Linux-Advocacy Digest #464, Volume #30 Mon, 27 Nov 00 06:13:05 EST
Contents:
Re: Whistler review. ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: Of course, there is a down side... (Ketil Z Malde)
Re: C++ -- Our Industry... (Donn Miller)
Software Engineering (was: Re: C++ is very alive!) (Ketil Z Malde)
Re: C++ -- Our Industry... ("Joseph T. Adams")
Re: KDE2 (Edward Rosten)
Re: C++ -- Our Industry... ("Joseph T. Adams")
Re: C++ -- Our Industry... ("Erik Funkenbusch")
Re: Anyone have to use (*GAG*) Windows on the job? (mitch)
Things I have noticed................ ("kiwiunixman")
Re: C++ -- Our Industry... ("kiwiunixman")
Re: Whistler review. ("Ayende Rahien")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Whistler review.
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 03:02:21 -0500
Donn Miller wrote:
>
> [trimmed comp.sys.mac.advocacy]
>
> Ayende Rahien wrote:
> >
> > I've finally gotten whistler (pro, 2296, beta 1), and I'm *liking* it.
> > For those of you who doesn't know what this is, whistler is an the new OS
> > (the one that will inherit both win2k & win ME) from Microsoft, destined to
> > finally eliminated the 9x line.
>
> OK, fair enough. It sounds pretty nice, esp. the behavior you've
> described when ctrl+alt+delete is pressed. IMO, UI only matters to end
> users, but I guess that's what Microsoft's aim is: ease of use, etc.
What he described is a new collection of booby-traps for
the average user to learn through very unfortunate experiences.
> You forgot to mention how well it runs your existing Win 95/NT 4.0/Win
> 2000 apps. Also, how well does it run Win 3.1 apps? Can you format a
> floppy and do anything else while the floppy is formatting? Just
> kidding.
>
> It would be nice if you'd include, as I said, how well it ran your
> existing pre-whistler Windows apps, and the percentage success rate.
> Did your Win 95/8 apps crash a lot? Were they more/less stable than
> when running natively on Win 95/8?
>
> There's something else I'd like to find out. I've got FreeBSD on my
> primary HD. I've got a second HD on the slave of the primary IDE
> controller. When I try to install Win 95, it tries to make a partition
> on the end of the first HD (on the master). This is frustrating, as it
> doesn't allow me to choose the second HD as a place to install Win 95.
> How well does Whistler handle a situation like this? Of course, it is a
> rather old version of Win 95, but I'm still curious.
>
> - Donn
>
> -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
> http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
> -----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: "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"
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
J: Other knee_jerk reactionaries: billh, david casey, redc1c4,
The retarded sisters: Raunchy (rauni) and Anencephielle (Enielle),
also known as old hags who've hit the wall....
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (C) above.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
her behavior improves.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Of course, there is a down side...
From: Ketil Z Malde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 08:02:31 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi) writes:
> On Fri, 24 Nov 2000 20:20:06 +0000, mark wrote:
> >In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Donovan Rebbechi wrote:
> >>On Fri, 24 Nov 2000 08:04:10 GMT, Ketil Z Malde wrote:
>> I think the point was that it's easy whether you're using
>> an rpm or deb based distro.
> That was the original poster's point. The other guys point was that
> it was harder with Redhat than it was with Debian.
No, my point was that it's (or can be) easier than the poster I
replied to, insinuated. That with a modern Linux distribution,
software installation, configuration and updating is completely
trivial, and the hard part is knowing the name of the software you
want.
Debian's apt is great, and I've never looked back after changing from
Red Hat, but if I were to turn this into a distribution flamewar, I'd
rather attack RH for pushing unreleased beta software on unsuspecting
consumers.
-kzm
--
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 03:08:12 -0500
From: Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: C++ -- Our Industry...
mlw wrote:
>
> Wow, that was a lot to cope with.
>
> You did touch on a few of my BIG problems with the industry:
>
> VB, crap.
> Java, crap.
