FreeBSD Popularity

[Charlie Kester]

On Mon 01 Mar 2010 at 10:13:42 PST Roger wrote:
>
>I have also been guilty of being influenced by the popular choice.
>

When it comes to popularity, the question should always be "Popular with
whom?"

Popularity with the masses is a very unreliable indicator of quality or
fitness to the task at hand. On the other hand, if the experts in the
field all express a preference for one thing over another, that's
definitely a good argument for using it yourself.

The trick is in learning who the experts are and what they think about
the matter.

Even better is learning *why* they think thhe way they do -- how they
approach the matter and how they reach their decisions.  Then learn to
do that yourself, so you can be your own expert.

I wish I could say my decision to use FreeBSD was based on a process
like that, but it wasn't.  For me, it was mostly about aesthetics: I
like my Unix neat, with no chaser.