Why is I/O slow?

ruby-talk
41
>> Isn't it sad that when good stuff is invented on Linux that we >> rush to make it available on windows so that windows users never >> have any motivation to leave that crap behind? > No. > > 1. The very first thing that I learned when doing computing for a > living is "use the best tool for the job." The only argument that you offer below for windows as "the best tool" is a "shallow" learning curve and a simple installation.

Not true. A shallow learning curve is only part of it, but it is a
big part of it for 95%+ of users out there. My girlfriend is rather
computer literate, but still doesn’t use nearly half the number of
power shortcuts available in Windows. She’d be completely lost in
a user-unfriendly environment like Linux. There are, of course,
other reasons that Windows is (at times) the best tool. I’ve
addressed some of them in other posts.

Despite the vitriol from some folks,
The vitriol is aimed as MS as a predatory corporation that has
wreaked havoc on competitors with monopolistic business practices.

The vitriol gets in the way of getting the job done, and it turns
off people who might otherwise be interested in what you have to
say.

there are times when Windows is not only the best tool for the
job, but it’s the ONLY tool for the job.
It is the only tool for the job when the decisions as to what to
purchase are made by technically illiterate suits.

This is patently false. Earlier, I gave the example of ERStudio for
ER diagramming. This is one of many tools which is available for
Windows ONLY, and there’s no equivalent X-Windows tool available.
This tool is the best tool available for this practice, and I say
this with a bit of experience – because I’ve tried all of the other
ones out there, and I ended up recommending this one for its
comprehensiveness. As I’ve said before, I eat regex for breakfast –
I’m not a “technically illiterate suit”.

  1. Windows stability has been increasing at least as fast as
    Linux usability over the last several years, if not faster.
    Comparing stability of one with usability of another is comparing
    apples and oranges. Besides, I see no increase in windows
    stability, simply change for the sake of selling the same
    functionality over and over again.

Certainly, it’s comparing apples and oranges. But I have greater
uptime and stability from my Windows XP laptop than I do from my
Linux desktop/server. The security on both is about the same,
because I have taken the time to make sure that I use tools which
reduce my exposure to Windows security holes, and I have neither the
time nor the expertise to lock up my Linux box yet make it usable in
the way that I need it usable.

Linux (and most other unices) still suffers from the problem that
there is no single unifying UI guideline set, so that while
Windows programs look and feel – and perform – pretty much the
same all over, every Linux GUI program is different.
No options vs. several options is hardly an advantage, except to
the very lazy.

This is a foolish statement, as it isn’t “no options,” which you
could find out if you did a minimum of research instead of relying
upon what appears to be foolish zealotry. I’ve addressed this point

The learning curve for Windows programs is shallower because of
the consistency.
Pick a single linux GUI and you also have consistency. Again,
lack of options is hardly an advantage.

Again, this is a false statement. I can have a plain X-Windows
program running and a KDE program running, and the likelihood that
they share even the same keystrokes for copy/paste (simple stuff!)
is almost nil. It MIGHT be the same for GNOME and KDE apps, but
there are still differences.

  1. Windows isn’t the only platform out there which doesn’t use
    glibc by default. IMO, Matz is absolutely correct to emphasize
    portability over ‘The Linux Way’.
    And IMO, this is wrong.

And IMO, you’re a fool for this attitude. Linux isn’t even a
particularly good example of a powerful operating system – it’s
just common in the same way that Windows is common. (I’d say that
Windows::MacOS and Linux::*BSD are about the same…, and I’m not
just referring to Darwin.)

  1. I use both Linux and Windows boxen (and far prefer the Windows
    because there are problems with the Linux install that I have
    neither the inclination, the time or the expertise to solve),
    Yes. If you are used to windows installations, the great range of
    options available in any flavor of *nix is a daunting task.

Poor, foolish zealot. I’ve been dealing with real unix for a LONG
time. But the reality is that I have a job to get done, and Linux
box administration is NOT part of that job. It is, every time I have
to deal with it, a great annoyance. (For example, all of a sudden
last week, my ftp server decided to stop accepting connections. I
made no configuration changes to anything – I played with the
various settings in xinetd, etc. all to no benefit. Fortunately, I
still have Samba running – even though I have to manually start it
every time, despite my configuration files telling Samba to start it
every time I reboot.) Don’t get me wrong: I get annoyed when I have
to do anything to stabilise or configure Windows, too. Those aren’t
my job – I’m a software designer and developer. I don’t have time
or desire to be a systems administrator. It gets in the way of
doing my real job.

Is that too hard for you to understand?

but for very different purposes. The fact that I can develop and
test on Windows (my primary terminal/front-end OS) and then test
and deploy on Linux with Perl, Python, or Ruby is of great
benefit.
But without the technical expertise to even install a *nix system,
how can your “portable” application really be optimal for a target
*nix system. And you are obviously not talking about GUI
applications, but text only.

Actually, no, I’m not. I’m talking primarily about web-based
applications. Similarly, though, I can write a Ruby/tk program and
it will work Everywhere. It won’t necessarily be pretty, and a lot
of the usability problems I have with Unix-based graphics toolkits
all around will still be there, but I can easily do cross-platform
anything.

Again, the right tool for the job – not Linux Everywhere.
Bah!