Disagree about Java. It was developed by Sun, but does that make it
proprietary? Unix was developed by AT&T, does that mean Unix is
proprietary? I think you're a little off-base here. It could be argued
that Java is better than C++ at some things, like the way it handles
objects. Java is also may be a little more secure than C++, because it
doesn't allow you to manipulate pointers directly. It also has
automatic garbage collection, although you can manually destroy objects
by setting the references of those objects to NULL.
I think Java is a pretty decent language. The down side is that with
C++, you have a lot more control over the low-level aspects of your
code. Also, Java is only "crap" when using it as a primary programming
language on a regular computer system, one which is running Linux,
FreeBSD, or Windows NT, for example. But, Java could be pretty neat as
an embedded system language, like on an array of internet appliances
which don't have an actual operating system. Sure, Linux and NetBSD can
be used in some embedded applications, an example of which is Sega
Dreamcast. But, for really really small applications, the Java VM could
actually function as the embedded operating system, since it is a
virtual machine. This is assuming you only have one application
running, but since Java has threading, I'm sure you could work up some
limited multitasking on a Java VM running on a small embedded system
using that threading.
I think there's a world of difference between VB and Java. I think that
not all proprietary systems are necessarily bad, but I suppose that
depends on the person.
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
------------------------------
Subject: Software Engineering (was: Re: C++ is very alive!)
From: Ketil Z Malde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 08:36:01 GMT
mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> If I should be so bold, software engineers use tools like C++,
> programmers use stuff like Java or VB. There is a difference, and it is
> important to remember.
[list of points]
I don't think that's what differentiates software engineers from the
crowd. At least to me, software engineering implies knowledge about
the organization and process required to develop large systems, and to
ensure quality, progress and documentation necessary to insure, or at
least, to increase probability of, a correct and complete system
within given constraints.
Sordid details about AVL-trees are more a computer scientist's domain,
than a software engineer's, and implementing it is something the
software engineer might have done as a student excercise, but not in
the course of work.
Sure, a software engineer should probably know *about* different
algorithms and such, but I think most software engineering projects
would be much better off using off-the-shelf (or -net) libraries or
higher-level languages, than actually going about implementing hash
tables in C++.
-kzm
--
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: C++ -- Our Industry...
Date: 27 Nov 2000 09:47:10 GMT
Salvador Peralta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<< MS Access horror story snipped >>
After cleaning up not one, but *dozens* of similar messes over the
past two years, I'm reluctant to use MSAccess for even the simple
recipe collections and 8-track cassette playlists that it was designed
for.
Porting to MSSQL or a real database usually isn't an option unless one
is willing to do a full rewrite, because MSAccess (and VB) projects
usually are utterly lacking in anything resembling a workable design.
Every MS product is loaded with unique, "productivity-enhancing"
features that are designed to lock users into forever using the same
tool. A decent design would either ignore such "features," or build
some abstraction around them so that the rest of the code could be
ported to another tool without too much trouble. But I've yet to see
any such attention to decent design in any MS-centric project, or, for
that matter, in any of the MS sample code I've seen floating around on
MSDN or elsewhere. Thus, buggy code with crappy and nonscalable
performance is very much the norm, and rewrites every one to two years
are not only accepted but expected.
Joe
------------------------------
From: Edward Rosten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: KDE2
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 09:51:47 +0000
matt newell wrote:
>
> > > > Some of the technical merits that KDE provides:
> > > >
> > > > Network transparency to the programmer and user.
> >
> > It's X (not KDE) that provides the network transparency (for graphics at
> > any rate)
>
> I was referring to network transparent file access. Not network transparent
> graphics.
>
> > > > IOSlaves allow flexable IO from any kind of devices( You can now rip cd's
> > > by
> >
> > UNIX provides this with it's `everything is a file' idea.
> >
>
> Yes, but not to a truly universal extent. There is no way to open a file over
> an ftp connection by just opening a regular file. This is being implemented
> for the HURD. With the HURD you can open
> /ftp/ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/linux-2.4test11.tar.bz2 and it would
> be opening that file from the ftp site.
