Linux-Advocacy Digest #847, Volume #27 Fri, 21 Jul 00 11:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Just curious, how do I do this in Windows? ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
The real faux paus of the U.S. military... (was Re: The Failure of the USS Yorktown)
("Stephen S. Edwards II")
Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary? ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: I had a reality check today :( ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: To Pete Goodwin: How Linux saved my lunch today! ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: I just don't buy it ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: Just curious, how do I do this in Windows? ("David Brown")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Just curious, how do I do this in Windows?
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 10:02:42 -0400
Drestin Black wrote:
>
> "Perry Pip" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > On 18 Jul 2000 18:08:13 -0500,
> > Drestin Black <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > >
> > >OK - I'll take the bait. I can't. So, why don't you show us some C logic
> > >that can't be done in VB. Show me something I can't do in VB...
> >
> > void endian_flip(unsigned short *word){
> > int temp = *word;
> > *word = 0;
> > for(int i = 1; i < sizeof(unsigned short) ; i++ ){
> > *word |= (temp & 1);
> > temp >>= 1;
> > *word <<= 1;
> > }
> > *word |= (temp & 1);
> > }
> >
> > Show me how to do that in VB.
>
> This is my understanding of Big Endian and Little Endian:
>
> "On an Intel computer, the little end is stored first. This means a Hex word
> like 0x1234 is stored in memory as (0x34 0x12). The little end, or lower
> end, is stored first. The same is true for a four-byte value; for example,
> 0x12345678 would be stored as (0x78 0x56 0x34 0x12). "Big End In" does this
> in the reverse fashion, so 0x1234 would be stored as (0x12 0x34) in memory.
> "
>
> So, I took it to mean inputting: 0x12345678 I should output: 0x78563412 -
> and so on.
>
> So... hows this?
>
> FUNCTION EndianFlip (Value)
>
> Temp$ = HEX$(Value)
> IF LEN(Temp$) MOD 2 THEN Temp$ = "0" + Temp$
>
> Bytes = LEN(Temp$) \ 2
> FOR X = 1 TO Bytes
> Build$ = MID$(Temp$, (X - 1) * 2 + 1, 2) + Build$
> NEXT
> EndianFlip = VAL("&H" + Build$)
>
> END FUNCTION
You're doing this with STRINGS!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
And you honestly expect us to view you as competent?????
>
> In Delphi I would simply use the "swap" function which converts between big
> endian and little endian values. Now that's simple.
I'll bet it wasn't written in ... heh heh ...BASIC...(giggle, smirk)
>
> However, allow me this escape, if I misunderstood the purpose/function of
> your function then please correct me so I can produce the routine you would
> like to see.
>
> (p.s., a fellow programmer, the Crazy Englishman, just walked over, looked
> at my code, agreed it would work and then laughed cause he said I took the
> hard route and that there is a much easier way in VB. Argh, now I'm going to
> have to actually think for a bit...)
Yeah, when using NUMERIC DATA, it's normally easier to use NUMERIC
FUNCTIONS
God, you are fucking inept. No wonder you don't know C.
If I were Delphi, I would prosecute you for fraudulent impersonation
of a programmer. Tell us again how you replace Unix servers with NT
servers.
90 days in an MCSE course does NOT an engineer make.
Try going to a university and going through a 5-year program, and find
out how programming and engineering are REALLY done.
>
> >
> > And how about writing routines that take variable argument lists. For
> > example:
> >
> <snip> order. Can you do variable argument lists on your subroutines in VB??
>
> yes, you can as well as in VBA. VB can tell you the type of argument in the
> order it was passed. No problem there.
>
> >
> > Another good example would be an abstract linked list or tree of
> > pointers, that could then be used as a framework for creating linked
> > lists or trees of any data type. I can post some code if you want. Can
> > you do an abstract linked list or tree framework in VB??
>
> Yes, using linked lists is not uncommon and can be done. I honestly think
> you should review a current version VB book. I think you may be suprised at
> all that has changed and enhancements. There is really quite a bit more to
> it than your old GWBasic :)
>
> If you haven't checked out BASIC in the last 3 years, more than a cursory
> glance, then you're not at all up on what has been developed for a language
> with such a deceiving name and history.
It's still a toy which *encourages* sloppy programming practices.