Bah, indeed. Zealots annoy me.

-austin
– Austin Ziegler, austin@halostatue.ca on 2002.06.21 at 11.39.50

···

On Fri, 21 Jun 2002 23:15:55 +0900, Albert Wagner wrote:

On Thursday 20 June 2002 10:31 pm, Austin Ziegler wrote:

On Fri, 21 Jun 2002 12:16:24 +0900, Albert Wagner wrote:

42

On Sat, Jun 22, 2002 at 03:56:47AM +0900, Austin Ziegler muttered…
: On Sat, 22 Jun 2002 03:06:20 +0900, Chris Ross wrote:
: > On Sat, Jun 22, 2002 at 02:26:15AM +0900, Ian Macdonald muttered…
: […]
: >> If using glibc makes sense in the cases that it’s available, why
: >> would you not want to do so in such cases?
: […]
: > The most stright forward way is to provide a general solution to
: > the general problem and then start worrying about the corner cases
: > that only a fraction of the users have issues with. And if you
: > want tight control over buffering [as matz stated he does] the
: > easiest way to do it is to implement it himself touching the real
: > world as little as possible until necessary [eg. flushing that
: > buffer].
:
: Would it not be possible to make it something that is a compile-time
: option, though? That is, by default, Ruby compiles with the default
: implementation, but a configure/compile-option can cause it to use
: glibc implementations instead?

Yes completely possible. But that is what I am saying matz wants to
avoid. Currently if there is a bug three main questions are asked,
“what version of ruby, what os and what architecture”. Those questions
would then be added to if it’s a compile time option “what flags where
used, what versions of the libraries, what optimisations were compiled
in”, and so on, and very quickly it becomes an exponential problem to
solve in terms of inital complexity, personaly i’d rather matx worked on
implementing new and useful stuff rather than tracking down some conrer
case that only occurs on alpha archtecture under unix with library
version x and so on. But once again, just my 2 pence,

Regards,

Chris

···

–
Chris Ross (boris) chris@darkrock.co.uk | ctr@ferite.org
http://www.darkrock.co.uk | http://www.ferite.org
"I dont suffer from insanity - I enjoy every minute of it…"

43

Ian Macdonald wrote:

…

Windows is beginner-friendly, whereas more powerful systems are
user-friendly. Since people are experienced users for longer than they
are beginning users, …

Not most people I know! My observation is that very few people learn
even to take advantage of the power offered by a Windows machine (e.g.
batch files, Word macros, right-clicking, the command line) much less
the power offered by Linux.

This matches my observations as well; I could never imagine convincing my
sister that any Unix was, in the longer run, better for her than Windows.
She just has no interest in doing anything that is even remotely geekish.
She does not want to try and install some application only to find out she
has the wrong version of glibc, or needs libpng.so.2.

Windows and *nix are meant for different audiences. Saying Widows should
be more like Unix is like saying Ruby should be more like assembly
language.

“But you get all this power and control …”

:slight_smile:

James

···

Paul Prescod

44
> As I've said before, I eat regex for breakfast -- > I'm not a "technically illiterate suit". > > The security on both is about the same, > because I have taken the time to make sure that I use tools which > reduce my exposure to Windows security holes, and I have neither the > time nor the expertise to lock up my Linux box yet make it usable in > the way that I need it usable.

Obviously, “regex for breakfast” isn’t the Breakfast of Champions.

Linux (and most other unices) still suffers from the problem that
there is no single unifying UI guideline set, so that while
Windows programs look and feel – and perform – pretty much the
same all over, every Linux GUI program is different.

No options vs. several options is hardly an advantage, except to
the very lazy.

This is a foolish statement, as it isn’t “no options,”

Not foolish. Only one option for a GUI on windows is “no options.”

which you could find out if you did a minimum of research instead of relying
upon what appears to be foolish zealotry.

Ad hominem attacks are not productive: Where would I find this “minimum” of
research material that explains how to have another GUI on windows?

I’ve addressed this point

No, you haven’t

The learning curve for Windows programs is shallower because of
the consistency.

Pick a single linux GUI and you also have consistency. Again,
lack of options is hardly an advantage.

Again, this is a false statement.

No, you just ignored it.

I can have a plain X-Windows
program running and a KDE program running, and the likelihood that
they share even the same keystrokes for copy/paste (simple stuff!)
is almost nil. It MIGHT be the same for GNOME and KDE apps, but
there are still differences.

As I said, you just ignored it. I said a “single” GUI, not two.

  1. Windows isn’t the only platform out there which doesn’t use
    glibc by default. IMO, Matz is absolutely correct to emphasize
    portability over ‘The Linux Way’.

And IMO, this is wrong.

And IMO, you’re a fool for this attitude.

Another ad hominem attack.

Linux isn’t even a
particularly good example of a powerful operating system – it’s
just common in the same way that Windows is common. (I’d say that
Windows::MacOS and Linux::*BSD are about the same…, and I’m not
just referring to Darwin.)

How would you know “a powerful operating system?” You already admitted that
you lacked the expertise to properly install and configure Linux.

  1. I use both Linux and Windows boxen (and far prefer the Windows
    because there are problems with the Linux install that I have
    neither the inclination, the time or the expertise to solve),

Yes. If you are used to windows installations, the great range of
options available in any flavor of *nix is a daunting task.

