Linux-Advocacy Digest #614, Volume #25 Mon, 13 Mar 00 15:13:08 EST
Contents:
Re: What might really help Linux (a developer's perspective) (Robert Morelli)
Re: A Linux server atop Mach? ("MJP")
Re: Notebook Computer & Linux - Advice Needed (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Buying Drestin Linux Was (Re: Drestin: time for you to buy UNIX for DumbAsses
(5X3)
Re: Buying Drestin Linux Was (Re: Drestin: time for you to buy UNIX for DumbAsses
(5X3)
Re: Buying Drestin Linux Was (Re: Drestin: time for you to buy UNIX for DumbAsses
(5X3)
Re: What might really help Linux (a developer's perspective) (JEDIDIAH)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 11:59:01 -0500
From: Robert Morelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: What might really help Linux (a developer's perspective)
mlw wrote:
>
> Robert Morelli wrote:
> [lots snipped]
> > > > If you ask a typical UNIX bigot
> > >
> > > I take offense to "UNIX bigot"
> >
> > If you read everything I write, I think you'll realize that I don't condemn UNIX
>or its
> > advocates wholesale. I am generally favorable to UNIX and its users, gurus,
>etc.,
> > but I give no one an uncritical nod. I condemn a particular attitude which the
>word "bigot"
> > captures appropriately. If you use UNIX but aren't a bigot, the term doesn't
>apply to you so
> > you have no reason to take offense, unless you ally yourself with every UNIX user.
>
> Oh, please. I don't buy the excuse.
Fine, then. Fuck all UNIX users. It's all the same to me. You're the one whose
feelings
are hurt.
> > > > why
> > > > you can't load a file into Emacs by dragging a file object onto the Emacs
>window, he'll
> > > > smugly answer that UNIX people wouldn't use such a capability even if it were
>there. These
> > > > people are actually proud of their insularity and lack of sophistication.
> > >
> > > Judging everyone that uses UNIX by one person being flip is stupid.
> >
> > I'm not sure why you assume that I base this statement on a single experience. I
>work
> > at a university, where UNIX is quite common. In any case, the important
>question here
> > is, if this is not a typical attitude then why in fact doesn't Emacs have the
>capability
> > I mention and why aren't UNIX users angrily demanding it? For that matter, why
>did it
> > take 19 major iterations (that's right, 19, no typo) before it got scroll bars?
>
> Emacs does not matter. It is but one application in a world of
> applications. The views and actions of RMS with Emacs has little impact
> on the whole UNIX arena. If you don't like emacs, don't use it. I do not
> use it.
Emacs does not matter?? Hey, you better duck.
Well, let's go from there. I still need some manner of converting keystrokes
into text files. What UNIX application that is capable of drag and drop do you
suggest I
use? I'd be eager to know, since I myself have posted that as a question in Linux
newsgroups
three times in the past and I've never received an answer. If you'd like me to post
some
transcripts of the responses I got, you'll see lots of examples of the attitudes I've
been criticizing. The typical response is: what do you need drag and drop for when
we have
filename completion in the minibuffer? I don't want to lose filename completion. I
liked it
20 years ago when I first started using computers. But what's the answer to my
question?
By the way, have you folks ever seen the movie "Blast from the Past?"
> > > > Mind you, I'm no Windows advocate. But I'll at least give Microsoft credit
>for one thing.
> > > > In their own bumbling, incompetent way, they have been gradually -- very,
>very gradually --
> > > > adopted paradigms from other systems (of course, always implementing them in
>a half assed
> > > > way). Their philosophy is one of extreme conservatism in that they never
>introduce anything
> > > > original and have no vision of going beyond existing paradigms. But neither
>do they limit
> > > > themselves by bigotry. I have some sympathy for Apple, because even though
>the Mac is weak in
> > > > many respects, the company did have vision. They introduced the Newton about
>a year before MS
> > > > cancelled its first incarnation of the WinCE API (called WinPad). And in the
>late 80's they
> > > > conceived of Pink (aka Taligent) that would go beyond anything then (or now)
>in existence.
> > > > Unfortunately, Pink was an expensive failure. As a fall back, they have now
>adopted a UNIX
> > > > foundation for future versions of their OS. That's not too exciting a vision,
> but it does
> > > > solve the immediate problem of getting decent multitasking.
