I'd say (at the risk of losing karma for the sake of honesty, which is still a fair bargain as far as I'm concerned), shortsightedness.
Initially, Gnome, and then Ximian, seem to have been designed with software reuse in mind -- use existing libs, don't rewrite your own, etc. This is NOT a bad thing. Only... Software changes, grows, evolves. In an ideal world, all this would have more or less remained compatible through versions. But this is not an ideal world, and not all the libs grew in ways compatible with Ximian, as far as I can tell. And Ximian now seems to need to replace those libs with its own versions of them. That's the gist of it the way I perceive it, but YMMV, etc.
The KDE decision to cram everything they need under kdelibs was initially a huge concession to bloat, and is still often criticized as such. It does, however, make installation and maintainance considerably simpler. In the long run, it might have been a better choice for the purposes of the project -- at a cost in the short run. For long Gnome was much better than KDE, there's no arguing that. The whole short term vs. long term thing, that applies SO well to so many things.
So you basically have to pick between either initial bloat, or requiring upgrade/replacement of countless third-party libs for each new release. Software design is a bitch, isn't it?:)
Maybe Ximian should just package its dependencies together, so that it would install them where it needs them without fscking up the rest of the system. For now, I'm not gonna install a desktop environment that will potentially prevent other environments from working, sorry.
I'll still give XD2 a try one of these days -- my experience of the Ximian dependency hell dates back from XD1, maybe they modernized its design significantly since then. We'll see if it behaves cleanly, or threatens to screw up my currently installed libs -- in which case, bye bye Ximian. Till XD3 anyway.
Well, in my experience, it usually goes like this: 1) user installs some Linux distro, 2) user keeps Windows around just in case, 3) user ends up not using Windows anymore at all. Once in a blue moon at -most-.
That is the scenario I've seen happen most often, anyway.
In my own case, last time I booted to Windows, a few weeks back, it told me, "We have detected it's now Winter Time, do you want Windows to update your clock accordingly?" I hadn't used it for over six months.
Now of course, I post on/. so I'm likely to be a geek, you're thinking. Well, here's something for you to chew on: I installed Mandrake on my girlfriend's own machine in a dual-boot with Windows, so that she could try it and see how she liked it. A few weeks later, she had stopped using Windows. Interesting, isn't it?
Windows is -NOT- inescapable, my dear AC, oh no. It -does- a few things right (games mostly), but let's face it, Linux has become a more pleasant desktop environment for quite a number of uses. Want to read DVDs without being -forced- to watch the FBI warning (and in some case the ads)? Can't do that on Windows, sorry. Want to read any video file (DivX, Quicktime, Real) with one single unobstrusive player? Can't do that on Windows, sorry (though I hear there's a new player trying to imitate Xine and MPlayer in that regard -- 'twas about time). And then there's the viruses, the sub-par IE browsing environment, the perpetual risk of having pieces of crap software trying to take over your computer for their own purposes (that last point being the one that sealed my switch to another OS -- too tired of having to run AdAware everytime I installed something), etc, etc.
Now don't take me wrong, Linux -does- have it's issues too, but trying to pretend that Windows is inescapable is at best uninformed.
> A number of times I've seriously considered downgrading from > WinXP to Windows 2000 because of all the glicthes and poor > performance.
I'd say go right ahead. And I would NOT call it a downgrade. XP is a step down from 2000 -- slower, glitchier, etc. Admittedly a bit shinier though.
Just be sure to apply SP2. Windows 2000 has a major heap bug that makes disallocation of large sets of memory excruciatingly slow (we're talking hours here, literally -- that one had me almost go crazy until I figured the bug was in Windows).
Re:the dark side of gentoo...
on
Gentoo Reviewed
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· Score: 1
> Ebuilds didn't always work flawlessly.
This is true. In half a year, this must have happened to me four, possibly five times, using the stable branch. Because I don't want to waste time, I generally just leave it as is and wait for the dev team to fix it. I've been known to occasionally fix it myself when it's not too complicated and when I have time, but that's the exception, not the rule.
> Emerge seems to be a moving target with features being added > and removed (and the docs weren't always updated immediately > when things changed).
Yep, the dev team is very reactive wrt. feature requests. The man page isn't always 100% current as a result, but 'emerge --help' always is, it would seem.
> I didn't keep checking to see if the feature that I wanted had been > added yet.