Poor, foolish zealot.

This name calling is really juvenile.

I’ve been dealing with real unix for a LONG
time. But the reality is that I have a job to get done, and Linux
box administration is NOT part of that job. It is, every time I have
to deal with it, a great annoyance. (For example, all of a sudden
last week, my ftp server decided to stop accepting connections. I
made no configuration changes to anything – I played with the
various settings in xinetd, etc. all to no benefit. Fortunately, I
still have Samba running – even though I have to manually start it
every time, despite my configuration files telling Samba to start it
every time I reboot.) Don’t get me wrong: I get annoyed when I have
to do anything to stabilise or configure Windows, too. Those aren’t
my job – I’m a software designer and developer. I don’t have time
or desire to be a systems administrator. It gets in the way of
doing my real job.

Is that too hard for you to understand?

I have been a software designer and developer for over 30 years. I will admit
that under certain circumstances one can develop software that requires no
knowledge of the OS, but IMO the really interesting stuff involves an
intimate knowledge of the OS.

but for very different purposes. The fact that I can develop and
test on Windows (my primary terminal/front-end OS) and then test
and deploy on Linux with Perl, Python, or Ruby is of great
benefit.

But without the technical expertise to even install a *nix system,
how can your “portable” application really be optimal for a target
*nix system. And you are obviously not talking about GUI
applications, but text only.

Actually, no, I’m not. I’m talking primarily about web-based
applications. Similarly, though, I can write a Ruby/tk program and
it will work Everywhere. It won’t necessarily be pretty, and a lot
of the usability problems I have with Unix-based graphics toolkits
all around will still be there, but I can easily do cross-platform
anything.

Again, the right tool for the job – not Linux Everywhere.

Bah!

Bah, indeed. Zealots annoy me.

If so, then how do you live with yourself?

···

On Friday 21 June 2002 10:57 am, Austin Ziegler wrote:

-austin
– Austin Ziegler, austin@halostatue.ca on 2002.06.21 at 11.39.50

45

As a personal note: I had two years of experience in Delphi, and after
I had migrated to Linux and was looking forward to put them to use
through Kylix, I tried Emacs and stumbled upon Ruby.

It took me one afternoon to throw those two years in the garbage.

Now, less than a year later, I’ve accomplished more than I had done in
those years and there’s no way in the world I’d go back.

Massimiliano

···

On Fri, Jun 21, 2002 at 10:15:22PM +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:

I disagree about the ‘powerful programming environment’;
I find that most Windows IDEs (even VS, sadly) are superior to any
extant Linux IDE excepting Kylix, and in most cases, I find an IDE
to be preferable to the alternative. It is, however, a functional
environment, and one can get the job done without too much trouble.

46

Deployment, yes. Development, no. In my Previous Life ™, I did a
lot of database design and development. There is nothing
comparable to ERStudio for ER diagramming … and it’s Windows only.

There are still many areas like this: financial software, vertical
software markets, multimedia software, etc.

However, all of those areas are seeing rapid improvement. The gap is
closing :slight_smile:

I can work perfectly fine with gvim in Windows and either
use Samba or an FTP session to put my development files on the Unix
box – and easily be able to cut/paste the code into documents and
emails with a reasonable certainty that (except for gvim) the user
interface is going to be consistent – I choose to use Windows as my
primary coding box.

Fair enough. If you’re coding scripting languages, a powerful editor
is your best friend. As long as you have that, what’s allowing you to
run it is of less importance.

I mean lack of crashes. I will grant you the security part, but I
also note that we’re discussing slightly different angles here –
I’m speaking primarily from an end-user perspective. There’s no way
that I’d ever choose Windows as a server solution unless I had no
choice (application compatibility, for example).

I haven’t touched a Windows box in many years, so I’ll have to take
the stability issue on your say-so. Are blue screens really a thing of
the past? That would be truly wonderful.

I think that we’d find that users suffer untold unproductive hours
because of the poor design and quality of end-user Unix tools (e.g.,
OpenOffice.org – it crashed four times on me yesterday) and the
feature level isn’t quite up to Office standards.

OpenOffice isn’t ready for prime time, but there are
alternatives. None of them match up to Office, though; I’ll readily
admit that. However, I’d argue that something like StarOffice probably
contains upwards of 95% of the functionality that 99% of the computing
public actually demand from an office application.

The main problem here is that so many people are already trained on
Microsoft Office, so just the relearning alone required for a
different office suite is a valid justification for not doing
it. Monopolistic business practices are partly to blame here, but
years of software development have refined Office into what it is
today and it’s pretty hard to beat now.

Absolutely. I disagree about the ‘powerful programming environment’;
I find that most Windows IDEs (even VS, sadly) are superior to any
extant Linux IDE excepting Kylix, and in most cases,

Yes, Kylix is awesome. UNIX culture is simply different here. IDEs are
not the order of the day.

Ultimately, as long as we’re all using the tools that work best for us
as individuals, that’s the most important thing.

Ian

···

On Fri 21 Jun 2002 at 22:15:22 +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:

Ian Macdonald | Mathematicians do it with a small,
ian@caliban.org | imaginary part.
>
>
>

47

Just run ./configure --help to see all the possible compile-time
options that can be set. They’re already part of the troubleshooting
equation.

