freefriedrice

Yeah, that's a good point.

There is a big difference between Linux and BSD here.

Linux has really exploded with configuration. Are we using 'ip' or 'ifconfig'? Are we using /etc/<app> or /etc/<app>.d/? What about /lib/system? Do I restart that systemctrl or service?

BSD has kept it a little more "pure" in that it is more of a "only one way to do it" philosophy.

Windows came from the single-user domain. Unix came from server space. It is literally two different evolutionary paths. From day-1, Unix was built for shared file systems, multi-user accounts, and distributed computing.

Networking on Microsoft was an afterthought until the mid-90's. Sure there were token ring and banyan vines drivers in the late 80's early 90's, but that was to share a drive letter. The entire idea of multiple users didn't appear until Win3.1 for workgroups, decades after multiuser OSes. WinNT started to take protected mode seriously, but they re-invented networking from an MS perspective (e.g., POP/SNMP? nope: MSExchange).

It's not a surprise that Windows is such a mess under the hood compared to Linux/BSD/Unix/SystemV when you look at the history of Windows. I dunno, maybe that's not fair, but switching between *nux and Windows from a networking / distributed computing perspective is jarring. And that's just for simple things (interface config, tracing, configuration of multiple adapters and bridges...)

I've been working with Linux and BSD for so long, I don't even know of any Microsoft-only cloud applications. I'm completely *nix bubbled. I cannot imagine cloud programming on windows, probably because I only write user-space native apps. Is there a Puppet or Ansible for windows? I'd be completely lost.

Well now I feel like a dolt.

The statement is sound: Inequality will always exist. But this worsens it because people with remote jobs earn more money by luck: they happened to pick the right job for a pandemic. Just like being born into a rich family means you will be rich without having to ever work for it, or even consider it.

The deeper question is: how does a civilized society respond to this? By saying: "You die now, loser, LOLZ", or through years of sufficient planning and preparation for emergency situations like this?

Personally, I think as a society we are long past the "die now loser" phase, and can definitely supply resources to even-out this temporary dip for the most impacted. However, I'm from the US, and 40% of the country wants to shoot me for believing anything but bootstraps and social darwinism.

Not directed at you personally, just "you" generally: unless you're not using PSK or WEP, no one is snooping anything meaningful from your Wi-Fi traffic.

WPA can be cracked by collecting enough handshake info to create enough hashes you can then set some GPUs from the cloud on in a matter of days. WPA2 (and enterprise) are not crackable unless you are a government.

And even if a malicious person gets your passkey, HTTPS is pretty damn near impenetrable. Source: I've been to DefCon for the past 7 years, and with the exception of TLSv1.3 replay or trying to hijack global DNS routers or compromise CAs, which either require the stars to align, military style infiltration, or non-existant computing, you're safe.

You're far more likely to be hacked by a phone call pretending to be your bank, or by a fake AirBNB scam. Or someone stealing your mail.

Ok internet: prove me wrong. Where are your WPA2 and TLSv1.3 hacks that anyone can do?

The camera acronym is "SICK"? As a sales rep, that would be a tough one to pitch. Like Moland Springs water.

You're very good at inventing creative scenarios. Well done.

I don't really know where to start, you clearly want to defend your comfort zone. So I will be supportive: go work on projects that require Linux. It will be much more rewarding to you than working on constrained edge devices that are more challenging due to resource constraints.

You're also free to pretend that you can just swap in platform that requires watts of power in a scenario that requires an edge device to last a year on a battery.

That's a matter of opinion.

If you don't know jack about network programming, then of course you can retreat to Linux. But Linux is not an edge / IoT platform by any stretch of the imagination. Micro RTOS is closer, but still overkill for embedded Wi-Fi.

Specifically for Wi-Fi, LWIP is -the- stack to use for embedded TCP/IP. It is under 30K with full TCP/IP and offers everything you need. Then there is COAP or MQTT, which are miniscule compared to HTTP. mbedTLS adds another 80K for full TLS compatibility on 40MHz processors. On top of this every major wifi vendor has an SDK that fits nicely into LWIP (some even ship it), some are small (CC5000) some are larger (like the WF200), but the APIs are pretty straightforward. Now, leaving TCP/IP and 802.11 will add headaches (BLE, ZigBee, Zwave) due to additional learning curves, but only because most people in embedded networking already understand TCP/IP and 802.11 phy.

If you want to play in the embedded space, you gotta learn about it. Running back to linux might work in some cases, but not constrained IoT space.

EDIT: I had my #s reversed, LWIP is under 30K, mbedTLS is around 80K, TLS is most of that (esp. RSA stuff, I could have disabled everything I didn't need [mbed has highly granular config] based on the ciphersuite and shrunk it considerably since ECC is smaller and faster than RSA). Just checked my map file, and I was in -O0 optimization mode.

EDIT2: On second thought: if people want to complain that they need linux to do networking on the edge, please complain! I'll interview after you and demonstrate MQTT with TLS v1.3 running off an MCU with a 2032 coincell for months (eh, I'm weirdflexing a little, but still...)

The "rational market" are things like bluechips and bellweathers. Coke, Pepsi, Target. They follow traditional rules, e.g., valuation, price-to-earnings, capital, dividends, etc.

BitCoin is gambling where big players intentionally alter the price and small players hope to sap some $$$ like fleas on a dog.

I have a theory that hindsight isn't even 20/20 when it comes to the web. Hindsight is still 20/400 because we STILL do not know what is the best language & framework. Frontends evolved quarterly with new paradigms popping up at a breakneck pace.

There is a reason why we have knockout, ts, angular, react, vue, and even people touting their own NEW frameworks in this very thread: we still don't know WTF we are doing!

I don't think it is a bad thing, I think we're in the Cambrian Explosion of web development, and will be for decades until the hardware slows down its rapid evolution.

I was there when Mosaic first appeared in /usr/bin during grad school. We had no clue where things were headed then, so I find it a bit harsh to diss on the first devs.