If you're actively interested in some features, you may want to 1) request them yourself on bugs.gentoo.org, and/or 2) rapidly skim over the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, which you can subscribe to or read directly on the Web, to see if they've been implemented that week. That would probably be the least time-consuming way of going about it, I think.
Hope this helps!
Re:the dark side of gentoo...
on
Gentoo Reviewed
·
· Score: 1
> When a big ebuild dies in the middle for some silly reason (i.e. I > forgot to switch openGL drivers or something) I have to start > all over from the beginning.
No you don't. Take a look at 'emerge --help', and especially the --resume option.
> Disk space!!!!
This is true! The preferred way to deal with this seems to be cleaning up your distfiles directory regularly.
> Keeping track of exactly what is installed on my system and > uninstalling the stuff that I don't need.
qpkg is the way to go. It will tell you (flawlessly, mind) which package a given file belongs to, which packages are installed, if there are dupes, etc. Read the man page. 'qpkg -I' does exactly what you're asking for.
> The difference I had to update and recompile this kruft whenever > a new version came out.
Absolutely untrue. Only the packages you specifically request go into the 'world' file, and only those are upgraded when you upgrade the system. Dependancies are only upgraded as needed by the packages that depend on them.
> Gentoo just seems to take A LOT more time than other distros.
I am not sure. I ended up sticking with it after trying it out precisely because I find it's a very low maintenance distro for me. 'emerge -U world' every night before I go to bed is about all I need to keep the system 1) current, and 2) working.
You know, I'm re-reading your post again, your gripes about how you never got the hang of the Gentoo admin tools, and I'm wondering... You DID read the many docs that Gentoo ships with, did you?
I don't know about you, but myself, when I come across someone trying to make fire by rubbing sticks together, I feel it's polite to lend them my lighter.
> All of that is available in Windows. Get TweakUI...
Microsoft Windows: making you redefine "available in" since 1995! *g*
> But with a little work [...] you can make Windows (XP) do > everything that made you choose KDE over Windows.
Okay, two point here. 1) KDE does NOT require 'a little work'. It's already powerful and functionnal that way out of the box. No need for crutches of any kind. 2) Last I checked, the Windows GUI was still broken in deep ways. You can't move or resize an application window that is busy. Killing a dead explorer takes down the ENTIRE desktop. Sure, it respawns right away (if we can't make it stable, well let's sweep the unstability under the carpet, right?) -- leaving behind the application windows that are busy and not responding right at the time. Window folding still isn't there. Advanced features (virtual desktops et al) felt awfully awkward last time I checked, behaving mostly like a single desktop with some windows hidden -- compare with the seamless way it works in KDE.
Etc, etc.
There are a number of issues with Linux, a number of things that work more smoothly in Windows, but the desktop environment is no longer one. That battle is over, and Windows lost it majorly (mostly due to its own monolithic design, funnily enough). Get over it.
I know you're trying to be funny, but the really funny thing is: Portage works perfectly with binaries packages, and, lo and behold, UT2003-demo has been in there for months. I *WANT* more games installable with emerge, my man. Fast, easy, convenient, works out of the box. Enjoyable. It almost makes my life worth it despite all the VB I get at work.
> Someone please explain: why does this feature make you so upset?
I assume because it looks like Fortran 77 to them -- the same reason some dumbasses are upset about the Unix command line because it looks like DOS to them.
Trust me on that one: just ignore the dumbasses, and do whatever -you- like.
Suppose Linux gamers by thousands load up their games and enjoy the latest Windows games. Suppose as a result Windows game developers see incrementally better sales (less than 5%, probably closer to 1-2%). Now, why in the world would they suddenly throw away all the code, tools, and experience they have on their current platform to grab some tiny extra percentage by learning, developing for, and testing on a new platform?
Ok, so suppose all that doesn't happen. WineX doesn't work that well, game developpers don't see better sales, etc. The developpers *STILL* won't port their games to Linux.
Tough, eh?
And in the meanwhile, WineX lets Linux users play a few Windows games. That's a good thing. Don't like it? Just ignore it. It won't affect you either way.
Let's be honest: Isn't WineX just a bandage for all those Linux users (former Windows users) that can't give up Windows games?
Sure, that's exactly what it's for. And it's fairly good at it, too.
(Now if only it would work with Thief 2 and Morrowind...)