Libraries, too, can make a big difference. There might be a bug in db1
that isn’t present in db3 or db4, for example.

Furthermore, some systems don’t have certain syscalls, so #ifdef
clauses are already needed there.

You just can’t get a single unified binary for all systems.

Ian

···

On Sat 22 Jun 2002 at 06:21:28 +0900, Chris Ross wrote:

Yes completely possible. But that is what I am saying matz wants to
avoid. Currently if there is a bug three main questions are asked,
“what version of ruby, what os and what architecture”. Those questions
would then be added to if it’s a compile time option “what flags where
used, what versions of the libraries, what optimisations were compiled
in”,

–
Ian Macdonald | Some men are so macho they’ll get you
ian@caliban.org | pregnant just to kill a rabbit. –
> Maureen Murphy
>
>

48

This matches my observations as well; I could never imagine convincing my
sister that any Unix was, in the longer run, better for her than Windows.
She just has no interest in doing anything that is even remotely geekish.
She does not want to try and install some application only to find out she
has the wrong version of glibc, or needs libpng.so.2.

That was my point, really. If you want to move past the beginner
stage, an investment of time and energy is needed.

Windows, IMHO, has fewer productivity tricks to learn than UNIX, so
once you’ve learned them, you’re at full speed on that OS.

Someone learning UNIX, OTOH, will continue to learn and become more
productive for a long time to come, ultimately becoming vastly more
productive than the Windows power user.

Windows and *nix are meant for different audiences. Saying Widows should
be more like Unix is like saying Ruby should be more like assembly
language.

I’m not advocating making Windows more like UNIX at all. I have no
interest in Windows beyond dealing with the fall-out that its flawed
applications create for the rest of the computing world.

Ian

···

On Fri 21 Jun 2002 at 16:18:07 +0900, james@rubyxml.com wrote:

Ian Macdonald | Never have so many understood so little
ian@caliban.org | about so much. – James Burke
>
>
>

49

james@rubyxml.com wrote:

This matches my observations as well; I could never imagine convincing my
sister that any Unix was, in the longer run, better for her than Windows.

Please don’t take this as an offense, but didn’t you say you’re writing
in MS Word? That might speak to her more than words.

She just has no interest in doing anything that is even remotely geekish.
She does not want to try and install some application only to find out she
has the wrong version of glibc, or needs libpng.so.2.

Which I find very understandable. Desktop Linux has a long way to go.

Tobi

···

–
http://www.pinkjuice.com/

50

The security on both is about the same,
because I have taken the time to make sure that I use tools which
reduce my exposure to Windows security holes, and I have neither the
time nor the expertise to lock up my Linux box yet make it usable in
the way that I need it usable.

Obviously, “regex for breakfast” isn’t the Breakfast of Champions.

/me gets a stomach ache just thinking about it. ~,^

This is a foolish statement, as it isn’t “no options,”

Not foolish. Only one option for a GUI on windows is “no options.”

You are limiting your entire approach to what Windows can do based on
the GUI? that is foolish. ~,^

which you could find out if you did a minimum of research instead of relying
upon what appears to be foolish zealotry.

Ad hominem attacks are not productive: Where would I find this “minimum” of
research material that explains how to have another GUI on windows?

You are not limited to a single GUI, to be precise. Just like a desktop
on Linux, the components of the Windows GUI are processes. In addition,
a GUI also entails the widget set - GTK+ and Qt both work perfectly fine
on Windows; Qt can have either a “native” (Microsoft-ish) look or use
one of the looks you are accustomed to on UNIX.

The Windows widget set is just a set of DLL’s, just like it’s a set of
shared libraries on UNIX. Borland has it’s one widget set as well - you
can tell which compiler was used in many cases by the small differences
in certain components.

Windows actually wins in this regard in that all widget suppliers (MS,
Borland, Qt, etc.) use a standard keybinding and generic look and feel,
at least making the widgets in applications look and behave
consistantly. I wish my Linux desktops could say the same. At least if
I stick with all GNOME programs, and then only if they all bother to
follow the standards, I can get that level of consistancy. ~,^

I’ve addressed this point

No, you haven’t

The learning curve for Windows programs is shallower because of
the consistency.

Pick a single linux GUI and you also have consistency. Again,
lack of options is hardly an advantage.

Again, this is a false statement.

No, you just ignored it.

You do not get consistancy. I have nothing but GTK+ and GNOME apps on
here (I do not have Qt installed, nor any Motif clones, and I don’t run
X-lib apps) yet there are lots of problems. GTK+ don’t get GNOME’s
improvements/changes, lots of apps decide to code custom widgets because
the authors just didn’t like the look of the stock ones, some apps
provide key-bindings while others don’t, and so on. Linux is a
usability night-mare. KDE is better in some cases because much of this
is handled by Qt, so Qt and KDE apps behave together. GNOME2 is also an
improvement. But, it won’t likely be till KDE 4/5 or GNOME 3/4 that we
see the level of consistancy among apps on the same toolkit that we see
on Windows now (much less where it will be in several years).

