It must be really convenient to live in world where you make up both
sides of conversations.
Well, "it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it". I'm saying that
the process is wrong; if "maturity" means accepting rules which cannot
be questioned, then I'm glad to be "childish". The whole idea of FAQs
is a lazy way of sending newbies on their way at best. Here, the
administrative requirement is satisfied by an "answer" to the OP's
question which is not an answer at all.
It rests upon an illusion: that a "question" is always part of a
dialog with only one possible reply. It also omits the possibility
that the person is smarter than the collective administrative
apparatus, which is almost never true by way of the law of "least
common denominator".
Furthermore, like most administrative systems, that of the C FAQ
incorporates bias, here, in favor of unix and against "Windows" in a
way that fails to acknowledge the fact that "Windows", unlike unix,
has been more able to evolve BECAUSE it was such garbage in the past.
Windows 1.0 was a nightmare and a joke; we had great fun at Bell
Northern Research watching it stagger along trying to show us
"windows". Microsoft took the money from unsuspecting users with
enough 286 gear to make 1.0 run half acceptably and proceeded to
improve the product (that's called capitalism and even Marx would
approve). As a result, today's "Windows" incorporates lessons not
found in unix, which precisely because it was so great in 1970 has
failed to evolve, whether as unix, or as Linux. It's the phenomenon of
technical "leapfrog"...such as in China, whose rail system is vastly
superior to that of the US and which is on the verge of introducing
"Shanghai to London in two days by rail" within the next 20 years.
Linux and unix, no matter what release, are the same thing, whereas
Windows 7 is completely unlike Windows 3.1.
Worse, FAQs incorporate complete nonsense. Steve Summit's original FAQ
appears to have identified Schildt as "wrong on C" based on Seebach's
ridiculous tirade.
FAQs belittle people and trivialize things, like help desks.