That's neat. Mabey someone could write an `ftp-fs' module for the
kernel.
> It would be nice if linux would
> support this. KDE does this by allowing you to open files that are on the
> network just like they are local. I can open a KWrite(text editor) window and
> type http://www.slashdot.org in the Open File Diolog and it will display the
> source code from www.slashdot.org. It also can do samba, ftp, audiocd( it
> will digitally extract the wav files using cdparanoia), and others.
-Ed
--
Did you know that the reason that windows steam up in cold | Edward
Rosten
weather is because of all the fish in the atmosphere? | u98ejr
- The Hackenthorpe Book of lies | @
| eng.ox.ac.uk
------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: C++ -- Our Industry...
Date: 27 Nov 2000 10:01:19 GMT
mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Salvador Peralta wrote:
:>
:> I wish I had a success story to relate on this one, but management
:> decided to replace micromistake #1 with micromistake #2 and picked
:> sequel to replace it because the original developer had since learned
:> sequel and somehow convinced his manager that it would work, and after
:> all, he was the one who had experience with the project. "It's easy to
:> port applications from access to sequel. That's why I went with access
:> in the first place."... lol.
:>
:> Needless to say, the design could NOT be ported to anything without a
:> complete rewrite. That person has since left the company without doing
:> the rewrite ( but after the new licenses had been purchased ).
:>
:> As I said, stupid in yields stupid out.
: I have spent my time with networked xbase systems, the client/server
: database model is far far better.
Better than fileserver databases, usually, yes.
Better than 3-tier? Depends on the complexity of the app. In my
experience, 3-tier or n-tier is almost always better when there are
more than 10 tables or 10,000 lines of code. Client/server designs
are still useful for smaller apps that do very little with the data
other than storing and retrieving it, and there still are a lot of
apps like that.
: MS SQL is an OK database, I'd go
: Oracle if I had too, but I have had great success with Postgres.
I'm sorry, but in my experience MSSQL still is a toy. It has improved
greatly over the past 2-3 years, but still has a great deal of trouble
with outer joins, still drops connections for no apparent reason,
still exhibits totally nondeterministic performance during DBCCs
(sometimes holding table locks on very small tables for wholly
inappropriate periods of time), and is one of only two so-called
RDBMSs on the market without decent JDBC support (the other is MS
Access).
Haven't done much with Postgres in production yet, but it seems
extremely promising.
: Suffice to say, if one person is going to use the system, use something
: like access. If you are going to share the database amongst more than
: one person, pop the cash required for a database server. These days they
: are cheap, and you WILL regret not doing it if you don't.
We have one-person Access apps at our company that are problematic in
spite of being single-user. .MDB corruption and scalability issues
seem to be the most frequent. So if it were up to me, even the
single-user apps would not be in Access, at least not if the users
wanted any support from IT.
OTOH: I've long believed that end-user database tools, done right,
could be extremely useful. The concept behind Access isn't half bad;
it's just implemented in an extraordinarily poor fashion. There are
numerous free database backend tools including Postgres, MySQL and
Interbase, but front-end tools seem to be more limited, and, from what
I've seen, have zero support for modeling of anything other than the
tables themselves. A user-oriented 4GL or 5GL that could model an
application's logical design, guide the user through basic
normalization, and then spit out SQL to create/populate a database and
Python or Java code to construct a UI and appserver layer, with
support for Web access and PDF reporting, would be a dream. Many of
the components exist already, so most of the real work would simply be
tying them together into a maximally useful whole.
Joe
------------------------------
From: "Erik Funkenbusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: C++ -- Our Industry...
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 04:08:46 -0600
"Donn Miller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Disagree about Java. It was developed by Sun, but does that make it
> proprietary?
No, that doesn't make it proprietary. Not being standardardized makes it
proprietary. Only sun controls Java's future.
> Unix was developed by AT&T, does that mean Unix is
> proprietary?
Unix is more like a collection of things, some of which are proprietary, and
some of which is not. That makes official sanctions System V Unix at least
somewhat proprietary.
