Microsoft Exchange vs. Unix Sendmail - Rant and Comparison

[Microsoft Exchange and Sendmail are server programs for sending email. You have almost certainly sent mail to one or the other before, and there's a pretty good chance that your email service is using one and you don't know it. They operate behind the scenes, so most people don't even notice them.]

I absolutely loathe Microsoft's server software. There has yet to be a single occasion where I have said, "Wow, that was way easier than doing the same thing in Unix."

This is not to say that I believe that all Unix systems are superior to all Microsoft systems. That would be a broad generalization, and a stupid one at that. I'm sure there are applications where Microsoft server products outperform equivalent open source and Unix offerings.

I just haven't found any.

Case in point: minor changes, the focus of this rant, are far easier to deal with in Unix. Tonight, I had to change the address that some guy's email was being forwarded to. Sounds simple enough, right?

This is a link to how to change someone's forwarding address in Microsoft Exchange. Look at it. Don't bother to read it, that's not really important. Just take a look at the number of steps necessary to do something this simple.

Go ahead, I'll still be here when you get back.

You didn't read it, did you? Is it really so much work to click the link, and then click "Back?"

Fine, here's the synopsis: you need five printed pages of explanation.

Now, here's how you do the same thing in Sendmail, a Unix email server program. (You don't really need to read these either, but I'll write it out for the sake of completeness.)

1. Open /etc/mail/virtusers in a text editor.
2. Find the email address for the guy that wants to change his forwarding address. It will be in the format
   someguy@here.com        forwarded@somewhereelse.com
   .
3. Replace forwarded@somewhereelse.com with the new forwarding address.
4. Save and exit the text editor.
5. Restart Sendmail so it knows about the change.

Seriously, that's it. Five steps as opposed to five pages. I don't think I'm wrong here.

I'm sure some Microsoft fanboys will say, "But Exchange has so many more features than Sendmail! It has to be more complex." Let me take that argument apart here.

• I really don't think that complexity is an excuse for really, really terrible user experience.
• Simple tasks are the tasks most likely to be performed on a regular basis. If you know that a task is a pain in the ass to do, find a way to make it easier. Add a wizard, find a way to obfuscate the complexity, do something that doesn't make your admins want to cut your throat.
• Most Exchange users don't use the extended features offered. (The server I was using today did email services for three people. It's in a closet behind the receptionist's desk.) If they're not in use, disable them until they are. It will not only speed up the system, it will eliminate the painful need for five pages of text to do a simple task.

I'm well aware of the fact that a good user interface is difficult to write, and that the more complex something is, the harder it becomes... but come on, Microsoft. You are the premiere software developer in the world. Is this actually the best you can do?

Adaptations

I come almost entirely from northern European stock--there's rumor of some Cherokee heritage in my background somewhere, but it certainly hasn't manifested itself in me--blonde hair, blue eyes, tall and lean.

As such, my body seems to be adapted for long, cold winters. I generate heat like a furnace, and I'm comfortable walking around in a T-shirt in weather that would make most people run for a parka. I typically keep the heat in my apartment set at 50 degrees in winter.

These are nice benefits to have, but there are weird side effects. Every fall, when the days start to get shorter and the weather gets colder, my body becomes convinced that there's a famine-stricken Artic Circle winter coming. It tries to adapt accordingly, apparently by making it very easy to put on a massive amount of fat.

For the third day in a row, I've had to force myself to get out of bed after twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep--presumably because bodies at rest don't burn any calories.

I'm hungry all the time--even when I've just finished a meal.

All this seems especially pointless when you consider the fact that I'm hoping I won't have to be anywhere near Wisconsin when winter sets in for real.

Old English

I just finished reading the Wikipedia article on Old English.

Why? I'm not entirely sure. I stumbled across the link in a discussion thread on digg.com.

There were a few sections I couldn't understand without some familiarity with linguistics (which I don't have), but I found the article fascinating. I've always been amazed by other languages--and seeing the roots of my own language laid out is amazing to see.

For those of you who won't read the article--which I suspect is all of you--here a couple interesting tidbits:

• Since Old English was considered to be a language of the common man, very little was recorded in it--if records or stories were kept, they were written in Latin or of the language of whoever had most recently conquered the region. Because of this, many of the English words were being written down for the first time, and were written phonetically in the dialect of the scribe.
  
  Thus, many of the unusual and horrific spellings in Modern English can be traced back to Old and Middle English. Letters that have become silent in Modern English were actually pronounced in Old English.
  
  For example, cniht, the old English equivalent of knight, was pronounced with a hard c sound. The pronunciations of the words changed over time, but the spellings eventually became static and ceased to reflect these changes.


• Old English contained a concept known as dual plurals, where there is a separate plural form indicating exactly two of something. To give an example, say that the suffix a is added to a word to indicate the dual plural.
  
  man = One man
  mana = Two men
  men = Any number greater than two men.
  
  This concept survives in many of the languages that also share Germanic roots, such as modern Icelandic.

What really surprised me was the last, seemingly tacked-on section of the article: the Lord's Prayer in Old English. The similarities between Modern English and Old English are striking. Many of the same pronouns are still in use, and it's easy to see earlier forms of common words in the text.

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum,
Si þin nama gehalgod.
To becume þin rice,
gewurþe ðin willa, on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg,
and forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum.
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfele. soþlice.

Our father who art in heaven,
Hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done, on earth as it as in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

If any of you actually do read the article, you'll find that some of what I've mentioned isn't in it. I've drawn from my memory of high school English and other research for some of the info.