Ground Rules for the Windows-Macintosh World

David Pogue writes eloquently in the New York Times about all issues related to personal technology. He's one of my favourite authors. In the above link to his NY Time article of 26 May 2005 he writes about some ground rules in the war between proponents of different operating sytems. He writes about Windows and Macintosh, but this also applies to Linux, Unix, and anything else that people use.

I like No. 2 the best. It resonates with me.

2. No condemning something until you've tried it.

I happen to use Windows and Linux. I like both. I won't trash either. But I notice a few things:

: Windows users typically don't know, or sometimes have not heard of, Linux
: Linux users know that Windows is junk, crashes all the time, or they tell me how they hate Bill Gates.

Neither of these positions are worthly of continued discussion and I won't take the bait--although if the listener is willing, I will tell Windows-using people about Linux and tell Linux-using people that they can't count on winning the war based on expectations that Windows crashes all the time.