Then start throwing in things like all the apps that code their own
GUI’s, or use Tk or some other toolket, or FOX, or whatever, and then
realize a lot of applications either run in only Qt, only GTK, or only
something else, and in order to get all the apps the average user needs,
you are running 3 or 4 different toolkits, with different looks and
feel, different (or lacking) key-binding, different MIME settings, and
so on.

I can have a plain X-Windows
program running and a KDE program running, and the likelihood that
they share even the same keystrokes for copy/paste (simple stuff!)
is almost nil. It MIGHT be the same for GNOME and KDE apps, but
there are still differences.

As I said, you just ignored it. I said a “single” GUI, not two.

It is very very hard to get by with just one toolkit running (the
desktop, or GUI as you seem to refer to it, will always be the same
based on your environment choice). I run nothing but GTK+/GNOME apps,
but then I have GTK+1 only apps, GNOME1 only apps, GTK+2 only apps,
GNOME2 only apps, and so on. Each look and act differently.

  1. Windows isn’t the only platform out there which doesn’t use
    glibc by default. IMO, Matz is absolutely correct to emphasize
    portability over ‘The Linux Way’.

And IMO, this is wrong.

And IMO, you’re a fool for this attitude.

Another ad hominem attack.

I don’t touch Windows. Like my stability and apps and ease of
maintainance and configurability way too much. But I’d still agree it’s
rather foolish to do nothing but say “Windows sucks, Linux rulez” with
no clue about what the advantages or disadvantages of either are - Linux
may be best for you, just as Linux is best for me, but for most
people, unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Trust me, I deploy Linux
workstations and laptops here at work, and I know what problems even
intelligent Windows users run into.

Linux isn’t even a
particularly good example of a powerful operating system – it’s
just common in the same way that Windows is common. (I’d say that
Windows::MacOS and Linux::*BSD are about the same…, and I’m not
just referring to Darwin.)

How would you know “a powerful operating system?” You already admitted that
you lacked the expertise to properly install and configure Linux.

He also stated he’s used UNIX extensively. Linux != all UNICes. As
someone uses used Solaris, AIX, FreeBSd, Linux, and Windows, the
installation, administration, and so on of each is drastically
different.

I don’t know about Linux not being powerful (it has its downpoints, but
also its high-points - I’d say all UNICes are about the same in the
end, unless you are running on specialized hardware).

Yes. If you are used to windows installations, the great range of
options available in any flavor of *nix is a daunting task.

Poor, foolish zealot.

This name calling is really juvenile.

Agreed there. ^,^ Everyone needs to calm down on the whole issue, and
at least discuss civilly, if not just dropping the subject.

I’ve been dealing with real unix for a LONG
time. But the reality is that I have a job to get done, and Linux
box administration is NOT part of that job. It is, every time I have
to deal with it, a great annoyance. (For example, all of a sudden
last week, my ftp server decided to stop accepting connections. I
made no configuration changes to anything – I played with the
various settings in xinetd, etc. all to no benefit. Fortunately, I
still have Samba running – even though I have to manually start it
every time, despite my configuration files telling Samba to start it
every time I reboot.) Don’t get me wrong: I get annoyed when I have
to do anything to stabilise or configure Windows, too. Those aren’t
my job – I’m a software designer and developer. I don’t have time
or desire to be a systems administrator. It gets in the way of
doing my real job.

Is that too hard for you to understand?

I have been a software designer and developer for over 30 years. I will admit
that under certain circumstances one can develop software that requires no
knowledge of the OS, but IMO the really interesting stuff involves an
intimate knowledge of the OS.

Depends what you are developing. When I make an e-mail client, I don’t
give a damn about the OS. When I write a mail daemon, however, it can
be useful to understand the OS for optimization, security, and so on.

Again, the right tool for the job – not Linux Everywhere.

Bah!

Bah, indeed. Zealots annoy me.

If so, then how do you live with yourself?

LOL. Dude, he’s advocating the best tool for the job - not Windows
Rulez At Everything Yo. You both need to quit with the name calling.
~,^

I’d honestly like to replace some of the Linux machines here at work
with Windows - I mean, trying to maintain some of those things is a
pain, some important apps (like a decent PDF editor) don’t exist on
Linux, multimedia on Linux is horrible, running Linux on laptops is a
pita, etc.

On the other hands, other uses could benefit from Linux - could get rid
of the proprietary mail system we have, less support calls for crashed
desktops, more security, more tailored/efficient desktop, etc.

Best tool for the job. Maybe, in time, Linux will become the best tool
for some things that Windows currently is. Not yet, tho. Sorry. ^,^

In any event, making Ruby Linux only would be horrible. I’d stop using
it right then - I’m in the middle of writing software w/ Ruby to run on
Windows, and am quite glad I have the ability - otherwise, I just
wouldn’t be using Ruby. We can’t switch some 100 desktops to Linux just
for a single application, especially when I can use another language to
get the job done. Ruby is the best tool for the job in this case, and
one of the prime reaons is that I can write it once, and it will work on
both the Linux workstation, the Linux laptops, and the Windows desktops,
without modification (yet - may change if I have to save settings…)

···

On Fri, 2002-06-21 at 12:36, Albert Wagner wrote:

On Friday 21 June 2002 10:57 am, Austin Ziegler wrote:

-austin
– Austin Ziegler, austin@halostatue.ca on 2002.06.21 at 11.39.50

51

On Sat, Jun 22, 2002 at 02:33:16AM +0900, Massimiliano Mirra muttered…
: On Fri, Jun 21, 2002 at 10:15:22PM +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:
: > I disagree about the ‘powerful programming environment’;
: > I find that most Windows IDEs (even VS, sadly) are superior to any
: > extant Linux IDE excepting Kylix, and in most cases, I find an IDE
: > to be preferable to the alternative. It is, however, a functional
: > environment, and one can get the job done without too much trouble.
:
: As a personal note: I had two years of experience in Delphi, and after
: I had migrated to Linux and was looking forward to put them to use
: through Kylix, I tried Emacs and stumbled upon Ruby.

