Yesterday’s tongue-in-cheek top 10 hit the big lists (digg and reddit). Traffic surged and the server held up well. It’s not our first tsunami, but it has easily been our largest. Some details:

• Digg count: 1400+
• Reddit points: 130+
• Total traffic: 45k reads (250k hits, 48 hours, 10x increase)
• Dreamhost ad clicks: 497 (100x increase)
• Google ad revenue: 100x increase
• RSS subscription increase: +1600 (3x increase)
• Comments: 50 local + 250 digg + 120 reddit (1000x increase)

I’ll post some graphs once today’s stats are in. Tracking Digg stats is getting old, so I’m going to work on some software instead.

So is it worth it to write inflammatory, tongue-in-cheek top10 style commentary? I think so: people were interested, and the debate was useful and entertaining. It seems that the format is a good way to summarize an experience with something, in a way that people get. And, it was fun.

Here’s a metal pen that never needs to be sharpened or refilled. It’s an ancient stylus, initially made from silver. Even though they make reasonable marks on paper, they’re a relatively rare drawing tool.

How do I manage several different projects under Subversion?. This confused me at first as cvs doesn’t allow checkouts from the repository root. Also check out the answer to How can I do an in-place ‘import’?

I use Windows and Linux every day. They’re both competent operating systems, each with reasonable applications and windowing systems. I find myself more productive on a Linux system, though, because of a few very simple differences.

So what are the differences?

1. A useful terminal emulator. So what if it’s only useful for developers: I’m a developer. I like a terminal with capable cut-and-paste, tabs, and resizing.
2. All-in-one application sources. Man, I love my apt (or yum, or distro-specific tool of choice). Finding and downloading applications for Windows is a crap-shoot in almost every way. I find this especially handy when building new systems: it takes far longer to build, update, and add needed applications on a Windows system than on most Linux systems.
3. Cut-and-paste, and focus handling. Middle-click cut-and-paste is even more useful than middle-clicking a URL to a new tab, and XWindows does scroll-wheel window focusing right (scrolls the window under the cursor).
4. Frequent, painless patches and new stuff, all the time. I’ve had a 3d desktop (compiz) and funky search (deskbar) for more than a year now (and I avoid the bleeding edge).
5. Multi-desktops. Using a single desktop now is a lot like working at a grade-school desk: it’s just too small to be useful.
6. Good, free tools. Like vim (or emacs). I know they’re old and crusty, but they both live and breathe text editing.
7. No reboots. I rarely have to reboot a Linux system when patching. Windows is getting better about reboots, but they’re still too frequent.
8. Open formats and protocols. My stuff (and my network) is mine, locking my stuff in proprietary, costly formats doesn’t work for me.
9. No need for paranoia. I don’t like the anti-malware tax: the cost, the CPU cycles, and the wasted fear. Signed application bundles are a big part of how Linux gets this right: you don’t have to fear installing new stuff (the rest is in frequent patching and limiting possible damage).
10. Respect. Don’t tell me what or how to do it: give me choices. And don’t treat me like a criminal, because I’m not.

Update - Someone dugg me, though the server is holding up well (thanks Dreamhost). Remember folks, top 10 lists are for fun.

Update - 2007 - Someone dugg me again. I guess Digg users have a short memory.

Also check out Three more things Linux does right (or that Windows does grossly wrong).

Dive into Mark talks about specifications, and how they really only arbitrate pointless nits and debate. I suppose it depends on what you consider a specification and how you write it.

I’m not the only one who has asked, “is there a Windows terminal emulator that doesn’t suck?“. I’ll try a few of these recommendations. If anything works for me, I’ll write about it. So far, poderosa seems perfectly reasonable (and console looks good too).

A case against using the prototype.js library.

Don’t make the demo look done, a reasonable argument for ways to pace design and prototyping so that normal people understand where things are at.

Functional specifications documents lead to an illusion of agreement. A bunch of people agreeing on paragraphs of text is not real agreement. — Jason Fried, 37Signals

RFC 1925, The Twelve Networking Truths. A nugget:

Every old idea will be proposed again with a different name and a different presentation, regardless of whether it works.