Oh, I indeed felt much fear and uncertainty and doubt when it happened, in a "Why, oh why?" kind of way, but you can very easily check for yourself, if you care any about verifiable facts, that it does happen indeed. Go to the closest CompUSA, pick up the standalone MSVC++.NET, get back home, and install it (on a -clean- machine that doesn't already have the aforementioned MS Web paraphernalia -- which may not have been your case last week, note). It'll FORCE on you the installation of a number of things, including some Microsoft Web components, the exact list of which I didn't learn by heart, mind you, but which DID include what I mentionned in my previous post -- and now that I think of it, it forced the install of IE6 as well, just because it could. I'll admit that I didn't check whether it is a recent or otherwise patched version of IE6 that doesn't include the latest root exploits.
You know, jumping to the defense of whatever you're fond of is your utmost right, but I believe it would be a lot more effective if you went at it in a dispassionate and factual way.
But then, I'll grant you that, it's not like it's easy to stay dispassionate in such a smoke-and-mirrors industry.
(And/that/ goes for you as well, rabid/. Linux groupies.:p)
Certain MS products REQUIRE an installation of some MS Web packages. For exemple, MSVC++.NET (even the standalone version!) installs some Web foo (up to and including those damn Frontpage extensions) before it will even install. Even if you don't give a flying fuck about Web services, MS does, and since your computer belongs to them, they'd be stupid not to capitalize on it when given the opportunity. And they are not stupid.
For the records, yes, you can uninstall that crap, and MSVC++ will keep working the same, but 95% of people won't bother. And won't even notice when they're hit by the next MS worm.
What can I say. When you can't gain market share through technical superiority...
Starship Troopers, the movie, is basically a satire, according to Paul Verhoeven. Sounds like quite a distortion from the novel it was supposedly inspired from, by the way, which would probably account for why people don't get the satirical slant right away, I think -- they're just not expecting it when watching the movie. IMHO. YMMV. Whatever.:)
> I was shocked that authors of some of these simple apps
> were requesting fees as high as $20.
For a long time, I honestly thought, like you, that it all basically boiled down to a matter of culture. Actually, I still believe it to be true to a large extent, but since I started working for a Windows-only company, I discovered a new factor that probably accounts for a lot of that culture:
Developping for Windows is a lot more painful.
Seriously.
That, or I'm somehow afflicted by a strange kind of stupidity, that leaves me confused and bitching a lot when coding under Windows, while leaving me able to write Unix software for pleasure (including Linux kernel patches for my own use). A pop3 email checker with a nice, friendly GUI doesn't sound like more than a few hours of work at most under Unix. I just don't feel able to do it simply on Windows. Gimme at least two days.
Can't honestly rule out the stupidity hypothesis, but frankly, at the end of the day, when I've spent the day fighting an MSVC++ that keeps crashing (one day I'll start keeping stats on the crashes, just for fun), a totally braindead system header organisation, klunky tools and abysmal documentation, I do NOT think I'd ever do it without a monetary reward.
Why do people insist on comparing Perl with Python? Python is a lot closer to Java in terms of types of programs it will be the best tool for (actually, switching from Java to Python often makes sense in terms of productivity and code maintainability). The most revealing sign is probably that while Perl opens the standard input by default and lets you access it directly with a dedicated keyword, assuming by default that you'll be parsing stuff, Python doesn't, not making risky (for Python) assumptions that would end up being wrong most of the time anyway.
Basically, for a small to medium sized script, Perl is a more effective tool. For anything that will require reusability and modularity (as in, code orthogonality), Python is much more fitting. I guess that a good example could be a comparison of Slashcode (done in Perl) and Zope (done in Python). Comparable idea ('Output stuff on the Web'), but totally different scope.
Just one last thing. Because coding in Perl is fun and it's easy to get carried away at it, some people will try to force it into projects much more complex than it was ever meant for -- resulting in some of those unspeakable code messes we've all seen at some point. Don't let that fool you. For the tasks within its intended scope, Perl is really a good language.
So, which is better? Depends almost solely on what you want to do. If Python has more visibility in academic circles and alike, it's simply because it's a great language to learn about advanced programming concepts and good software design, not because it's 'absolutely better' than Perl. No matter what the biggots on either side will tell you.
Just to demistify this often seen interesting, but irrelevant comparison:
> Yeah, I really enjoyed that idea when I was forced to work in Fortran
In Python, you indent the way you want. Tabs, spaces, as many or as few of them as you want. As long as you don't screw it up (and you'd have to do that on purpose, in my experience, with the autoindentation feature of all serious code editors), Python will understand it.