Delphi was [and still is] fantastic. I got my teeth really dirty with it
about 5 years ago and fell in love with it. The best bit was playing with
event driven object based [and gui] development.

: It took me one afternoon to throw those two years in the garbage.
:
: Now, less than a year later, I’ve accomplished more than I had done in
: those years and there’s no way in the world I’d go back.

It’s all about the right tool for the job. If i want to whip up a silly
little gui tool for windows, Delphi rocks. If i want to do X then Y rocks
and so on. Granted Pascal does feel a little kludgy now. But thats choice :slight_smile:

Regards,

Chris

···

–
Chris Ross (boris) chris@darkrock.co.uk | ctr@ferite.org
http://www.darkrock.co.uk | http://www.ferite.org
"I dont suffer from insanity - I enjoy every minute of it…"

52
> As I've said before, I eat regex for breakfast -- I'm not a > "technically illiterate suit".

The security on both is about the same, because I have taken the
time to make sure that I use tools which reduce my exposure to
Windows security holes, and I have neither the time nor the
expertise to lock up my Linux box yet make it usable in the way
that I need it usable.
Obviously, “regex for breakfast” isn’t the Breakfast of Champions.

No, it’s simply not what my expertise is, and I don’t have a need or
desire to become an expert in the arcane but otherwise useless art
of Proper Linux Configuration. I have tasks to complete that don’t
involve the configuration of operating systems. That what I hire
system administrators for, if it’s important enough. Unfortunately,
Linux is very cranky and requires a lot more administration than it
should – even for simple tasks. You’re obviously judging this
through a very narryminded perspective.

Linux (and most other unices) still suffers from the problem
that there is no single unifying UI guideline set, so that
while Windows programs look and feel – and perform – pretty
much the same all over, every Linux GUI program is different.
No options vs. several options is hardly an advantage, except to
the very lazy.
This is a foolish statement, as it isn’t “no options,”
Not foolish. Only one option for a GUI on windows is “no
options.”

It is foolish, because it demonstrates you haven’t done a modicum of
research. Frankly, the difference between GNOME and KDE is – for
the end user – nil. The differences can be obtained – both
visually and functionally – with software like Stardock’s suite of
software (DestopX, Window Blinds, ObjectBar, etc.). This is the
biggest of many options out there for customisation.

The learning curve for Windows programs is shallower because of
the consistency.
Pick a single linux GUI and you also have consistency. Again,
lack of options is hardly an advantage.
Again, this is a false statement.
No, you just ignored it.

Ah, no. I didn’t ignore it. You made an ignorant statement. Picking
a ‘single Linux GUI’ does not mean the same that you think it means.
If, by picking a single Linux GUI, you mean that if I choose to run
KDE I run nothing but KDE programs, then you have pretty much forced
me to choose from a paltry selection – it’s even smaller if you
force me to choose GNOME programs. Selecting a Linux GUI means
that’s the desktop you choose as your basis.

I can have a plain X-Windows program running and a KDE program
running, and the likelihood that they share even the same
keystrokes for copy/paste (simple stuff!) is almost nil. It MIGHT
be the same for GNOME and KDE apps, but there are still
differences.
As I said, you just ignored it. I said a “single” GUI, not two.

Doesn’t matter – the single GUI is the wm and/or the desktop, not
the programming API.

  1. Windows isn’t the only platform out there which doesn’t use
    glibc by default. IMO, Matz is absolutely correct to emphasize
    portability over ‘The Linux Way’.
    And IMO, this is wrong.
    And IMO, you’re a fool for this attitude.
    Another ad hominem attack.

It might be an attack, but it’s not meant to appeal to ‘emotion
rather than reason.’ Anyone who claims that there is One Right Way
in something which is not wholly dependent upon physics is a fool,
whether that One Right Way is Linux, Windows, Java, Ruby, or Python
– and the argument can be extended to many other things in life.

Linux isn’t even a particularly good example of a powerful
operating system – it’s just common in the same way that Windows
is common. (I’d say that Windows::MacOS and Linux::*BSD are about
the same…, and I’m not just referring to Darwin.)
How would you know “a powerful operating system?” You already
admitted that you lacked the expertise to properly install and
configure Linux.

I lack the expertise to tune it, but mostly it’s the lack of desire.
I don’t care to be a mere bit-twiddler as you seem to prefer. I have
real tasks to accomplish, thanks.

[…] Those aren’t my job – I’m a software designer and
developer. I don’t have time or desire to be a systems
administrator. It gets in the way of doing my real job.
I have been a software designer and developer for over 30 years. I
will admit that under certain circumstances one can develop
software that requires no knowledge of the OS, but IMO the really
interesting stuff involves an intimate knowledge of the OS.

