Decision fatigue

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I'm getting tired of always having so many choices on the computer. Like I'm doing a project right now, and I have to install some program called VCFTools. There appears not to be any other software that does what I need it to do (convert compressed VCF files to FASTA files), but unfortunately VCFTools has to be some stupid Linux program and I've got Windows, so I gotta download Cygwin. You gotta then build VCFTools in order to use it--no way in hell are they going to provide a binary. I already feel bad about this, because in the past I almost always end up banging my head against the wall when I have to deal with this crap.

So now I'm going through the whole rigamarole again, because I haven't had Cygwin installed. I installed it, and tried following the instructions here:

https://vcftools.github.io/examples.html

The export statement worked, but the "./Configure" statement in the vcf tools directory did not, neither did the make command. Apparently, the Cygwin installation didn't include it.

So I go and just try to install as much Cygwin crap as I can, but now I get a message saying I have to go to some Sourceforge site and install more crap before I can install all the Cygwin crap.

I'm guessing some more stuff was installed, but it didn't make a bit of difference for building the program. Right now, my brain is too fried to do anything else. Based on my experience, if I install that Sourceforge thing, there are going to be a whole bunch of other problems that I must sort through, so I'm like, Why bother?

I really hate it when only stupid Linux programs are available, which are really only that way because it helps Linux boys feel smart and important, when in reality they're pushing software that's so difficult to use it's basically useless.

So right now, I'm frustrated and tired. I've been going at this all night, and I've barely gotten anywhere. The VCF file sits unconverted, my next step in the project indefinitely postponed. Why do the Linux people have to make this stuff so hard? Why don't people make this software for Windows, too, without making you go through all these rituals? I know Linux boys like to have lots of choices, but sometimes things are a lot easier if someone else just chooses for you.

Right now, I'm dealing with decision fatigue.

Beneficii, sorry it's a bother. Sounds like you really just need a VCF parser for windows or an online web service that does this. Don't know if there are any.

There's lots of different kinds of computer users, and some of us find it easier to hack around on the command line than to mouse and drag all over. Neither one is better, just different. Cygwin is kind of a horrible misfit onto windows anyway, so it's not clear if that would work anyway. It's hard to just load linux and do something quickly until you know all of its folklore and ways.

By the way, they call the cycle where you want to do A, but need B, which needs C, and before you know it, you're punching away at Z: "Yak Shaving!" It's explained on this blog.

Hope you get your FASTA somehow.

Apparently, I've been wasting my time with Cygwin since it can't run programs designed for Linux anyway (only special Windows-fied versions of those programs), so I have to download a virtual machine and then download a Linux disc image and install that on the virtual machine.

I really really hate this.

Trying to do anything involving source code on Windows is much more trouble than it's worth, in my experience. It's just not built for dealing with programming the way GNU/Linux is. I don't really program, but I have compiled custom Linux kernels on a number of occasions, as well as other software from Arch Linux's AUR.

I think a lot of this boils down to the philosophy behind these OSes; Windows is a commercial OS made to run pre-baked commercial software available in binary form. GNU/Linux is an open source operating system essentially made by programmers for programmers, designed to run other open source software, and as such it comes set up with a proper compiling environment and all the other stuff you need for working with open source software.

I'd love to see Microsoft release Windows as free open source software, but for the time being it looks like this will never happen. Shame, because it would be really cool to see different "distros" of Windows that aren't just hacked up pirate copies held together with bubblegum and duct tape.

Well, I got it installed and all, but now the VCF Tools software doesn't work like I expected, so now I'm asking around.