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
I: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: "Stephen S. Edwards II" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: The real faux paus of the U.S. military... (was Re: The Failure of the USS
Yorktown)
Date: 21 Jul 2000 14:13:13 GMT
Adam Warner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
8<SNIP>8
: "Sunk by Windows NT"
: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,13987,00.html
: Contains advocacy paragraph:
: "Why Windows NT Server 4.0 continues to exist in the enterprise would be a
: topic appropriate for an investigative report in the field of psychology or
: marketing, not an article on information technology," said John Kirch, a
: networking consultant and Microsoft certified professional, in his white
: paper, Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 versus Unix. "Technically, Windows NT
: Server 4.0 is no match for any Unix operating system."
: (The paper referred to is here: http://unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/)
First of all, you must know several things:
1.) That paper was originally written back in the days of WindowsNT
v3.51. Apparently, Kirch has (sloppily) updated it since then.
2.) That paper has been debunked, and disproved to death, countless
times, by people on USENET, and in the industry.
3.) Kirch is nothing but yet another UNIX-elitist twit, who has
absolutely no insight into operating systems design, or
implementation.
8<SNIP>8
: 1. We really can't tell whether the underlying NT OS did in fact crash, but
: on the balance of probabilities I'd guess it eventually did and had to be at
: least rebooted given the length of time it took to get the vessel
: operational again.
Considering that most of the data we can get has gone through several
politicians, it's likely we'll never truly know. But my guess is that
WindowsNT didn't fail, as I've never seen any Win32 app take NT down.
: 2. Regardless, the application clearly did not contain enough error checking
: and was primarily at fault.
Given the available data, I agree.
: 3. If it contains substance, the issue raised of political pressure to use
: NT is probably the most damning. There's little point in us arguing
: technical merits if the decision to use NT on the USS Yorktown wasn't
: primarily a technical decision.
Again, I agree. I like WindowsNT, but it doesn't belong in situations
where people's lives depend upon it. If this country insists on using PC
technology to power its military, then I think we can all say howdy to
communism in the coming years.
BTW, does anyone know exactly what "Smart Ship" connotates? I'd hope that
if the military is intending on implementing AI technology, that they'd
have the insight to use a better suited CPU. CPUs are a vastly inferior
solution for AI anyway, but _Intel_ for complex AI? Sorry, but I just
can't buy that.
--
.-----.
|[ ] | Stephen Edwards | http://www.primenet.com/~rakmount
| = :| "I'm too polite to use that word, so I'll just say,
| | 'bite me, you baboon-faced ass-scratcher.'"
|_..._| --SEGA's Seaman on the "F" word.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Am I the only one that finds this just a little scary?
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 10:04:16 -0400
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> "Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> >Stratus (for one) is able to supply systems with availability of
> >99.9999%.
>
> No, they aren't. Or at least Status won't come out and say that they can
> get downtime down to 30 seconds per year. 99.999% they say, which is
> 5 minutes per year. And they are not doing it on PCs, either, but rather
> on HP/UX machines.
>
> >Stratus web page also has some discussion of their Windows 2000 systems, and
> >the things they offer to improve reliability over the standard OS.
> >http://www.stratus.com/products/nt/index.htm
>
> Yes. Notice how in the whole NT discussion, they never put a percentage
> on availability figures? They go to great lengths to explain how they
> improve upon "normal" NT (which kinda makes you wonder how reliable that
> "normal" NT is in the first place), but never come right out and say
> "And doing all this, we can now offer NT machines with 99.99% uptime" or
> anything similar.
Of course not. When your product can't deliver past 98% uptime, you
DEFINITELY want to hide that fact.
>
> Bernie
> --
> The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be
> taken seriously
> Hubert Humphrey
> American Democratic politician
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
I: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: I had a reality check today :(
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 10:10:25 -0400
The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
>
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Aaron R. Kulkis
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote
> on Thu, 20 Jul 2000 12:44:32 -0400
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >
> >
> >The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
> >>
> >> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Aaron R. Kulkis
> >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >> wrote
> >> on Tue, 18 Jul 2000 22:31:40 -0400
> >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >Tim Palmer wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> On Tue, 18 Jul 2000 02:44:36 -0400, Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> [snip]
> >>
> >> >> >I can do the exact same thing on any modern flavor of unix, so, like
> >> >> >do you have a point?