> > > >
> > > > As for UNIX, I have to say that there has been a general complacency to
>remain with very,
> > > > very good implentations of a 1970's computing paradigm. UNIX still thrives
>because for
> > > > many purposes a very good implementation of simple, old fashioned ideas is
>superior to a weak
> > > > implementation of something more sophisticated. I do find it a bit of a
>depressing
> > > > philosophy though and in some cases deeply frustrating.
> > >
> > > Anyone that thinks "old fashioned" has any place in UNIX has not been
> > > paying attention. The issue is reason. Make a good case for different
> > > metaphors and paradigms and they will be implemented and introduce into
> > > standards before Microsoft's first rip-off.
> > >
> > > Many of the things that pass as programming paradigms in Windows are
> > > simply bad ideas. To adopt them simply because they are new would be
> > > foolish. Does this mean that things are rejected out of hand? Of course
> > > not, but if it is a bad idea, it shouldn't happen.
> >
> > Well, there you go. That's the kind of dismissive, insular attitude I'm talking
>about.
> > Back in the 80's DOS users used to talk about mice and screen graphics as useless,
> frivolous,
> > ... It was a combination of ignorance and envy. You don't mention anything
>specific as a "bad
> > idea," so let's stick with the drag and drop example. What is so bad about drag
>and drop?
>
> I said programming paradigms, not UI devices. No one ever said "drag &
> drop" was not a good idea. My paragraph had to do with what passes for
> software design under Windows. DDE, COM, ActiveX, DirectX, these are all
> examples of poorly thought out, badly implemented crap. The fact that
> they are constantly changing the API, or obsoleting them proves MS has
> no idea how to design software. Just picking up the crap the MS spews
> out for the sake of doing it is a bad idea. Define the end-result
> functionality desired, and design good portable way of doing it. That is
> the UNIX way. That's why programs designed 15 years ago can be compiled
> today with little modification. Try, I dare you, to compile a Windows
> program code base from 15 years ago, it won't work.
This is just a diversion. You agree that drag and drop is a good idea. The question
is
why doesn't UNIX employ it where it's appropriate?
New UI ideas require new programming paradigms. If you want to be able to embed a
worksheet
in a wordprocessing document, you need some kind of desktop component object model,
like
ActiveX. ActiveX may be garbage, but UNIX has not had anything comparable, garbage
or not.
CORBA is a distributed object framework that could be a foundation for that, but the
fact is that
it wasn't used that way. Java has a number of relevant technologies that actually go
beyond
what native Windows has, but by the same token you often hear Linux advocates
disparaging
Java, as if that would somehow bolster the OS.
Of course, GNOME and KDE are building ActiveX type functionality. The GNOME and KDE
developers
are not the people I'm criticizing. But the truth is that those systems are fairly
recent, they
are playing catch up to Windows, and frankly the look and feel is copied too much
from Windows
98. Of course, the open nature of these projects and the care that is being put into
their
design already makes them more flexible and powerful in many ways than Windows.
Now, ActiveX is definitely garbage. That can't be overemphasized. At the time
ActiveX was first
being pushed on the market, OpenDoc was a serious challenger. There was speculation
that
MS deliberately "misdesigned" ActiveX to make it hard to code, so that Windows
developers
wouldn't have the time to use both OpenDoc and ActiveX. I'm not so sure that's true;
I tend
to accept the obvious explanation, that Microsoft's developers lacked the competence,
and
were under time pressure to boot. But UNIX people have no time to be smug about this.
To
come back again to the original issue about development tools, Microsoft has since
spent years
trying to make it easy to use ActiveX with its development tools. That's not
something that's
ever going to happen in a cross-platform class library. So you can go on with the
rationalizations and excuses and hurl all the abuse you want at Windows, but the net
effect is
to just waste time and delay the advance of UNIX. If UNIX developers don't address
this
gap, it'll be a long time before Linux catches up with Windows on this front.
> So you see, in UNIX, we make s^&%^T to last here. In Windows, you are on
> the upgrade train that costs $200 bucks a stop.
>
> As for UI design and innovation, my hat goes off to some of the guys
> working on UNIX, have you seen enlightenment? I don't use it, it is
> still too unstable for me, but it is way cool.