In Fortran 77, it was basically the meaning of a character that depended on the column (not whitespace, note) where it was: label, code, or 'line continues on next line'. Those were the last punch card days, you know. Damn, I've hated that too. I, however, have no problem with Python's syntax.
I'll agree, though, that such a change in habits isn't easy to manage, unrelatedly to the increase of productivity it eventually leads to. Bah. Funny that, of all people, we geeks should be so set in our ways... I'm glad I managed to integrate the Python syntax, though, it's really a great language for complex projects (though Perl is still a little more adapted for small to medium sized throw-away scripts).
> Is there something lacking in std::string::getline()?
*bangs head on keyboard*
Nope, there isn't, and I'm a dumbass. Thanks for the reminder -- I didn't check OUTSIDE the MFC for readline-like functions. Must be all that VB they made me do, damaged my brain. *cough*
For the records, I know wxWindows fairly well, and I use it at work for commercial apps, since we don't (yet) have a commercial Qt license.
And don't take me wrong -- it's indeed very good! Qt is just, well, excellent. wxWindows' documentation, while complete and detailed, just isn't as clear and easily browsable as Qt's -- good as it is, I sometimes stayed stuck looking for some very precise piece of info (about the safeYield() method, to be precise, which didn't seem to behave as advertised). Same for the vertically stackable widget I was talking of previously: the same thing in wxWindows is much easier than in VB, just not as much as in Qt in terms of developpement time and code flexibility and reusability.
But heck, the whole argument is pointless -- there's not much point in pinning the very good against the very very good, especially when the latter is (literally) infinitely more expensive.:)
Thanks for your post! I'm sure many readers didn't know about wxWindows and will want to try it out now, which is a good thing.
> Is there any programmers out there who have some real experience?
I have no experience of the embedded version of Qt, so keep in mind I'm talking about the X11/Windows library here.
In three words: it fucking rocks.
Qt is simply the single best designed piece of software I have -ever- seen. While it sets out for a huge task, being a completely self-sufficient C++ framework, a multiplatform one at that (and it can indeed easily replace the entire MFC), the class hierarchy is extremely clean, and it's very easy to get the hang of it. Actually, the entire documentation is absolutely excellent, clear and very well cross-referenced. I've never stayed stuck while looking for some info in there (quite unlike the MSDN documentation!). Go take a peek, someday.
One of the nice things with Qt is, if you need to do some basic task, Qt makes it trivial. Reading a file line by line is an example I was confronted to just today: using the MFC's idea of files, it's tedious at best -- gotta do the nitty gritty job manually. Wasted time. Using Qt, it's, well, trivial.
The other thing about Qt is, if you need to do something complex, Qt makes it very straightforward. For instance, yesterday, our VB programmer was trying to make a custom widget that lets you stack frames vertically, each under its own tab, and showing only one at a time. After hours of work, he got to work a simple version of it that couldn't resize, among other shortcomings. Well, it took me much less time to rapidly put together the same thing in Qt, only it worked right away without those shortcomings, could accept any kind of subwidget, and, oh, of course, could resize at will and would work right away on any platform. Keep in mind that this guy is very experienced with his tools, while I'm a relative beginner with Qt.
There are countless useful features in Qt. For instance, it doesn't duplicate data when duplication is not either required or specifically requested by the programmer. Copy a QString or a QPixmap ten times, and Qt will keep only one copy of the data in memory for all the instances. Modify one of the ten instances, and Qt will then replicate its data to modify it without touching the nine other instances.
And those guys actually license their boon of a tool under the GPL. That's almost too good to be true.
Anyway, enough rambling. If you're a programmer, do yourself a favor, and check out Qt. Even if you don't end up using it, you will likely learn quite a lot about how powerful object orientation can be when used by people who know what they are doing.
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I'd say (at the risk of losing karma for the sake of honesty, which is still a fair bargain as far as I'm concerned), shortsightedness.
:)
Initially, Gnome, and then Ximian, seem to have been designed with software reuse in mind -- use existing libs, don't rewrite your own, etc. This is NOT a bad thing. Only... Software changes, grows, evolves. In an ideal world, all this would have more or less remained compatible through versions. But this is not an ideal world, and not all the libs grew in ways compatible with Ximian, as far as I can tell. And Ximian now seems to need to replace those libs with its own versions of them. That's the gist of it the way I perceive it, but YMMV, etc.