> >> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >> "Moddern UNIX", now thear's an oxymorron.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Unix Microsoft products
> >> >
> >> >First Multi-processing kernal 1970 1995
> >> >
> >> >tape backup utilities 1970 1998
> >> >
> >> >First GUI 1984 1990
> >> >
> >> >Cut and Past support in GUI 1984 1993
> >> >
> >> >Full networking support 1984 1995
> >> >
> >> >No differentiation between remote 1984 never implemented
> >> > users and console users
> >> >First Multi-user kernal 1970 never implemented
> >> >
> >> >Configuration changes w/o rebooting 1970 never implemented
> >>
> >> 1998 or 1999; NT 4 no longer requires a reboot for simple
> >> TCP/IP configuration changes. For what it's worth.
> >>
> >> >
> >> >First non-fragmenting filesystem 1983 never implemented
> >>
> >> Note that 'fsdext2' allows readonly access to an ext2 volume
> >> from a Win95 box. If Microsoft really cared, they probably
> >> could hook in a replacement to NTFS or FAT.
> >>
> >> I don't know how much a bugaboo fragmentation is at this time
> >> (it's clearly better for single files to be non-fragmented, but
> >> how about file sets?) and I'd say a lot of the problem may be
> >> related to usage patterns in some fashion.
> >>
> >> It gets complicated if one throws "lying" disks and "lying" boards
> >> into the mix -- the CPU thinks most modern disks have 255 heads.
> >> (Uh huh. Pull the other one. :-) ) And most disks are
> >> variable-geometry anyway; more sectors on the outer cylinder.
> >>
> >> >
> >> >RAID support (Redundant Array 1991 never implemented
> >> > of Inexpensive Disks)
> >> >full remote administration possible, 1970 never implemented
> >> > including O/S install
> >>
> >> Hm...how did Unix have remote administration prior to Woolongong?
> >
> >Simple... dialin to a modem on a serial port.
>
> Oh...duh! I should have thought of that. Shows how spoiled
> I'm getting. :-)
>
> >
> >> Still, that only pushes it forward to the early 80's. (I have
> >> an AT&T 7300 with Woolongong sockets, manufactured circa 1984 or
> >> so, still operational AFAIK although I haven't fired it up lately,
> >> with a whole 80 megs of disk space. Woohoo!)
> >
> >Nope... modems on serial ports were available LONG before the
> >advent of Unix.
>
> Noted, although I'm now curious as to the advent of the first
> "modem" that was hooked up to a phone line. (My mind is giving
> me a vision of a mad scientist with a bad hairdo and some sort
> of microphone and speaker device, a crude prototype of the early
> cradle modems. :-) )
>
> >
> >>
> >> >
> >> >GUI's available 10 1
> >>
> >> Shared library support ? since Win 3.1
> > 1988(?)
> >
> >>
> >> Loadable driver modules ? unknown
> > early 1990's.
> >>
> >> Virtual memory <-> file association ? 1995?
> >> (mmap(), CreateFileMapping()) [*]
> >
> > 1970
> > /dev/kmem
>
> Hm...I was thinking rather the reverse; instead of viewing memory
> as a file (open/read/write/seek/close), I was thinking viewing a
> file as virtual memory (read/write done transparently as machine
> instructions; MOV A -> [B] dirties a virtual page which eventually
> gets written back to the file).
>
> I know VAX had this capability in VMS 3.7, although I don't
> know how much it was used. (Probably not much.) Apollo
> DOMAIN Aegis -- a big player in the embedded CAD system market
> prior to Sun, in the mid 80's -- had a similar call, too,
> although I don't remember the name.
>
> Still, you've got a point. One nice thing about Unix was
> that it was OO before anyone realized there was such a concept.
> open("filename.dat") = open("symlink.dat") = open("/dev/tty")
> = open("/dev/ttySn") = open("namedpipe") = open("/dev/tape").
> Early Unices could even open directories read-only.
>
> If that's not OO, I'm not sure what is...
Yeah. I once told the guys at work: Unix is the FIRST "object oriented"
operating system in the world. Every place in the documentation, if
you replace the word "file" with "object", you will see what I mean.
Each object type behaves appropriately for that type of object,
and the programmer never has to worry about any of it.
This is what gave me the idea for the battle simulation wherein
every part of the simulation (including the land) is a process
which listens to a named pipe residing in the file system.
>
> >
> >>
> >> SSH-type remote login capability ? ?