Pretty recent stuff.
> > > > But, fortunately I don't think that's really the end of the story. There is
>a new energy
> > > > among the younger developers of Linux and the traditional UNIX sense of
>community still
> > > > prevails. I believe that open, vigorous communities are ultimately more
>creative and
> > > > productive than closed systems. For this reason I expect Linux to break free
>of the depressing
> > > > legacy of complacency and I see it as the most promising system for the future.
> > >
> > > I think you don't see what is happening. UNIX and thus Linux are not
> > > "old and stodgy" by any measure. It ain't Windows, no way, but some fun
> > > and exciting stuff is happening. Good GUI apps are coming, and many of
> > > the GUI apps in Linux are better than the run of the mill Windows apps.
> > > I will grant you the $100 Billion dollar software company apps are not
> > > on Linux, yet, but Linux has better implementations for the $100 Million
> > > dollar software company apps.
> >
> > You say that I don't see what is happening, but then go on to reinforce what I
>just
> > said. Good GUI apps are on the way (but mostly not yet here) because there is a
> > shift to a more modern attitude.
>
> In reality, UNIX may not be more "modern" than Windows, but it is more
> advanced. Windows was designed to run on two floppies and an 8088. UNIX
> was designed, years ago, for large computers that have very similar
> capabilities as the ones we currently have.
>
> Velvita is more modern than many other cheeses, but, it is not better.
> Velvita uses more modern processing techniques in manufacture, but that
> does not make it better either. One can hardly dispute that Windows 9x
> is the velvita of operating systems.
>
> > The original question was whether there will be
> > development tools for Linux of the same quality (or better (!)) as the leading
>Windows
> > development tools.
>
> The subjective words in this sentence is "quality" and "better." From
> the perspective of many, they are already better. If you want a GUI
> development system, those are coming.
>
> > I don't know, but it does look promising. Borland for instance
> > has always been known for first class tools and they have JBuilder on Linux and
>are porting
> > C++ Builder. It remains to be seen whether these tools really stand up to their
>Windows
> > counterparts, and whether the Linux market supports their continued development.
>This
> > last point is not just a question of market size; it leads us back to the attitude
>issue.
>
> There is no borland anymore.
>
> > I expect the traditional UNIX folks won't flock to C++ Builder. They'll go on
>happily
> > using gcc and Emacs. But if Linux does grow, there will be lots of Windows
>refugees
> > who will require something providing the modern conveniences of their old home.
>
> I am, in fact a Windows refugee. However, I respect UNIX for what it is,
> so I do not blindly want to add things that Windows had, simply to have
> them. The one thing that UNIX really really needs, is the notion of a
> DLL. A shared library is not a dll.
>
> Also, you imply egcs is a bad tool, why? Because it is command line?
> Look at visualc++, it uses the command line "cl.exe" to do its compiling
> exactly the same way any other gui development environment would do it
> under UNIX with egcs.
gcc is not a bad tool. Nor is Emacs. They are simply incomplete. For that matter,
so
are the Windows IDEs. As was pointed out by another poster, most of the
Windows IDEs actually call command line utilities, or at least provide command line
utilities that carry the same functionality. It's just that they also provide a lot
more.
As for quality, it's quite likely that gcc stands up to the commercial command line
compilers
quite well. In fact, there is a credible rumor going around that Microsoft is
internally porting
gcc to WinCE because they can't get the same performance and code size gcc gives with
their own
compilers.
> One last thing about IDE environments. They usually have a two or three
> year usage per developer. New developers use IDEs because they make
> things easy for them. As the developer gets more experienced, they
> notice how restrictive the IDE becomes, sooner or later they abandon the
> IDE because it slows them down.
>
> You may argue this point, and that is OK, but it is true. An integrated
> development environment is usually the equivalent of training wheels.
You know what? I agee and I don't usually use those IDEs. I actually prefer using
Emacs
together with command line tools! The integrated editors don't usually match Emacs in
flexibility, etc., and on the whole Emacs is preferable. But that's me and that's
partly
because I've been using Emacs for 20 years. It's perfectly legitimate for a serious
developer to
demand the features present in a full IDE. Those companies sell hundreds of millions
of dollars
of that stuff every year, and it's not all to kindergarten programmers. When I say
Emacs is
preferable, I don't condemn every feature and UI device that Emacs lacks. If I
didn't actually
prefer Emacs, this stuff wouldn't bug me. I'd just be happy using Windows and never
think
about it.