The KDE decision to cram everything they need under kdelibs was initially a huge concession to bloat, and is still often criticized as such. It does, however, make installation and maintainance considerably simpler. In the long run, it might have been a better choice for the purposes of the project -- at a cost in the short run. For long Gnome was much better than KDE, there's no arguing that. The whole short term vs. long term thing, that applies SO well to so many things.
So you basically have to pick between either initial bloat, or requiring upgrade/replacement of countless third-party libs for each new release. Software design is a bitch, isn't it?
Maybe Ximian should just package its dependencies together, so that it would install them where it needs them without fscking up the rest of the system. For now, I'm not gonna install a desktop environment that will potentially prevent other environments from working, sorry.
I'll still give XD2 a try one of these days -- my experience of the Ximian dependency hell dates back from XD1, maybe they modernized its design significantly since then. We'll see if it behaves cleanly, or threatens to screw up my currently installed libs -- in which case, bye bye Ximian. Till XD3 anyway.
I may be wrong, but isn't it just a matter of your truck wheel simply not fitting on my sports car, and vice versa?
#!/usr/bin/env pythong .setPixmap(QPixmap("my_image.png"))g et(img)
import sys
from qt import *
a=QApplication(sys.argv)
img=QLabel(None)
im
a.setMainWid
img.show()
a.exec_loop()
9 lines.
You're welcome.
It would probably have been even shorter in Perl.
'Bloat' is not knowing the right tools for the task.
> The people I know have lives and can actually get laid.
:-)
Funny you should mention that. One of the aforementionned 'users' is actually my girlfriend.
Well, in my experience, it usually goes like this: 1) user installs some Linux distro, 2) user keeps Windows around just in case, 3) user ends up not using Windows anymore at all. Once in a blue moon at -most-.
/. so I'm likely to be a geek, you're thinking. Well, here's something for you to chew on: I installed Mandrake on my girlfriend's own machine in a dual-boot with Windows, so that she could try it and see how she liked it. A few weeks later, she had stopped using Windows. Interesting, isn't it?
That is the scenario I've seen happen most often, anyway.
In my own case, last time I booted to Windows, a few weeks back, it told me, "We have detected it's now Winter Time, do you want Windows to update your clock accordingly?"
I hadn't used it for over six months.
Now of course, I post on
Windows is -NOT- inescapable, my dear AC, oh no. It -does- a few things right (games mostly), but let's face it, Linux has become a more pleasant desktop environment for quite a number of uses. Want to read DVDs without being -forced- to watch the FBI warning (and in some case the ads)? Can't do that on Windows, sorry. Want to read any video file (DivX, Quicktime, Real) with one single unobstrusive player? Can't do that on Windows, sorry (though I hear there's a new player trying to imitate Xine and MPlayer in that regard -- 'twas about time). And then there's the viruses, the sub-par IE browsing environment, the perpetual risk of having pieces of crap software trying to take over your computer for their own purposes (that last point being the one that sealed my switch to another OS -- too tired of having to run AdAware everytime I installed something), etc, etc.
Now don't take me wrong, Linux -does- have it's issues too, but trying to pretend that Windows is inescapable is at best uninformed.
> A number of times I've seriously considered downgrading from
> WinXP to Windows 2000 because of all the glicthes and poor
> performance.
I'd say go right ahead. And I would NOT call it a downgrade. XP is a step down from 2000 -- slower, glitchier, etc. Admittedly a bit shinier though.
Just be sure to apply SP2. Windows 2000 has a major heap bug that makes disallocation of large sets of memory excruciatingly slow (we're talking hours here, literally -- that one had me almost go crazy until I figured the bug was in Windows).
> Ebuilds didn't always work flawlessly.
This is true. In half a year, this must have happened to me four, possibly five times, using the stable branch. Because I don't want to waste time, I generally just leave it as is and wait for the dev team to fix it. I've been known to occasionally fix it myself when it's not too complicated and when I have time, but that's the exception, not the rule.
> Emerge seems to be a moving target with features being added
> and removed (and the docs weren't always updated immediately
> when things changed).
Yep, the dev team is very reactive wrt. feature requests. The man page isn't always 100% current as a result, but 'emerge --help' always is, it would seem.
> I didn't keep checking to see if the feature that I wanted had been
> added yet.
If you're actively interested in some features, you may want to 1) request them yourself on bugs.gentoo.org, and/or 2) rapidly skim over the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter, which you can subscribe to or read directly on the Web, to see if they've been implemented that week. That would probably be the least time-consuming way of going about it, I think.