> >> (i.e., zero-knowledge session
> >> encryption coupled with some
> >> sort of login program or widget)
> >
> > over-the-network remote login 1984 Still not implemented
> > encrypted " -" - " " " mid 1990's Still not implemented
> >
> >>
> >> Remote GUI 1984? 1998?
> > 1984 ^
> > Pass that crack pipe
> > you're smokin'
>
> I was thinking pcAnywhere, but I'll admit the issue may be
> whether such capability is available without 3rd party add-ons.
> Obivously, one can't do it within NT itself -- why, I don't
> really know; perhaps it's a marketing issue?
>
> >
> >>
> >> Remote login w/o password ? ?
> >> from a trusted local site
> > 1984 Still not implemented
> > /etc/hosts.equiv
> > $HOME/.rhosts
> >
> >> (i.e., using Kerberos)
> >
> >Kerberos is not necessary, it
> >is merely a refinement of the idea.
>
> Indeed. However, there are some nasty issues nowadays regarding
> $HOME/.rhosts -- probably because of DHCP, or perhaps it's because
> people are more aware of (and more likely to use!) "sniffing" technology.
> Still, you're right; Unix had this capability, even without encryption.
>
> >
> >
> >>
> >> First multi-processOR kernel ? ?
> >> (note that VMS had this ca 1986 or so;
> >> presumably, Unix did, too)
> >
> > 1981.
> > Local modifications to 4.2BSD
> >
> > George Goble, Electrical Engineering,
> > Engineering Computer Network
> > Purdue University.
> > Host ec.ecn.purdue.edu
> >
> > First wide distribution outside of Purdue and
> > Berkely campuses: 4.3BSD (1983)
> >
> >
> > There used to be a file in /usr/jokes on ec machine
> > "The VAX had a blow-out" to the tune of London
> > Bridge is Falling Down, describing the atmosphere
> > in the terminal rooms when George was debugging the
> > 4.2BS
> >>
> >> First full journaling filesystem ? NTFS has meta only
> >> (AIX claims its file system journals;
> >> I don't know the details. Reiserfs
> >> is available now for Linux.)
> >
> > First I saw on commercial Unix systems
> > was in the mid 1990's. But these weren't
> > cutting-edge installations, so I don't know.
> >
> >>
> >> >
> >> >Notice a pattern yet, spell-check boy?
> >> >
> >>
> >> *smirk*
> >>
> >> Mind you, we have to be careful, as it is possible the Winvocates
> >> will claim that "we did it better because we did it second".
> >> (This is very debatable in its own right.)
> >
> >Usually the IEEE or equivalent standards are VERY well thought out
> >(because of the nature by which these standards are developed).
> >
> >Microsoft tends to glance at these standards, then crumple them
> >up and throw them into the fireplace, then claim that their
> >high-school programmers' half-assed attempts at re-implementation
> >constitute a "superior" solution.
>
> Either that, or not test them sufficiently ("never attribute to
> malice that which can be explained by simple stupidity" :-) ).
> I think this would be one explanation for the 0.0.0.0/255.255.255.255
> DHCP broadcast mixup, for example (I forget which is which, though,
> but it means the stock "pump" originally distributed with RedHat
> 6.2 is a bit flaky).
>
> Mind you, I'm a little surprised Win9x is still using FAT of any
> sort; surely, they could do something like MD5 hash or ECC the
> directory, file inodes, and possibly even data blocks (Amiga used to
> do that, but it reduced storage efficiency).
>
> I don't know how good NT's NTFS is; judging from fragmentation
> patterns I've observed from a third party tool (Diskeeper Lite) and
> documentation therewith which states outright that a defragger can't
> move directories (to be fair, it's nice it can move anything at all
> while the disk is actually mounted!), and comments regarding the
> metadata-only journaling, it's not all that hot.
>
> >
> >>
> >> [.sigsnip]
> >>
> >> [*] this is a neat hack, but has to be applied with some care;
> >> mmap() can put a region anywhere in the address space if
> >> one is not careful, and that invalidates every pointer!
> >>
>
> [.sigsnip]
>
> --
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- NT. New Technology. (In 1970, maybe it was.)
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
I: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: To Pete Goodwin: How Linux saved my lunch today!
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 10:12:51 -0400
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Pete Goodwin) writes:
>
> >[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Colin R. Day) wrote in <3974F05A.A51D6486
> >@ix.netcom.com>:
>
> >>The ability to have four xterms on one desktop, and Netscape on
> >>another.
