Oracle's VirtualBox RANT

[techlists at phpcoderusa.com]

Hi,

As you probably know I am struggling to configure Oracle's VirtualBox 
for web development testing.

VirtualBox is a mess.  I cannot get it to work for PHP testing.  It will 
either work external so I can build the server OR I can make it visible 
to my local net and I am not able to pull in any packages.

My expectation was that I could download and install VB then create a 
guest instance and configure my VM as I like, and in my case I want to 
have it have an IP on my local private network, and be able to put that 
IP in my browser and do some testing.

VirtualBox in my opinion is what is wrong with technology.  I've said it 
before and I'll say it again, technology has become too difficult.  Case 
in point, last year I configured a full-stack host in my home office.  
This was complete with BIND, Postfix, and Dovecot.  With a little 
studying Bind is doable. Postfix, and Dovecot on the other hand are 
total enigmas.  I probably need to spend 30 or 40 hours to understand 
setting up and configuring Postfix, and Dovecot.

I was able to get things to work, however I still do not know how.

PHP is the same in my opinion.  To be a PHP dev requires a large stack 
of technologies.  I'm starting to feel the barrier to entry is too high. 
  About 3 years ago I attended several AzPHP meetings and I was amazed to 
discover that the top programmers actually were embracing this level of 
complexity. There was one guy,who is accomplished, that actually looked 
down on anyone who was not at his level.  Yikes!!

I'm talking about things like Composer and dependency injection.  Anyone 
know there is three ways to configure and use dependency injection.  I 
do not recall all 3 off the top of my head.

CodeIgniter 1 and 2 used dependency injection in a way that hid the 
complexities of dependency injection.  It was so subtle that you don't 
even know you are implementing dependency injection.

I really liked CodeIgniter 1 and 2.  It hid the complexities of web 
development and was the closest thing I've seen in web development that 
was rapid application development (RAD).

One of the things I really liked about CodeIgniter  was it's simplicity. 
  A middle school kid could learn enough about it in a weekend to start 
building something.

Back to VirtualBox... It is entirely too complicated and I'm not sure 
why.  Can anyone shed light on this?

I read that everyone should learn how to program.  Why?  Programming 
itself is simple... doing anything remotely useful requires you get down 
into the mud of the complexities of building an application.

I fell in love with programming at the UofA in 1983.  I feel in love 
with Linux in 1998 when a friend told me about it. Yes I'm old. And I've 
seen a lot.

What was VirtualBox created for and does it need to be so complex?

Keith