> --
> Mohawk Software
> Windows 95, Windows NT, UNIX, Linux. Applications, drivers, support.
> Visit http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: "MJP" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Subject: Re: A Linux server atop Mach?
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 13:01:56 -0600
"Charles W. Swiger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:_v9z4.453$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In comp.sys.next.advocacy MJP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > "Charles W. Swiger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message:
> > Shit, I just knew I couldn't help myself.
>
> No doubt you expect us all to be surprised at your lack of self-restraint?
Always a pleasure, Charles.
> Gee, if I extract the source from a GNU-project tarball and do
"./configure ;
> make install" under Win 98, it doesn't work.
Like hell it doesn't. With Cygwin32 tools installed, I can do exactly that.
Unless you assume an out-of-the-box installation, in which case you'll have
to revisit some of your other conclusions.
> And source code which does syscall(SYS_chmod, ....) happens to compile and
> work using the existing Mach kernel in MOSXS that it does everywhere else,
> such as with the Linux kernel (which #defines the above to be __NR_chmod
in
> /usr/include/syscall-list.h). Anyone who cares can compare and contrast
the
> list of system calls provided by the two kernels and figure out that the
> exported API's are practically identical.
It would be disingenuous to justify your new definition of "portability" on
the basis of system call compatibility, so don't do that. You were far more
generous with your definition, for trivial example, when comparing Adobe
Framemaker+SGML availability.
MJP
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Subject: Re: Notebook Computer & Linux - Advice Needed
Date: 13 Mar 2000 19:09:35 GMT
On 13 Mar 2000 18:38:32 GMT, Brian Langenberger wrote:
>Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>: On 9 Mar 2000 18:11:39 GMT, Brian Langenberger wrote:
>:>ax <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>:>*) strong NeoMagic graphics card support (support out-of-box with RedHat
>:> in any case)
>
>: That's good if you are prepared to forgive neomagic ...
>
>For...?
Neomagic kept their specs
secret for years. As a result, many Linux users were screwed for a long
time because neomagic refused to open their spec. The neomagic was among the
last chipset to receive Linux support.
This is especially problematic on laptops where you cannot ( unlike
with a desktop ) simply get a new video card.
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (5X3)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Buying Drestin Linux Was (Re: Drestin: time for you to buy UNIX for
DumbAsses
Date: 13 Mar 2000 19:15:11 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Drestin Black <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> And so is W2K btw. What the fucks up with stuff I stick in the recycle
> bin
>> coming back after deletion? And what about mysterious disappearing
>> directories? I just recreated an MP3 tree for the 4th time and im sick to
>> death of doing it man.
>>
> ok, I dunno. Files coming back and files disappearing? Details and maybe we
> can help cause I've honestly never heard of such a thing.
Sure...Heres the scenereo:
W2K server on a year old tweaked out gateway laptop (128 megs ram, 233mmx, 8gig
HD)..
I used the stock FTP command line executable to pull about 4.5 gigs of mp3s from
another machine on my network, keeping directories intact. The tree was
built under the root directory of the D partition of the boot drive.
It worked fine at first, everything was playable, the software that I use to
build playlists was fine, etc. I needed to reboot the machine after installing
SQL (mp3 dj functionality, it IS a laptop after all...:)). Note that I did NOT
touch the mp3 directory tree or anything else with SQL in any way before I
rebooted.
I reboot, and the entire tree is gone. I looked at disk usage, and indeed
they really actually werent there. So I put them back in exactly the same way
I did the first time and everything was hunky dory for a while.
Then PART of the directory tree disappeared (everything under a certian
subdirectory out of 22)---without a reboot. It just was gone. I stuck the
rest of the tree in the recycle bin and deleted them (the recycle bin is set
to not keep anything, delete it immediately) and redownloaded everything.
When I was done, I noticed that I had two identical directory trees, one where
it belonged under the root directory of the D partition, and one under the
root directory of the C partition. That was really weird. So I deleted the
one under the C partition and kept the one under the D partition to be SQLized.