Hope this helps!
> When a big ebuild dies in the middle for some silly reason (i.e. I
> forgot to switch openGL drivers or something) I have to start
> all over from the beginning.
No you don't. Take a look at 'emerge --help', and especially the --resume option.
> Disk space!!!!
This is true! The preferred way to deal with this seems to be cleaning up your distfiles directory regularly.
> Keeping track of exactly what is installed on my system and
> uninstalling the stuff that I don't need.
qpkg is the way to go. It will tell you (flawlessly, mind) which package a given file belongs to, which packages are installed, if there are dupes, etc. Read the man page. 'qpkg -I' does exactly what you're asking for.
> The difference I had to update and recompile this kruft whenever
> a new version came out.
Absolutely untrue.
Only the packages you specifically request go into the 'world' file, and only those are upgraded when you upgrade the system. Dependancies are only upgraded as needed by the packages that depend on them.
> Gentoo just seems to take A LOT more time than other distros.
I am not sure. I ended up sticking with it after trying it out precisely because I find it's a very low maintenance distro for me. 'emerge -U world' every night before I go to bed is about all I need to keep the system 1) current, and 2) working.
You know, I'm re-reading your post again, your gripes about how you never got the hang of the Gentoo admin tools, and I'm wondering... You DID read the many docs that Gentoo ships with, did you?
I don't know about you, but myself, when I come across someone trying to make fire by rubbing sticks together, I feel it's polite to lend them my lighter.
> init script is broken. when you want to relaunch a service that
/etc/init.d/ zap
/usr/bin/gcc /usr/bin/gcc /usr/bin/gcc: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.0.0, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), stripped
> died, it says the service is already launched.
See the 'zap' option of the init files.
FYI, it's a problem in DJB's daemontools, not the init scripts.
> gcc is a fscking python script
bali@byblos ~ % which gcc
bali@byblos ~ % file
Some Python script, isn't it?
> no cli to check options in ebuild scripts
emerge -s ufed
HTH.
> All of that is available in Windows. Get TweakUI...
Microsoft Windows: making you redefine "available in" since 1995! *g*
> But with a little work [...] you can make Windows (XP) do
> everything that made you choose KDE over Windows.
Okay, two point here.
1) KDE does NOT require 'a little work'. It's already powerful and functionnal that way out of the box. No need for crutches of any kind.
2) Last I checked, the Windows GUI was still broken in deep ways. You can't move or resize an application window that is busy. Killing a dead explorer takes down the ENTIRE desktop. Sure, it respawns right away (if we can't make it stable, well let's sweep the unstability under the carpet, right?) -- leaving behind the application windows that are busy and not responding right at the time. Window folding still isn't there. Advanced features (virtual desktops et al) felt awfully awkward last time I checked, behaving mostly like a single desktop with some windows hidden -- compare with the seamless way it works in KDE.
Etc, etc.
There are a number of issues with Linux, a number of things that work more smoothly in Windows, but the desktop environment is no longer one. That battle is over, and Windows lost it majorly (mostly due to its own monolithic design, funnily enough). Get over it.
I know you're trying to be funny, but the really funny thing is: Portage works perfectly with binaries packages, and, lo and behold, UT2003-demo has been in there for months. I *WANT* more games installable with emerge, my man. Fast, easy, convenient, works out of the box. Enjoyable. It almost makes my life worth it despite all the VB I get at work.
> Someone please explain: why does this feature make you so upset?
I assume because it looks like Fortran 77 to them -- the same reason some dumbasses are upset about the Unix command line because it looks like DOS to them.
Trust me on that one: just ignore the dumbasses, and do whatever -you- like.
It is my understanding that broadband sucks even in the states where the population density plays in favor of the US.
You know, I am not sure that when something is broken, we're going to fix it by pretending it's just fine...
Suppose Linux gamers by thousands load up their games and enjoy the latest Windows games. Suppose as a result Windows game developers see incrementally better sales (less than 5%, probably closer to 1-2%). Now, why in the world would they suddenly throw away all the code, tools, and experience they have on their current platform to grab some tiny extra percentage by learning, developing for, and testing on a new platform?
Ok, so suppose all that doesn't happen. WineX doesn't work that well, game developpers don't see better sales, etc. The developpers *STILL* won't port their games to Linux.
Tough, eh?
And in the meanwhile, WineX lets Linux users play a few Windows games. That's a good thing. Don't like it? Just ignore it. It won't affect you either way.