>
> >I'd rather go for a 21" screen or a two head display, but that's my
> >preference.
>
> Think big, Pete --- I have *three* 21" monitors in front of me, and
Windows users are still getting used to the idea of multiple app windows
on a single virtual desktop....
> each single one of them will switch between desktops/virtual consoles
> with no more than three key presses (and most of the switches I actually
> *do* only require a single keypress).
>
> It's not an either/or thing.
>
> Bernie
> --
> Older man declare war. But it is youth who must fight and die
> Herbert Hoover
> US President 1929-33
> At the Republican National Convention, 27 June 1944
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
I: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: I just don't buy it
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 10:18:08 -0400
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >
> >
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > >
> > > When your are using a diskless "thin client", and all your software is
> > > supplied over the net from the servers public key cryptography is no
> > > protection. That is the vision of .NET.
> > '
> > GAG! I remember when Sun tried that 10 years ago, and that was
> > with only ONE segment of ethernet between the workstation and the
> > server.
>
> Imagine that through the internet with millions or even billions of users
> all connecting to the same set of servers!
I think we should keep quiet about this, let the Microsoft lemmings
buy into it, and watch them all go fucking insane when they realize
that their ability to bring up Word is entirely dependant upon the
speed of the network between themselves and Microsoft.com
And watch a lot of company presidents get the axe for buying into
this, despite warnings from their IT leaders.
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
I: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: "Jeem" Dutton is a fool of the pathological liar sort.
C: Jet plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a method of
sidetracking discussions which are headed in a direction
that she doesn't like.
D: Jet claims to have killfiled me.
E: Jet now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
F: Neither Jeem nor Jet are worthy of the time to compose a
response until their behavior improves.
G: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
H: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: "David Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Just curious, how do I do this in Windows?
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 16:28:44 +0200
Perry Pip wrote in message ...
>On 18 Jul 2000 18:08:13 -0500,
>Drestin Black <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>> Here's a question for you: can you describe a simple program that can be
>>> written in C or C++, but not is VB? If so, you've proven the flaw in
your
>>> own statement. If not, it should be very easy for others to judge your
>>> knowledge of non-VB programming languages.
>>
>>OK - I'll take the bait. I can't. So, why don't you show us some C logic
>>that can't be done in VB. Show me something I can't do in VB...
>
>void endian_flip(unsigned short *word){
> int temp = *word;
> *word = 0;
> for(int i = 1; i < sizeof(unsigned short) ; i++ ){
> *word |= (temp & 1);
> temp >>= 1;
> *word <<= 1;
> }
> *word |= (temp & 1);
>}
>
>Show me how to do that in VB.
This is easy in VB, as shown in other posts.
>
>And how about writing routines that take variable argument lists. For
>example:
>
>#include <stdarg.h>
>int sum(int
,...){
> int result=0;
> int i;
> va_list ap;
> va_start(ap,num);
> for(i=0;i<num;i++)
> result += va_arg(ap,int);
> va_end(ap);
> return result;
>}
>
>Note the above can be done with any combination of types, as long as the
>routine has a way of knowing what types are passed to it in what
>order. Can you do variable argument lists on your subroutines in VB??
>
The only sane uses of variable argument lists in C are for printf - style functions
(equivilent to VB's print statement), which you would never write yourself, and for
parsing command line arguements - VB has the Command$ function for that.
>Another good example would be an abstract linked list or tree of
>pointers, that could then be used as a framework for creating linked
>lists or trees of any data type. I can post some code if you want. Can
>you do an abstract linked list or tree framework in VB??
Now you are beginning to get somewhere. Implementing links in and pointers in VB has
to be done with integer pointers into arrays
- not nice, but possible.
The most serious limitations of VB are a lack of pointers. This means data
pointers need to be simulated using indexes into arrays, and function
pointers need to be done using a helper procedure with a select statement to
choose the desired procedure. It is a mess, and later modifications often
mean changes to many different parts of the code, but it can be done.
As far as I can tell, the only things that cannot be done at all in VB are
when external functions require data types that are not supported by VB
(such as API calls requiring pointers to pointers, or call-back functions),
and type convertions without data convertions (such as using unions to
implement the byte-swapping, or pointer convertions to inspect a floating
point value byte-for-byte).
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