So, one of the problems Tom encounters when he makes changes to the systems at FooU is old instructors. By old, I don't necessarily mean age, but out of the industry and in education for a long time. These instructors, as expert as they may be in their niche of computer science, don't understand a lot of the changes in the industry. I don't have any "proof" of this other than my own (and a few other's) observations. It seems to me they just don't see the big picture anymore.
 
One story he told me, which I don't have in an IM chat log, was a conversation with one instructor shortly after the change this summer to universal home directories for all unix systems in the department. Until last summer, every person had a seperate account and home directory on each server in the department. Some systems did point to the main department server, a Solaris box, just for usernames and passwords, but the accounts were seperate. This instructor noticed that a file he'd created while on one of the Linux servers was in his account on the main Solaris server as well. Tom tried to say, "Yes, they are the same account now," but he was not getting it. He knew the passwords were shared, but he just was not hearing that now the actual account, files and all, were the same on Linux and Solaris. He did finally get it.
 
Here's another one that just happened today:
 
Tom: (Instructor X) thinks centralized home directories is "a step backwards"
Kristin: backwards???
Kristin: how does he figure that?
Tom: back to the days of centralized servers he says
Tom: I don't know
Tom: can't make everyone happy
Kristin: well in a sense he is right
Kristin: but i think that is the way computers are kind of going now
Kristin: we're moving away from all the keep everything on your personal computer model back to a model where the physical machine is almost irrelevant
Tom: yes
Kristin: i think that is a good thing
Kristin: someday i want to have it where i can sit down at any computer anywhere and do anything
Kristin: have all my data
Kristin: already my email is like that
Kristin: tell him the network is the computer
Tom: :)
Tom: not for some people
Kristin: aparantly not
Kristin: did he really like it better when he had N accounts on N systems and all his files spread across them using ftp to get some file onto the machine he needs it on all the time?
Tom: yes he did like it better
Kristin: i hate saying to myself "hmm what machine did I have that file on" and then having to look in each account until I found it
Kristin: and keep N copies of the same files so they were on each machine when I needed them
Tom: I say now your files are centralized and you know where they are
Kristin: the overhead in managing all that...
Tom: he said: ftp was easy
Kristin: ftp is easy... not needing to is even easier!!
Kristin: what is the problem with a single home directory for all machines?
Kristin: did he mention any thing he felt was a drawback other than it reminded him of the old days?
Tom: he compiles things on linux and they don't run on solaris, he is also worried about the network slowness of downloading every file he uses to the local machine
Tom: its not a local file
Kristin: well the hope is that network speeds get fast enough where the time it takes from the perceptions of a human are indistinguishable
Kristin: i mean, should we go back over every other thing we do now all the time with computers that would have been "too slow" 20 yrs ago to do
Kristin: maybe we should get rid of all interpreted languages... too much time compiling on the fly every run
Tom: I don't notice any difference on a nfs home directory
Kristin: me either
Kristin: and i am sure he doesnt either
 
Why does it matter what some instructors think? They don't get it, why should I care? There are a couple of reasons that come to my mind.
 
The first one is that what instructors think, they pass on to the students. Each quarter they graduate a couple hundred students. Each will go to their new employer with whatever they have learned and experienced in school. I don't want them going there with the idea that Unix is doing things "a step backwards". I've seen the presence of Unix shrink and Windows grow in the Comp. Sci. Dept. at FooU over the last 12 years. It's finally turning around.
 
The other reason to care is that if this is what they see, this is what other customers and older system administrators will see too. How do you educate this group? They've been doing things the same way for years and something about change makes them uncomfortable. The previous Unix admin for FooU was this person. He is a nice guy and he knew his stuff. He kept the labs running... running just like it was still 1987 in 2003. It is any wonder the instructors and students got tired of using the Unix machines for classes and started switching Windows? Even I would pick Windows XP over Solaris 2.3. How do we get these guys into the 21st century (this is an honest serious question, I am seaching for the answer)?