Let's be honest: Isn't WineX just a bandage for all those Linux users (former Windows users) that can't give up Windows games?
Sure, that's exactly what it's for. And it's fairly good at it, too.
(Now if only it would work with Thief 2 and Morrowind...)
Literally, someone who enjoys tinkering about with things.
To illustrate, maybe I shall say that Linux is a bricoleur's dream OS, for example?
> This is pure FUD.
/that/ goes for you as well, rabid /. Linux groupies. :p)
Oh, I indeed felt much fear and uncertainty and doubt when it happened, in a "Why, oh why?" kind of way, but you can very easily check for yourself, if you care any about verifiable facts, that it does happen indeed. Go to the closest CompUSA, pick up the standalone MSVC++.NET, get back home, and install it (on a -clean- machine that doesn't already have the aforementioned MS Web paraphernalia -- which may not have been your case last week, note). It'll FORCE on you the installation of a number of things, including some Microsoft Web components, the exact list of which I didn't learn by heart, mind you, but which DID include what I mentionned in my previous post -- and now that I think of it, it forced the install of IE6 as well, just because it could. I'll admit that I didn't check whether it is a recent or otherwise patched version of IE6 that doesn't include the latest root exploits.
You know, jumping to the defense of whatever you're fond of is your utmost right, but I believe it would be a lot more effective if you went at it in a dispassionate and factual way.
But then, I'll grant you that, it's not like it's easy to stay dispassionate in such a smoke-and-mirrors industry.
(And
Certain MS products REQUIRE an installation of some MS Web packages. For exemple, MSVC++.NET (even the standalone version!) installs some Web foo (up to and including those damn Frontpage extensions) before it will even install. Even if you don't give a flying fuck about Web services, MS does, and since your computer belongs to them, they'd be stupid not to capitalize on it when given the opportunity. And they are not stupid.
For the records, yes, you can uninstall that crap, and MSVC++ will keep working the same, but 95% of people won't bother. And won't even notice when they're hit by the next MS worm.
What can I say. When you can't gain market share through technical superiority...
Starship Troopers, the movie - wasn't satire...
:)
Starship Troopers, the movie, is basically a satire, according to Paul Verhoeven. Sounds like quite a distortion from the novel it was supposedly inspired from, by the way, which would probably account for why people don't get the satirical slant right away, I think -- they're just not expecting it when watching the movie. IMHO. YMMV. Whatever.
> I was shocked that authors of some of these simple apps
> were requesting fees as high as $20.
For a long time, I honestly thought, like you, that it all basically boiled down to a matter of culture. Actually, I still believe it to be true to a large extent, but since I started working for a Windows-only company, I discovered a new factor that probably accounts for a lot of that culture:
Developping for Windows is a lot more painful.
Seriously.
That, or I'm somehow afflicted by a strange kind of stupidity, that leaves me confused and bitching a lot when coding under Windows, while leaving me able to write Unix software for pleasure (including Linux kernel patches for my own use). A pop3 email checker with a nice, friendly GUI doesn't sound like more than a few hours of work at most under Unix. I just don't feel able to do it simply on Windows. Gimme at least two days.
Can't honestly rule out the stupidity hypothesis, but frankly, at the end of the day, when I've spent the day fighting an MSVC++ that keeps crashing (one day I'll start keeping stats on the crashes, just for fun), a totally braindead system header organisation, klunky tools and abysmal documentation, I do NOT think I'd ever do it without a monetary reward.
Why do people insist on comparing Perl with Python? Python is a lot closer to Java in terms of types of programs it will be the best tool for (actually, switching from Java to Python often makes sense in terms of productivity and code maintainability). The most revealing sign is probably that while Perl opens the standard input by default and lets you access it directly with a dedicated keyword, assuming by default that you'll be parsing stuff, Python doesn't, not making risky (for Python) assumptions that would end up being wrong most of the time anyway.
Basically, for a small to medium sized script, Perl is a more effective tool. For anything that will require reusability and modularity (as in, code orthogonality), Python is much more fitting. I guess that a good example could be a comparison of Slashcode (done in Perl) and Zope (done in Python). Comparable idea ('Output stuff on the Web'), but totally different scope.
Just one last thing. Because coding in Perl is fun and it's easy to get carried away at it, some people will try to force it into projects much more complex than it was ever meant for -- resulting in some of those unspeakable code messes we've all seen at some point. Don't let that fool you. For the tasks within its intended scope, Perl is really a good language.
