Think porn... They pretty often split the movie into 150-200KByte pieces;)
Re:may god forgive him for what he has unleashed
on
The First Smiley :-)
·
· Score: 1
Oh c'mon, it's a blank-and-white world out there!
Just an example to consider: English is used by plenty of people from different countries and cultures. It is not always clear what was meant by the message. And smileys help ALOT.
PS: As to the argumen of books not using smileys, I agree to both points made by respective authors: 1. Books ARE different from personal communications. 2. Books ARE misunderstood too often.
PPS: And, yes, I am not a native English speaker:)
People who actually examine the patches on their Open Source O.S. raise your hands.
The fact that someone actually can check the contents of the patch makes vendors think twice before doing something stupid. And that's important.
When you got your oil changed last, did you take the engine apart to make sure that your mechanic didn't put a rabbit in there?
Same applies here. The fact that I can open the engine and check, or give my car to another mechanic, who will check it for me and make a rabbit in the engine an obvious reason of engine malfunction, forces the first mechanic not to do so.:)
There are other reasons of course, but I find this one to be most persuasive:)
Re:Any Text Editor That Needs A Book...
on
Vi IMproved -- Vim
·
· Score: 1
Any Text Editor That Needs A Book is hopelessly broken.
Maybe. But the fact that book exists does not mean that the editor in question needs it, does it?
The editor that comes with MSVC is usable without a book.
Define usable. The editor that comes with MSVC is not very usable on my Linux server, which has no GUI. Another thing is: will you always install MSVC when you need a good editor? You must be throwing lots of money away, or working on a single computer [no offense ment here]:)
What can VI/VIM do that it can't?
Start in less then a second even on an old crappy PC, maybe...
More importantly, what can a wide variety of alternatives do that VI/VIM can't?
Crash AND make you data disappear?:)
If you are nostalgic for the "good old days" when the ability to edit interactively was considered a great leap forward, then by all means use something like VI.
Certainly not me... I am new to computers.:)
As for me, whenever I have to deal with a *NIX box one of my first questions is "is there another editor on this box?".
As for me, whenever I have to deal with a WIN* box one of my first questions is "is there a way to WORK without mouse on this box?".
You may see the obtuseness of VI as part of the initiation; I see it as damage and route around it. Improving VI? That's like improving the buggy whip.
Some people beleive QWERTY keyboard to be better then Dvorak. You cann't blame them:)
I just got married last month. That is something to get a whole lot of experience from... Engagement preceeded the fact though. This has nothing to do with diamonds (SFOF), but still funny. It was a big surprise to me that "every woman knows" that the price of cost of the engagement ring should be 3 times groom's salary, but not even half of those "every woman" know on the finger of which hand (in terms of left and right) to wear the engagement ring. Although, they are pretty comfortable with less expensive ring and Internet research for the question at hand:)
About the only one of those three that MS-Windos has over linux would be the ability to switch display modes quickly.
Not anymore. New RedHat Linux beta (Limbo) has a GUI tool (redhat-desktop-config or something like that), which allows you to change resolution, color depth, and few other things about your display with simple mouse clicks. Check it out.
Morning is killing me. Every day I have to wake up in the morning and I die again. Morning is not good for anything except mail and slashdot.
Night time is the best. I should not have any light to work productively. I should not have any people around, icq, irc or phone. I should have plenty of coffee, beer, or coke.
Problems which require plenty of copy-paste kill my productivity.
Hardware is very important. Amongst the top is the keyboard. I simply cannot work on the shitty keyboard. Additionally, if the job requires mouse, it should have the wheel:) Monitor with at least 1024x768 with 6 virtual desktops to fit all my xterms;) Afterstep is my window manager:)
Sometimes I need music, sometimes I don't. That's a moody thing.
Yeah, well...
