Hi Tom,
Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then, and maybe I'm just
weird. I'm the sort of guy that actually would look for spare parts on
horse back, because that's way more fun. Probably not for the horse though,
considering that, unlike 30 years ago, I weigh more than Belgium these
days.
As for using the best available tools - if that means using a completely
different OS, I think it sort of beats the purpose of the exercise. If I
wanted to do Dos programming on Linux, I could just as well use Dosbox. Of
course, with your 28 inch home cinema with all the bells and whistles,
you'll most likely beat the pants off me as far as productivity goes, but
that's where our idea of FreeDOS differs.
What you describe is programming for maximum efficiency. That's something I
use on my day job, but not when I'm programming for the fun of it. When I'm
programming for FreeDOS, I'm doing it IN FreeDOS. And on the whole I tend
to keep it as simple as possible in the first place. I've had people laugh
at me, because I do my C and C++ programming in vi (or vim, I've developed
a sense of luxury with age), but the thing is, no matter what sort of Unix
box you're tasked to work on, you'll always have vi. And you even have one
in FreeDOS, which is good, because it would drive me potty to use a
different editor, punching ESC everytime I want to save my file.
And that's not just crazed nostalgia even. I'm a freelance IT contractor. I
do everything from programming to database administration. In 2014, I
landed myself a sweet one-year contract as an Oracle dba with Volkswagen in
Wolfsburg. (I had nothing to do with the exhaust systems, just to make
sure). When it comes to Oracle administration you have a whole smorgasboard
of powerful tools, like TOAD, and knowing those is a nice thing, but had
those been my primary tools, I would have lasted exactly one day in that
contract, because they didn't allow access to the servers by anything than
ssh, and the servers were basically vanilla Solaris or HP-UX setups with an
Oracle server slapped on, so basically all you had at your disposal was vi
for text editing and sqlplus for running sql queries or scripts. People
came and went, sometimes the same week they arrived, because they didn't
have the experience to use the 'steam age tools'. It's nice know how to use
an electric drill, but you're three miles up the creek without a paddle in
a leaking canoe if the power is out and that's the only way you know of
drilling a hole.
Now that's of course an extreme example. I've worked at banks too and even
they weren't that restrictive. You obviously know your way around and if
you prefer the 28 inch option, all power to you. I'm the sort of guy who's
happy toiling about drilling holes using his hand-cranked drill, and only
uses the electric one if the hole-drilling is urgent.
Cheers, Danilo
PS: I'll take you up on the slide-show request. Any excuse to fiddle with
VGA registers is a welcome one. But since I'm one of the few lucky bastards
whose job has survived the lockdown, I'd like to ask you for waiting till
the weekend comes around.
On Wed, 2 Dec 2020 at 15:06, tom ehlert wrote:
> Danilo,
> > Sorry, but I think you're too snippy here.
>
> > First of all, if the idea of an 80x25 single file editor frightens
> > you, you're either a wimp or too young to have done any programming
> > when that was the norm.
>
> my first 'editor' were punched cards.
>
> next came a single line editor (TECO on a PDP10), roughly comparable
> to EDLIN. that was a HUGE improvement. I would never go back to
> punched cards.
>
>
> next came a full screen 25*80 editor; first VI on UNIX, with HJKL
> cursor movement commands. that was a HUGE improvement. I would never go
> back to
> EDLIN.
>
> now it's two 28 inch monitors, with google search, RBIL, editor,
> program output and debugger all living nicely side by side.
> that was a HUGE improvement. I would never go back to
> single screen 25x80. FOR DEVELOPEMENT!
>
>
> > May I introduce you to Turbo Pascal 3.0? 80x25 text is the best there is.
> Turbo Pascal was really impressive. in 1990.
>
> > Programming 'something useful' is a subjective term. If you program
> > on FreeDOS, you are by definition programming for a fringe audience,
>
> you obviously don't understand the difference between 'programming on'
> and 'programming for'.
> and I simply want to have the best tools possible when programming for
> FreeDOS.
>
>
> even if your hoppy is a steam engine, you don't use steam age tools to
> take care of your steam engine. you use probably electric drills and
> go by car to find spare parts, not on horse back.
>
>
>
>
>
> > For me, FreeDos allows me to go back to the days when programming
> > was actually a testament to your skills, rather than just being able
> > to cobble a few lines of code together and nail a GUI on it by
> click-and-point.
>
> for a start: why don't you show us your slide show program for DOS,
> using any tools you like.
>
> talk i