This kind of thing continued for a while until I managed to get SQL working,
and then everything was fine.
Off the top of my head, I should think that this is a straight up FS problem.
Thoughts?
p0ok
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (5X3)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Buying Drestin Linux Was (Re: Drestin: time for you to buy UNIX for
DumbAsses
Date: 13 Mar 2000 19:20:48 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Darren Winsper
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 12 Mar 2000 19:36:10 GMT, 5X3 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy Darren Winsper
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > What can FreeBSD do that Linux can't?
>>
>> It loads better and handles very high loads much more easily.
> I'd like to see figures showing that.
You could simply run the same things on each OS at the same time
like I did and look at the load difference. If youve had similar
experience with both operating systems, the difference leaps out
at you.
>> Its got a
>> MUCH better tcp/ip stack.
> I can't really comment there.
The box im sitting at right now can push 30 megs a second along
a single interface without a single hiccup. When this very same
box was running both Redhat and Debian, it couldnt push more than
6 or 7 megs a second (under identical circumstances) without
slowing down appreciably. Although this "evidence" is indeed
anecdotal, it is also my personal experience. An opinion was
asked, and an opinion based on direct personal experience was
given. :)
>> Its got a Ports tree and an automated cvsup.
> Wow, it's not like Debian has apt or anything.
I know all about debian, and freebsd ports are much, much better.
p0ok
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (5X3)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Buying Drestin Linux Was (Re: Drestin: time for you to buy UNIX for
DumbAsses
Date: 13 Mar 2000 19:23:07 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Drestin Black <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "Darren Winsper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in
> message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 01:06:08 -0500, Drestin Black
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>> > I _have_ given it a chance but, as I wrote before, there was nothing it
>> > could do that I couldn't do in W2K already. I mean, if I could find even
> one
>> > single thing I need to do with Linux that I cannot do easily with W2K I
>> > would install it (in vmware 2) in a heartbeat. right now VMware is
> running
>> > FreeBSD for me to continue using...
>>
>> What can FreeBSD do that Linux can't?
> I didn't say that. FreeBSD is used by several of my clients so I like to
> keep it handy. Plus, it's users don't have a anti-everyone-else crusade
> going...
Hear hear. I think part of the reason for the lack of militant support
of FreeBSD is its legacy. Everyone knows all about exactly what its
capable of, its developers (in many incarnations and BSDs) have been
around longer than nearly anyone else, and perhaps most importantly:
No ones trying to get rich selling it.
p0ok
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Subject: Re: What might really help Linux (a developer's perspective)
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 19:20:51 GMT
On Mon, 13 Mar 2000 11:59:01 -0500, Robert Morelli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>mlw wrote:
>>
>> Robert Morelli wrote:
[deletia]
>> Emacs does not matter. It is but one application in a world of
>> applications. The views and actions of RMS with Emacs has little impact
>> on the whole UNIX arena. If you don't like emacs, don't use it. I do not
>> use it.
>
>Emacs does not matter?? Hey, you better duck.
>
>Well, let's go from there. I still need some manner of converting keystrokes
>into text files. What UNIX application that is capable of drag and drop do you
>suggest I
What exactly do you need DnD for inside of a word processor?
If you need something Windows-centric for to be your 'electronic
typewriter', why are you bothering to mention any of the ancient
Unix text editors?
>use? I'd be eager to know, since I myself have posted that as a question in Linux
>newsgroups
>three times in the past and I've never received an answer. If you'd like me to post
>some
>transcripts of the responses I got, you'll see lots of examples of the attitudes I've
>been criticizing. The typical response is: what do you need drag and drop for when
>we have
>filename completion in the minibuffer? I don't want to lose filename completion. I
>liked it
>20 years ago when I first started using computers. But what's the answer to my
>question?
>
>By the way, have you folks ever seen the movie "Blast from the Past?"
Some of us were dragging and dropping while the Consumer
Microsoft OS looked like a 'blast from the past'. So What?
DnD like pipes and filename completion are means to and end.
I'm not sure you have an awareness of where you're going with
your latest-greatest-newfangled-gadgetry.
Mind you, the sorts of things you seem to be interested just
might be implementable through X without the original target
application even needing to be aware of the notion of DnD.