> I think there's a world of difference between VB and Java. I think that
> not all proprietary systems are necessarily bad, but I suppose that
> depends on the person.
Of course being proprietary doesn't make something bad. Being proprietary
might not be the best solution though, if you care about where the product
is going.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mitch)
Subject: Re: Anyone have to use (*GAG*) Windows on the job?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 10:31:22 GMT
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000 19:56:08 +0000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mark) wrote:
>>
>>I don`t love every operating system - I just use them. I have no
>>crazy emotional attachments to any of them. I need to use certain
>>pieces of software to achieve my goals, and if I have to run them on
>>Windows, so be it. Yes it *occasionally* crashes, but most apps these
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>It crashes very regularly, in my experience. Not worth the hassle
>of running. If I weren't forced to by work, I wouldn't run it at
>all.
>
I`m not saying I have a magic copy of Windows or anything, but my
experiences in running it don`t seem to be as crash-prone as many
others. In my case, it is worth running.
>
>>days have auto backups, so it really isn`t that much of a deal. Linux
>
>What about those apps which _don't_ have auto backups?
>
I have the common sense to save fairly frequently. Like I say,
however, I rarely experience a crash more than say once a fortnight.
(I know linux is an order of magnitude more stable than this, but that
wasn`t the point I was making...) Most apps (sorry - another sweeping
statement) use temporary files anyway, and finding those and
butchering them so you can then load them up again isn`t really such a
chore.
>>may be stable, but many of the applications which run on it most
>>certainly are not.
>
>Where are the facts here? This is a broad statement with no
>underpinning facts, exactly the behaviour you're complaining
>about, it seems to me.
>
<sigh> I know you`re not implying that every application written for
linux is somehow rock-solid because the underlying OS is. There are
badly written and crash-prone programs for linux, as well as windows.
( I cite Netscape as the main culprit, as I have suffered first hand.
) If you can prove to me that all apps running under linux never
crash, I shall digress. It is a broad, sweeping statement, but it is
based on common-sense, not bigotry or wishful thinking.
>> I will not be forced to use a banana to knock a
>>nail into a piece of wood, just because I have a strange hatred for
>>hammers. That would be absurd. And so it goes...
>>
>>If linux supported every application I am required to run - yes, I
>>would probably use it. This is not likely to happen for a long time,
>
>Why not - another unsupported statement -= where are the facts?
>
Do you believe it will happen shortly? I don't. Market forces
dictate what OS an app is released for, and if it doesn`t make
business sense for a company, they will not release it for linux.
This is a fact. How quickly this situation will be changed, either by
the emergence of open-source into major business software development
models, or by the continuing development and uptake of linux as a
desktop os, is anybodies guess - so I say it will take a long time.
It may be a short time (however you choose to define these terms), but
what matters really, is the situation just now and in the near-future.
>>so I run all my software on Windows. Is this really so bad?
>
>No, you can run what you like, of course. I prefer stability
>and open source and freedom to Windows, personally, and thus
>I use Linux.
>
Fine. :)
--
Smileys are nothing but conceptual wheelchair ramps for the humor impaired.
- Geoff Miller
------------------------------
From: "kiwiunixman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Things I have noticed................
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 10:39:17 GMT
Things I have noticed from my own experience and from reply's to this news
group:
1. When wintel users argue a topic and they find that they getting beaten,
they bring out the old GUI argument, the perfect example of this is in the
whistler post, to sum it up, "Fuck the quality, what about the pretty
colours", the amount of time Microsoft spends on the GUI, Bill Gates might
as well be a fashion designer, "Bill Gates Summer Fashion Collection", could
you imagine an interview with Bill Gates (fashion designer), "this new
summer collection is a combination of colour and patterns to compliment the
summer atmosphere, and as normal, we have stuck to the main selling
principle, "More colour, less quality" ".
This conclusion made from the "whistler" post by Ayende Rahien.
