[Tfug] LPD vs LPRng vs CUPS

[Claude Rubinson]

On Tue, Nov 13, 2007 at 02:42:46PM -0700, Ronald Sutherland wrote:
> I haven't given printing much thought in may years, I found that the
> Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) worked on Windows and *nix, CUPS auto
> discovers the printer on a network and that was enough for me, its worked on
> everything I've tried. HP networked printers all have IPP but it may need
> enabled.

I've heard enough people say "CUPS just works," to believe that is the
experience of many.  But it hasn't been mine.  I suspect that it's not
a coincidence that the network where I've had the most problems with
CUPS is also particularly poorly designed with a myriad of funky,
cheap print servers.

And therein lies the rub.  Unix is famous for being flexible and
powerful but scary to newbs.  ("Unix gives you enough rope to hang
yourself.  And then a few feel more, just to be sure.)  Windows is
famous for "it just works" -- unless it doesn't, in which case you're
screwed.  The ideal user interface is one that "just works" but also
allows the user complete flexibility to bend the app to their own
needs.

In esr's screed he talks about "feature orientations" vs "task
orientations" (or some terminology like that) and argues that UI
designers should emphasize tasks rather than features.  I disagree,
the ideal app/documentation will do both: i.e., step you through all
common tasks and ALSO give you a full syntax permitting you to bend
the app to your will.  Perl + CPAN comes to mind.

Eventually, I've always gotten CUPS configured to do what I need.  But
inevitably, it's always taken longer than it did with lprng.

Claude