Here is what I have as my perfect email client
on
The Perfect Email Client?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
There are three major points for my perfect email client:
1. Look and feel the same in X and console, so that I could make use of both xpdf/mozilla and remote mail reading. 2. Localization. Being non-native english speaker, this one is pretty important. 3. Keyboard navigation
For the last 4 years I am extremely satisfied with the combination: - fetchmail (getting mail) - procmail (sorting mail into mailboxes) - mutt (reading/replying) - vim (editing)
When it comes down to analyze mailbox and generate some reports, like for example, in the case with antivirus reports, I use perl with Mail::MboxParser module.
For all my friends, who need GUI to read email, I recommend using Mozilla and or Evolution
If you are looking for fresh software opposite to very well tested, then there is always a rawhide directory for you. AFAIK, those things are for the next version of RedHat distribution.
I disagree with both methodology and the result of the prediction. As to methodology - I cannot offer anything better;-)
But result is also wrong. AFAIK (sorry, no URL) India is the second population/growth-population wise country in the world. Therefor "indian" is then supposed to be the second language to be used on the web in the future. But the problem is that there is no such language as "indian". There are plenty of dialects instead, which make English a unifying language for India. Now, I guess we should add all those native English speakers to all those Indian netters, then we add all those who consider English to be international language, and I would say that English is the winner over Chineese.
Also, Chineese is difficult to learn, multi-byte, different direction language, which makes it absolutely not convinient for Internet usage.
Taking "real--time cool translators" unknown out of equation, my bet would be on English.
Wow! Until now we could only see penguins in space, underwater, in the offices, all over Internet, conferences, books, T-shirts, car bumpers and North Pole of course. But it seems that from now on we will see (? or we will now they are there) penguins all over Microsoft Staff asses.:)
Get a job with b big company. The bigger - the better. Make your way to the top of IT department. That was the Intro level:) Now, it's about time to convince the management to convert the whole company to Linux (or anything else). Done? Good. Move on. Now try to convince them to move back. Managed? Excellent! Now, how about convincing them, that don't need computers at all? Still want more? Make them beleive that they need the top-of-technology-state-of-the-art-machines. Now try to find those:) I can go on for ever. Till the Big Boss level where you have to push them to give everything to charity.
Ok, now I know that you are a real Bachelor. It's time for multiplayer GodMode - find guys like you and you will be entertained for a long time:)
RedHat 7.2 uses ext3 as a default. I am not sure though, which number assosiates with that, but my bet would be that it is not 83, therefor your statement about 100% of linux distributions is not true:)
Old concepts on new media...
on
Debian On DVD
·
· Score: 1
I don't want to go deep into history, but not that long ago several floppies installations have been replaced by single CDs.
Now we are actually doing the same thing with different media. I don't like that, to be honest.
Network installation is much more interesting idea, IMHO. It's just that one should remove all possibilities of "network unreachable" and increase bandwidth per unit of money:)
I guess if/. killed the site, it should mirror it:)
Here is a select-n-middlemousebuttonclick(with my formatting):
Title: Open source programmers stink at error handling.
Outline: Commercial programmers stink at it too, but that's not the point. We should be better.
Summary: Why are we subjected to so many errors? Shouldn't open source be better at this than commercial software? Where are the obsessive-compulsive programmers? Plus, more reader PHP tips. (1,400 words)
Author: By Nicholas Petreley
Body: (LinuxWorld) -- Thanks to my very talented readers I've been able to start almost every recent column with a reader's PHP tip.I'm tempted to make it a regular feature, but with my luck the tips would stop rolling in the moment I made it official.So I want you to be aware that this week's tip is not part of any regular practice. It is purely coincidental that PHP tips appear in column after column. Now that I've jinx-proofed the column, I'll share the tip.
