There’s something that’s been on my mind. It’s something I’ve spent many hours pondering recently.
Choice.
Specifically, which software to choose.
Which path to take.
Will going down path A get me there in the end or is path B the right choice for me…
Accounting software, IM’s, Calendaring, VNC, and the mother of all software choices – the OS itself.
Sometimes I think it would be good if Microsoft (or some equally powerful higher being) decreed what software was to be used for what purpose, and everyone just got along and used it. One standard, one developer, one channel of support…, simple. A software dictatorship if you like.
But alas, with every passing day, the number of choices only grows. Which seems to be directly proportional to my level of hesitancy to commit to the path I know I need to (at some stage, maybe tomorrow…?) take.
Would love for someone to reaffirm why choice is such a good thing, because I’m starting to loose faith in diversity.
Have at it.
(If you choose 🙂
Whether choice is a good or bad thing maybe a moot point if people continue to make choices. As a consequence of those choices we have to figure out how to do what we want to do. One standard for everything feels counter to the new Open Source revolution which I embraced. The idea that no matter the function or the task, it should just work appeals to me. This comes to me after the browser and system wars of the recent computing past. I don’t care, should any user care, about how it’s done or who “owns” it. Having said that, HTML email, syncing calendars, unified IM clients, and virtual software for Mac/Windows have all attempted to find ways to work with or without standards. Or is it that out of necessity, users have made it work… don’t know. Thoughts?
@Trey: I think perhaps you’re touching on Standards vs choice – if each software genre settled around a standard API and data structure, then the choice I make wouldn’t matter so much. It’s actually this proprietary approach that causes my indecision, as going down a certain path may mean a good deal of time spent down the track when you decide to switch from Software A to Software B (which adheres to Standard A and Standard B respectively).
So maybe we need more standards, could that be the real issue I’m experiencing…