which most don't), and keyboard with pointing device (which is even rarer).
Yet 90% of all data centers only have one of two of the crudiest monochrome monitors (ie nearly dead) and battered keyboard, sans mouse (also nearly dead), available by switching cables around as needed (and hoping they're long enough). This is for 5 or 6 rows of racks. They don't have fancy switching stations, and 75% of the time they are difficult to get into and access drive bays. There is a reason that Unix admins build their boxes on the bench, then rack them. Data centers are for machines, not people. Some data centers don't have any monitors and keyboards. If you have to console a box, you have to crouch there with a latop and a cable!
So this piece of crap will require a lot of GUI malarky in a location that is very hostile to it. What's worse, the admin will have to stand there, for each machine, and do the install. He will also have to do this for upgrades.
The frosting on the cake, of course, comes when the poor admin has a remote location to install to. Then, instead of sending the CD to his tech there to put in one machine, he has to fly there him/herself, and do the install refridgerator dance himself - at the expense of his time away from the office (and his other duties), plus airfare, hotel, and car rental. And again for upgrades...
The first bit his management may not care about. But when it involves added expense of adding newer monitors, keyboards etc to remote datacenters, plus airfare and lodging for him to go install a piece of software on several machines, his managers are going to shit a brick.
The customer management will ask "Why can't you do it from here??"
All their sysadmin will be able to do is say "Because the $vendor didn't set it up so I could."
Then $vendor (that I work for) will look assinine. I, as tech support, will get calls saying "How can I install this without incurring added cost for equipment and travel??"
I will have to tell them, truthfully, "You can't. They didn't listen to me. They wanted to make it 'easy to use', so it had to be a GUI, and they didn't like shipping large bundles of RPMs around over the net, so they decided it had to be done machine by machine, sneakernet fashion. I'm really sorry. If you would put in a customer bug/feature request with marketing, they may fix the problem two releases down the road."
Then customer, and customer management, blow a gasket. I'll will get yelled at, and then they will complain to my management, and I will get in trouble, for something that they didn't listen to me to start with!!!!!
Therefore, I have a bloody brow, from beating my head against the wall of windows GUI junkie "design" in defiance of reality.
Posted by ljl at May 12, 2003 12:49 PM | TrackBack