Reader Michael Anderson wrote in with an alternative to using arrays to pass database information to PHP functions. As you may recall from the column Even more stupid PHP tricks, you can retrieve the results of a query into an array and pass that array to a function this way:
<?PHP
$result = mysql_query("select name, address from customer where cid=1");
$CUST = mysql_fetch_array($result);
do_something($CUST);
function do_something($CUST) {
echo $CUST["name"];
echo $CUST["address"];
}
?>
Michael pointed out that you can also retrieve the data as an object and reference the fields as the object's properties. Here's the above example rewritten to use objects:
<?PHP
$result = mysql_query("select name, address from customer where cid=1");
$CUST = mysql_fetch_object($result);
do_something($CUST);
function do_something($CUST) {
echo $CUST->name;
echo $CUST->address;
}
?>
I can't help but agree with Michael that this is a preferable way to handle the data, but only because it feels more natural to me to point to an object property than to reference an element of an array using the string name or address. It's purely a personal preference, probably stemming from habits I learned using C++.
Subtitle: OCD programmers unite
Nothing could be a better segue into the topic I had planned for this week. I'm thinking about starting a group called OLUG, the Obsessive Linux User Group. Although I know enough about psychology to know I don't meet the qualifications of a person with full-fledged OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), I confess that I went back and rewrote my PHP code to use objects instead of arrays even there was no technical justification for doing so.
Certain things bring out the OCD in me. Warning messages, for example. It doesn't matter if my programs seem to work perfectly. If a compiler issues warnings when I compile my code, I feel compelled to fix the code to get rid of the warnings even if I know the code works fine. Likewise, if my program generates warnings or error messages at run time, I feel driven to look for the reasons and get rid of them.
Now I don't want you to get the wrong impression. My PHP and C++ code stand as testimony to the fact that my programming practices don't even come within light years of perfection. But just because I do not live up to the standards I am about to demand isn't going to stop me from demanding them. It's my right as a columnist. Those who can, do. Those who can't, write columns.
I'll be blunt. Open source programmers need to stop being so darned lazy about error handling. That obviously doesn't include all open source programmers. You know who you are.
If you want a demonstration of what I mean, start your favorite GUI-based open source applications from the command line of an X terminal instead of a menu or icon. In most cases this will cause the errors and warnings that the application generates to appear in the terminal window where you started it. (There are exceptions, depending on the application or the script that launches the application.)
Many of the applications I use on a daily basis generate anywhere from a few warnings or error messages to a few hundred. And I'm not just talking about the debug messages that programmers use to track what a program is doing. I mean warning messages about missing files, missing objects, null pointers, and worse.
These messages raise several questions. Doesn't anyone who works on these programs check for such things?Why do they go unfixed for so long? Are these problems something that should be of concern to users?Worse, what if these messages appear because of a problem with my installation or configuration, and not because the program hasn't been fully debugged?But even if it is my installation that is broken, shouldn't the application report the errors? Why do I have to start the application from a terminal window to see the messages?
Subtitle: Getting a handle on errors
At first I wondered if this was a problem that you would be more likely to find when developers use one graphical toolkit rather than another. But I see both good and bad error handling no matter which tools people use. For example, the GNOME/Gtk word processor AbiWord has been flawless lately. Not a single warning or error message appears in the console. It's possible that AbiWord simply isn't directing output to the console, but I'm guessing that it's simply a well-tested and well-behaved application.
On the other hand, GNOME itself has been a nightmare for me lately. At one point I got so frustrated that I deleted all the configuration files for all of GNOME and GTK applications in my home directory in disgust, determined never to use them again. When I regained my composure and restarted GNOME with the intent of finding the cause of the problems, the problems had already disappeared. Obviously one or more of my configuration files had been at fault. Which one, I may never know, because GNOME or some portion of it lacked the proper error handling that should have told me.
In this case I was lucky that the problems were so bad I lost my temper and deleted the configuration files. In most cases, the applications appear to function normally. Aside from being ignorant of any messages unless you start the application from a terminal, there's no way of knowing why the warnings exist, or if they are cause for concern. The warnings could be harmless, or they could mean the application will eventually crash, corrupt data, or worse.