That’s JYO. The really interesting stuff is stuff that solves real
problems and doesn’t devolve into brainless advocacy. A good example
of this is Ruby, IMO. If you really have been doing what you do for
thirty years, then you should know just how stupid single-OS
advocacy is.

-austin
– Austin Ziegler, austin@halostatue.ca on 2002.06.21 at 14.34.42

···

On Sat, 22 Jun 2002 01:36:12 +0900, Albert Wagner wrote:

On Friday 21 June 2002 10:57 am, Austin Ziegler wrote:

53

james@rubyxml.com schrieb:

Ian Macdonald wrote:
Not most people I know! My observation is that very few people learn
even to take advantage of the power offered by a Windows machine (e.g.
batch files, Word macros, right-clicking, the command line) much less
the power offered by Linux.

Hmm. And that is, why MS praises every version for having
much, much more new features …

My observation is, that especially younger people
are very tricky in finding out many of the options
they have (e.g. batch files, Word macros, right-clicking …).
They are the next user generation.
But they are bound to what they find at home (as their
wannabe compy-expert papa bought a windows pre-installed
machine) and in school (as the biology or arithmetic teacher,
wo had been ordered to take some computer lessons to give
computer science classes is only a wannabe hobbyist too).

(PS: OK, I’m a german, don’t talk about PISA … !).

This matches my observations as well; I could never imagine convincing my
sister that any Unix was, in the longer run, better for her than Windows.

Depending on what you wanna show her.

She just has no interest in doing anything that is even remotely geekish.

Aha! Then, why pushing the power button on …?

She does not want to try and install some application only to find out she
has the wrong version of glibc, or needs libpng.so.2.

Aehm, … you mean she does not want to install any application
at all, even not on windows …

As there you have similar problems with MSVC, DirectX, …

If windows would be so easy and user friendly,
I would not be called at least once a week by my
friends to help them with their hobbyists problems.
(“Why can’t I receive my email now?”
“I installed this new game, and now I get
this error message every time I start my Word”
“How can I make my new scanner running?”)

Windows and *nix are meant for different audiences.

Don’t say this to a MS salesman.

Saying Widows should be more like Unix

Argh the wrong way round.
Unix will become more user friendly in the surface
without blocking the smart user to do the groovy things
behind that.

is like saying Ruby
should be more like assembly language.

I’m able to drive a car and fuel it.
But it’s a difference if my friend can help me
when I have a problem, for he is an expert,
or if he must say
“Sorry, you know that your engine bonnet is welded?”

“But you get all this power and control …”

Contrary to “No one can help you with that …
Install it again”

Bye
Det

54

Ian Macdonald schrieb:

I haven’t touched a Windows box in many years,
so I’ll have to take the stability issue on your
say-so. Are blue screens really a thing of
the past?

No. In Win2K MS declared blue screen a standard feature :slight_smile: .

Bye
Det

55

This matches my observations as well; I could never imagine
convincing my sister that any Unix was, in the longer run, better
for her than Windows. She just has no interest in doing anything
that is even remotely geekish. She does not want to try and
install some application only to find out she has the wrong
version of glibc, or needs libpng.so.2.
That was my point, really. If you want to move past the beginner
stage, an investment of time and energy is needed.

Windows, IMHO, has fewer productivity tricks to learn than UNIX,
so once you’ve learned them, you’re at full speed on that OS.

I think that you’d be quite surprised. I’m still finding
productivity tricks on Windows – and I’ve been using it for a long
time. As I said before, I’m more annoyed by the fact that basic GUI
operations don’t necessarily work as expected in X-Windows – and
it’s not primarily the underlying window manager’s fault. It’s the
fact that in the name of ‘freedom and choice’, consistency has been
thrown completely out of the window by most developers of X
software. (The KDE folks, however, get full marks on this. Theirs is
the first consistently usable X software that I’ve seen.)

Someone learning UNIX, OTOH, will continue to learn and become
more productive for a long time to come, ultimately becoming
vastly more productive than the Windows power user.

Again, I think you’d be surprised. I’m a power user in both Windows
and Unix; I eat ugly regexes for breakfast with the best of them. (:
Knowing how to do things in both areas has increased the ability I
have in both areas.

Windows and *nix are meant for different audiences. Saying
Widows should be more like Unix is like saying Ruby should be
more like assembly language.
I’m not advocating making Windows more like UNIX at all. I have no
interest in Windows beyond dealing with the fall-out that its
flawed applications create for the rest of the computing world.

Funny. I’ll admit that there are a lot of flawed Windows programs
out there – that’s not hard to admit. But there’s a lot of flawed
X-Windows programs out there, too. (There’s a lot of flawed command
line programs out there, e.g., find, for all of its power.)

To try to bring this slightly back onto topic, is there any reason
(except possibly licence) that Matz couldn’t adapt the glibc
methodology to work on multiple platforms?

-austin
– Austin Ziegler, austin@halostatue.ca on 2002.06.21 at 09.17.21

···

On Fri, 21 Jun 2002 17:26:39 +0900, Ian Macdonald wrote:

On Fri 21 Jun 2002 at 16:18:07 +0900, james@rubyxml.com wrote:

56

This matches my observations as well; I could never imagine
convincing my
sister that any Unix was, in the longer run, better for her
than Windows.

