Thursday, December 24, 2015

Why people need to think, do research, and get off the hype train

This post is a reaction to this one.

The problem with that post is the man has no idea as to what he's talking about. The Pi Zero is not meant to be a desktop replacement for five dollars, that is literally impossible. The Zero is not being marketed to people that would have to buy all of that stuff just to set it up, it's being marketed to people like me who have years of spare parts and cords, with keyboards and mice and wireless dongles just lying around. My second point: the Pi Zero is not useless. Running it headless to do some mundane monitoring task is more than enough. My only gripe with the Zero is the marketing team. The people marketing the Raspberry Pi have done this time and time again: marketed a cheap computer for education. While it may be a lot cheaper than most Mac, Windows, or even Linux machines available, this machine was designed for makers and hackers, not students. Students want something that works out of the box or is easy to set up, and can be modded with little to no consequence. The Raspberry Pi is not that machine, and that's what Brian wants this machine to be. Unfortunately, so do a whole lot of people (including myself two years ago), and then they wind up all butthurt when they realize that the Pi is not for what it was advertised.

</rant>

Also, this is a thing.