Subtitle: Examples
Just so you know I'm not making this up, here are some samples of the console messages that appeared after just a couple of minutes of toying with various programs. By the way, did you know you can actually configure the Linux kernel from the KDE control panel? Bravo to whoever added this feature. Nevertheless, when I activate that portion of the control panel, I get the message:
QToolBar::QToolBar main window cannot be 0.
Is there supposed to be a toolbar that isn't displayed as a result? I may never know.
The e-mail client sylpheed generates this informative message after about a minute of use:
The KDE Aethera client generates even more warning messages than Evolution, but many of them are simply debug messages about what the program is doing. By the way, I finally figured out why I couldn't login to my IMAP server with Aethera. The Aethera client couldn't deal with the asterisks in my password. I could log in after I changed my password, but I still can't see my mail. The program simply leaves the folder empty and says there's nothing to sync. Here are just a few of the countless warnings I get from Aethera, including the sync message.
Warning: ClientVFS::_fact_ref could not create object vfolderattribute:/Magellan/Mail/default.fattr
Reason(s): -- object does not exist on server
Warning: VFolder *_new() was called on an already registered path
clientvfs: warning: could not create folder [spath:imap_00141, type:imap]
RemoteMailFolder::sync() : Nothing to sync!
The spreadsheet Kspread reports these errors all the time, even though what I'm doing has nothing to do with dates or times:
QTime::setHMS Invalid time -1:-1:-1.000
QDate::setYMD: Invalid date -001/-1/-1
The e-mail client Balsa popped up these messages just moments after using it:
changing server settings for '' ((nil))
** WARNING **: Cannot find expected file "gnome-multipart-mixed.png" (spliced with "pixmaps") with no extra prefixes
The Gnumeric spreadsheet only reported that it couldn't find the help file, as shown below:
Bonobo-WARNING **: Could not open help topics file NULL for app gnumeric
Many of these problems could easily have been handled more intelligently. For example, Gnumeric could have asked for the correct path to the help file, perhaps adding an option so a user can decide not to install the help files and disable the message. Unless GTK and Bonobo are a lot more complicated than they should be, it should be easy to create a generic component for handling things like this and then use the component to handle all optional help files as a rule.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, like most commercial software developers, many open source programmers are just plain lazy about proper error handling. But we're supposed to be better than that, and it's time we started to live up to the reputation. I realize that most of these programs are works in progress. But good error handling is not something that should be left for last. It should be part of the development process. Although I may not practice it myself, I'm not the least bit ashamed to preach it.
1. CNN article titled "Windows XP hits the streets" pops up "Shit hits the fan" in my head.
2. Pictures of Bill Gates in both (CNN and BBC) articles are funny:)
3. From CNN: "The system promises fewer computer crashes and will allow users to delete data from their hard drive." That sounds interesting. I guess it's time for Windows users to clean up some disk space after 6 years since Win95.
4. Gates says (from CNN again): "Today is a great day for PC users and a great day for the PC industry," said Gates. "With the launch of Windows XP, we are entering an exciting new era of personal computing."
The era of Open Source and Free Software I presume.
"This powerful new version of Windows offers so much to customers --"
...that they are not sure if they want it all.
"...it unlocks the full power of the PC and enables them to enjoy the best of what the digital world has to offer."
So, they actually decided to switch from MS products?:)
"New York City is the perfect place to announce the worldwide availability of Windows XP," he said.
Not to offend anyone, but the guy is not without a sense of humor. Black humor, but humor.
5. In general, both articles (especially quotes) are a fun to read if you think for a moment that MS is sure that XP will kill Windows and promote OSS/FS.
Re:don't understand the need for constant upgradin
on
Red Hat 7.2 Released
·
· Score: 1
The people who are likely to upgrade already know.
I guess you are a bit wrong in here. I didn't know and I will upgrade my test box:)
That's the idea of the news site actually - to deliver news. And to give people a chance to discuss those news is another purpose of slashdot. bero-rh comments, for instance, are very informative and interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
Think porn... They pretty often split the movie into 150-200KByte pieces ;)
Oh c'mon, it's a blank-and-white world out there!