Please don’t take this as an offense, but didn’t you say you’re writing
in MS Word? That might speak to her more than words.

?

James

57

I agree, of course. My statement was that IDEs are not necessarily
superior to ``programming environment’', and in fact the opposite was
true in my case. That’s why a called it a personal note. :slight_smile:

Massimiliano

···

On Sat, Jun 22, 2002 at 03:11:06AM +0900, Chris Ross wrote:

: > I disagree about the ‘powerful programming environment’;
: > I find that most Windows IDEs (even VS, sadly) are superior to any
: > extant Linux IDE excepting Kylix, and in most cases, I find an IDE
: > to be preferable to the alternative. It is, however, a functional
: > environment, and one can get the job done without too much trouble.
: As a personal note: I had two years of experience in Delphi, and after
: I had migrated to Linux and was looking forward to put them to use
: through Kylix, I tried Emacs and stumbled upon Ruby.
Delphi was [and still is] fantastic. I got my teeth really dirty with it
about 5 years ago and fell in love with it. The best bit was playing with
event driven object based [and gui] development.

It’s all about the right tool for the job.

58

What I really want to do – and I’m looking at Apollo for this –
is to embed Ruby into a Delphi app.

:wink:

-austin
– Austin Ziegler, austin@halostatue.ca on 2002.06.21 at 14.57.01

···

On Sat, 22 Jun 2002 03> 11> 06 +0900, Chris Ross wrote:

On Sat, Jun 22, 2002 at 02> 33> 16AM +0900, Massimiliano Mirra

It took me one afternoon to throw those two years in the garbage.

Now, less than a year later, I’ve accomplished more than I had
done in those years and there’s no way in the world I’d go back.
It’s all about the right tool for the job. If i want to whip up a
silly little gui tool for windows, Delphi rocks. If i want to do X
then Y rocks and so on. Granted Pascal does feel a little kludgy
now. But thats choice>:)

59

I’m more annoyed by the fact that basic GUI operations don’t
necessarily work as expected in X-Windows – and it’s not primarily
the underlying window manager’s fault. It’s the fact that in the
name of ‘freedom and choice’, consistency has been thrown completely
out of the window by most developers of X software.

I don’t use X apps very much. Pretty much the only X apps I regularly
use are Eterm, Mozilla and xmms (and, by extension,
WindowMaker). Everything else is terminal based.

When I need to run other apps, I try to stick with GTK software where
possible. This gives me the consistency that you speak of.

Of course, that’s just the desktop side. We have thousands of headless
servers at work that neither have nor need GUI apps. I’m just not a
typical user.

I’m not advocating making Windows more like UNIX at all. I have no
interest in Windows beyond dealing with the fall-out that its
flawed applications create for the rest of the computing world.

Funny. I’ll admit that there are a lot of flawed Windows programs
out there – that’s not hard to admit. But there’s a lot of flawed
X-Windows programs out there, too. (There’s a lot of flawed command
line programs out there, e.g., find, for all of its power.)

Sure, but when I talked of fall-out, I didn’t mean navigating the man
pages of complex commands like find and tar, but the repercussions of
running criminally negligent software like Outlook.

I’m not a Linux zealot, I hasten to add. Outlook, when coupled with
Exchange, has some tremendous functionality to offer, but for me, it
just doesn’t weigh up against the nightmare of fending off virus
propagation.

Unfortunately, the sphere of influence of badly designed and
implemented Windows software extends beyond the desktops of those who
use it. An entire industry has sprung up around combatting e-mail
viruses, for example, which is entirely a gift from the Windows using
world.

Much of this doesn’t matter to your average desktop user, of
course. He just wants to get his work done and could care less about
the plight of networked server admins. I understand and accept that.

Ian

···

On Fri 21 Jun 2002 at 22:23:21 +0900, Austin Ziegler wrote:

Ian Macdonald | volcano, n.: A mountain with hiccups.
ian@caliban.org |
>
>
>

60

On Sat, Jun 22, 2002 at 03:59:39AM +0900, Austin Ziegler muttered…
: On Sat, 22 Jun 2002 03> 11> 06 +0900, Chris Ross wrote:
: > On Sat, Jun 22, 2002 at 02> 33> 16AM +0900, Massimiliano Mirra
: >> It took me one afternoon to throw those two years in the garbage.
: >>
: >> Now, less than a year later, I’ve accomplished more than I had
: >> done in those years and there’s no way in the world I’d go back.
: > It’s all about the right tool for the job. If i want to whip up a
: > silly little gui tool for windows, Delphi rocks. If i want to do X
: > then Y rocks and so on. Granted Pascal does feel a little kludgy
: > now. But thats choice>:)
:
: What I really want to do – and I’m looking at Apollo for this –
: is to embed Ruby into a Delphi app.
:
: :wink:

Hmmm, tasty :slight_smile:

/me thinks about that for ferite

Regards,

Chris

···

–
Chris Ross (boris) chris@darkrock.co.uk | ctr@ferite.org
http://www.darkrock.co.uk | http://www.ferite.org
"I dont suffer from insanity - I enjoy every minute of it…"