2. From who I know in the Wintel world, Wintel users tend to have the worst
taste in fashion and music. Two of them could not co-ordinate colours and
patterns if their life depended on it :) God, music, listening to rubbish
such as Five, Backstreet Boys, S-Club and Boy Zone. You are probably
saying, "What has fashion and music un-cordination have to do with OS's",
everything! This argument is no better than the GUI argument that gets used
by wintel users.
This conclusion made from analysing Wintel user responses and people at
university.
3. So-called ex-linux users using the excuse, "it is too hard" as an excuse
for not continuing to use Linux. Down the road at my local book store there
were hundreds of books, from linux for beginners up to programming linux on
servers, so for around $NZ99.95 (incl. GST) a user can get a book and a
CD-ROM giving a complete guide on how to use Linux . Why should they read a
book? well, isn't reading a book better than looking at the idiot box
(television) at night.
This conclusion reached from all the posts from Claire Lynn (now known as
Sir)
4. The so-called UNIX crushing NT4 never achieved what it set out to do, it
fact, it re-enforced the need to stick with UNIX, so in some respects, NT4
was a god send for companys such as Sun Microsystems and SGI (Server
Division) which gave them something to mock and use as a benchmark to prove
their system reliability.
This conclusion reached from market information and Chad's conviction that
NT4 is better than UNIX.
5. Wintel users who post here tend to have 6 months experience and can click
on the start button, hence, by Microsoft definition, they are an expert
computer user. I, however started off using an Amiga 500, whilst at the same
time I also taught my self how to program on a BBC-Micro with 32K mem, then
I gradually moved on to a Pentium 75 with 8MB Ram (later upgraded to 40MB),
used Windows 95a for around 1 year, got pissed off and moved onto Redhat
Linux 5.2, then upgraded my machine to a Pentium 200MMX with 64MB Ram,
installed SuSE Linux 6.0. About a year ago I upgraded to a Pentium 550e and
SuSE Linux 7.0 Professional, and here I am, next year I plan to either
upgrade to a SGI O2 workstation or SUN Ultra Sparc Workstation. Compare that
time line to the typical wintel poster here with the typical story of, "I
bought a computer, I must be a computer expert" mentality.
This conclusion reached by analysising alf-assed efforts to rebuke the
superior technology behind Linux.
6. When a wintel user get defeated by carefully phrased responses, they
change their names, aka Claire Lynn/Chad/ and any other names you care to
add.
This conclusion reached by analysing alf-assed efforts to rebuke the
superior technology behind Linux/UNIX.
kiwiunixman
------------------------------
From: "kiwiunixman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: C++ -- Our Industry...
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 10:55:49 GMT
> The situation, to my eyes, is very similar to the US new-car market,
about 30-40
> years ago. They were getting bigger, thirstier every year, and I
distinctly remember > an article in a car magazine, predicting that soon the
average car would pack 500HP > (it may have been > "Popular Mechanics").
Then came the Beetle.
> I must confess that I was quite surprised when... it was in... wait, I was
17, it was
> in 1961 then, I met an American soldier on the train from Nantes to Le
Mans, and
> he told me he drove a Renault Dauphine back home and was very happy with
it. I
> thought all Americans drove Cadillac-sized cars! Do they all use IE-sized
browsers > too :-?
Well, here in NZ, drivers are very "Scottish", in that, most people have
small cars (Nissans and Toyota's), their response, "They're (oil company's)
are going to screw anymore money out of me", and at $1.20 a litre (Premium
Unleaded, Leaded petrol has been outlawed (a law way passed a few years
ago), now there is only, Premium Unleaded, LPG, CNG, Unleaded and Diesel),
can ya blame them? Mind you if ya live in America (the country with the
cheapest petrol), who cares about the size of the car :)
kiwiunixman
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: Whistler review.
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 05:25:28 +0200
"spicerun" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Ayende Rahien wrote:
>
> > I've finally gotten whistler (pro, 2296, beta 1), and I'm *liking* it.
>
> I DON'T CARE!!!
Well, at least you were polite enough to snip most of the message.
> I will still continue to run my Linux System which has performed for me
better
> than anything MS has ever done.
When did you last used MS OS?
------------------------------
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