So, which is better? Depends almost solely on what you want to do. If Python has more visibility in academic circles and alike, it's simply because it's a great language to learn about advanced programming concepts and good software design, not because it's 'absolutely better' than Perl. No matter what the biggots on either side will tell you.
Just to demistify this often seen interesting, but irrelevant comparison:
> Yeah, I really enjoyed that idea when I was forced to work in Fortran
In Python, you indent the way you want. Tabs, spaces, as many or as few of them as you want. As long as you don't screw it up (and you'd have to do that on purpose, in my experience, with the autoindentation feature of all serious code editors), Python will understand it.
In Fortran 77, it was basically the meaning of a character that depended on the column (not whitespace, note) where it was: label, code, or 'line continues on next line'. Those were the last punch card days, you know. Damn, I've hated that too. I, however, have no problem with Python's syntax.
I'll agree, though, that such a change in habits isn't easy to manage, unrelatedly to the increase of productivity it eventually leads to. Bah. Funny that, of all people, we geeks should be so set in our ways... I'm glad I managed to integrate the Python syntax, though, it's really a great language for complex projects (though Perl is still a little more adapted for small to medium sized throw-away scripts).
> Is there something lacking in std::string::getline()?
*bangs head on keyboard*
Nope, there isn't, and I'm a dumbass. Thanks for the reminder -- I didn't check OUTSIDE the MFC for readline-like functions. Must be all that VB they made me do, damaged my brain. *cough*
For the records, I know wxWindows fairly well, and I use it at work for commercial apps, since we don't (yet) have a commercial Qt license.
:)
And don't take me wrong -- it's indeed very good! Qt is just, well, excellent. wxWindows' documentation, while complete and detailed, just isn't as clear and easily browsable as Qt's -- good as it is, I sometimes stayed stuck looking for some very precise piece of info (about the safeYield() method, to be precise, which didn't seem to behave as advertised). Same for the vertically stackable widget I was talking of previously: the same thing in wxWindows is much easier than in VB, just not as much as in Qt in terms of developpement time and code flexibility and reusability.
But heck, the whole argument is pointless -- there's not much point in pinning the very good against the very very good, especially when the latter is (literally) infinitely more expensive.
Thanks for your post! I'm sure many readers didn't know about wxWindows and will want to try it out now, which is a good thing.
> Is there any programmers out there who have some real experience?
I have no experience of the embedded version of Qt, so keep in mind I'm talking about the X11/Windows library here.
In three words: it fucking rocks.
Qt is simply the single best designed piece of software I have -ever- seen. While it sets out for a huge task, being a completely self-sufficient C++ framework, a multiplatform one at that (and it can indeed easily replace the entire MFC), the class hierarchy is extremely clean, and it's very easy to get the hang of it. Actually, the entire documentation is absolutely excellent, clear and very well cross-referenced. I've never stayed stuck while looking for some info in there (quite unlike the MSDN documentation!). Go take a peek, someday.
One of the nice things with Qt is, if you need to do some basic task, Qt makes it trivial. Reading a file line by line is an example I was confronted to just today: using the MFC's idea of files, it's tedious at best -- gotta do the nitty gritty job manually. Wasted time. Using Qt, it's, well, trivial.
The other thing about Qt is, if you need to do something complex, Qt makes it very straightforward. For instance, yesterday, our VB programmer was trying to make a custom widget that lets you stack frames vertically, each under its own tab, and showing only one at a time. After hours of work, he got to work a simple version of it that couldn't resize, among other shortcomings. Well, it took me much less time to rapidly put together the same thing in Qt, only it worked right away without those shortcomings, could accept any kind of subwidget, and, oh, of course, could resize at will and would work right away on any platform. Keep in mind that this guy is very experienced with his tools, while I'm a relative beginner with Qt.
There are countless useful features in Qt. For instance, it doesn't duplicate data when duplication is not either required or specifically requested by the programmer. Copy a QString or a QPixmap ten times, and Qt will keep only one copy of the data in memory for all the instances. Modify one of the ten instances, and Qt will then replicate its data to modify it without touching the nine other instances.
And those guys actually license their boon of a tool under the GPL. That's almost too good to be true.
Anyway, enough rambling. If you're a programmer, do yourself a favor, and check out Qt. Even if you don't end up using it, you will likely learn quite a lot about how powerful object orientation can be when used by people who know what they are doing.