That might be something good for an experiemental window manager.
[deletia]
>> examples of poorly thought out, badly implemented crap. The fact that
>> they are constantly changing the API, or obsoleting them proves MS has
>> no idea how to design software. Just picking up the crap the MS spews
>> out for the sake of doing it is a bad idea. Define the end-result
>> functionality desired, and design good portable way of doing it. That is
>> the UNIX way. That's why programs designed 15 years ago can be compiled
>> today with little modification. Try, I dare you, to compile a Windows
>> program code base from 15 years ago, it won't work.
>
>This is just a diversion. You agree that drag and drop is a good idea. The question
>is
>why doesn't UNIX employ it where it's appropriate?
I employ it all the time actually. I wouldn't expect the likes
of emacs to bother with it because it's an application from a
different paradigm.
>
>New UI ideas require new programming paradigms. If you want to be able to embed a
>worksheet
DnD is just a communications mechanism. Why would another sort
of 'thing' to shove through a 'pipe' require yet another
programming paradigm. DnD is not as magical as you seem to be
making it out to be.
>in a wordprocessing document, you need some kind of desktop component object model,
>like
>ActiveX. ActiveX may be garbage, but UNIX has not had anything comparable, garbage
>or not.
Actually, the NCSA managed to come up with something like that
entirely in the absense of a corba or an OLE. There's a great
deal of illusionism in computing and typically more than one
way to achieve such an illusion.
>CORBA is a distributed object framework that could be a foundation for that, but the
>fact is that
>it wasn't used that way. Java has a number of relevant technologies that actually go
>beyond
>what native Windows has, but by the same token you often hear Linux advocates
>disparaging
>Java, as if that would somehow bolster the OS.
>
>Of course, GNOME and KDE are building ActiveX type functionality. The GNOME and KDE
>developers
>are not the people I'm criticizing. But the truth is that those systems are fairly
>recent, they
>are playing catch up to Windows, and frankly the look and feel is copied too much
>from Windows
...and Windows copied from everyone else. So what's your point?
Infact, some things that are pegged as being copied from Windows
were copied BY windows.
Although I do agree that simply blindly copying Windows is a foolish
thing to do. The way Windows has done things in the past is merely
a method to achieve certain things. Such things need not necessarily
be achieved in exactly the same way or using the same methods.
>98. Of course, the open nature of these projects and the care that is being put into
>their
>design already makes them more flexible and powerful in many ways than Windows.
>
>Now, ActiveX is definitely garbage. That can't be overemphasized. At the time
>ActiveX was first
>being pushed on the market, OpenDoc was a serious challenger. There was speculation
>that
>MS deliberately "misdesigned" ActiveX to make it hard to code, so that Windows
>developers
>wouldn't have the time to use both OpenDoc and ActiveX. I'm not so sure that's true;
> I tend
>to accept the obvious explanation, that Microsoft's developers lacked the
>competence, and
>were under time pressure to boot. But UNIX people have no time to be smug about
>this. To
>come back again to the original issue about development tools, Microsoft has since
>spent years
>trying to make it easy to use ActiveX with its development tools. That's not
>something that's
>ever going to happen in a cross-platform class library. So you can go on with the
Why not? What's so different about a library that's cross platform
that prevents it from having lots of effort thrown at a shiny happy
set of devtools?
>rationalizations and excuses and hurl all the abuse you want at Windows, but the net
>effect is
>to just waste time and delay the advance of UNIX. If UNIX developers don't address
>this
>gap, it'll be a long time before Linux catches up with Windows on this front.
Unix developers, like many developers, solve the problems they
find interesting. Some will find value in building resource
editors and similar developer cushions and others won't. Your
assertion that Unix developers in general have no interest in
making 'better' development tools is flatly contradicted by the
facts of what's currently being developed.
>
>> So you see, in UNIX, we make s^&%^T to last here. In Windows, you are on
>> the upgrade train that costs $200 bucks a stop.
>>
>> As for UI design and innovation, my hat goes off to some of the guys
>> working on UNIX, have you seen enlightenment? I don't use it, it is
>> still too unstable for me, but it is way cool.
>
>Pretty recent stuff.
'end users' on Unix is pretty recent stuff.
[deletia]
--
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Resistance is not futile. / | \
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