:)
Just an example to consider: English is used by plenty of people from different countries and cultures. It is not always clear what was meant by the message. And smileys help ALOT.
PS: As to the argumen of books not using smileys, I agree to both points made by respective authors:
1. Books ARE different from personal communications.
2. Books ARE misunderstood too often.
PPS: And, yes, I am not a native English speaker
The fact that someone actually can check the contents of the patch makes vendors think twice before doing something stupid. And that's important.
When you got your oil changed last, did you take the engine apart to make sure that your mechanic didn't put a rabbit in there?
Same applies here. The fact that I can open the engine and check, or give my car to another mechanic, who will check it for me and make a rabbit in the engine an obvious reason of engine malfunction, forces the first mechanic not to do so. :) :)
There are other reasons of course, but I find this one to be most persuasive
Maybe. But the fact that book exists does not mean that the editor in question needs it, does it?
The editor that comes with MSVC is usable without a book.
Define usable. The editor that comes with MSVC is not very usable on my Linux server, which has no GUI. Another thing is: will you always install MSVC when you need a good editor? You must be throwing lots of money away, or working on a single computer [no offense ment here] :)
What can VI/VIM do that it can't?
Start in less then a second even on an old crappy PC, maybe...
More importantly, what can a wide variety of alternatives do that VI/VIM can't?
Crash AND make you data disappear? :)
If you are nostalgic for the "good old days" when the ability to edit interactively was considered a great leap forward, then by all means use something like VI.
Certainly not me... I am new to computers. :)
As for me, whenever I have to deal with a *NIX box one of my first questions is "is there another editor on this box?".
As for me, whenever I have to deal with a WIN* box one of my first questions is "is there a way to WORK without mouse on this box?".
You may see the obtuseness of VI as part of the initiation; I see it as damage and route around it. Improving VI? That's like improving the buggy whip.
Some people beleive QWERTY keyboard to be better then Dvorak. You cann't blame them :)
I just got married last month. That is something to get a whole lot of experience from... Engagement preceeded the fact though. :)
This has nothing to do with diamonds (SFOF), but still funny. It was a big surprise to me that "every woman knows" that the price of cost of the engagement ring should be 3 times groom's salary, but not even half of those "every woman" know on the finger of which hand (in terms of left and right) to wear the engagement ring. Although, they are pretty comfortable with less expensive ring and Internet research for the question at hand
Just my to 0.2 euros.
Not anymore. New RedHat Linux beta (Limbo) has a GUI tool (redhat-desktop-config or something like that), which allows you to change resolution, color depth, and few other things about your display with simple mouse clicks. Check it out.
The fact that this bug was found makes me feel like someone is still using gopher. :) Haven't seen such person in a while myself.
Morning is killing me. Every day I have to wake up in the morning and I die again. Morning is not good for anything except mail and slashdot.
:) Monitor with at least 1024x768 with 6 virtual desktops to fit all my xterms ;) Afterstep is my window manager :)
Night time is the best. I should not have any light to work productively. I should not have any people around, icq, irc or phone. I should have plenty of coffee, beer, or coke.
Problems which require plenty of copy-paste kill my productivity.
Hardware is very important. Amongst the top is the keyboard. I simply cannot work on the shitty keyboard. Additionally, if the job requires mouse, it should have the wheel
Sometimes I need music, sometimes I don't. That's a moody thing.
Yeah, well...
There are three major points for my perfect email client:
1. Look and feel the same in X and console, so that I could make use of both xpdf/mozilla and remote mail reading.
2. Localization. Being non-native english speaker, this one is pretty important.
3. Keyboard navigation
For the last 4 years I am extremely satisfied with the combination:
- fetchmail (getting mail)
- procmail (sorting mail into mailboxes)
- mutt (reading/replying)
- vim (editing)
When it comes down to analyze mailbox and generate some reports, like for example, in the case with antivirus reports, I use perl with Mail::MboxParser module.
For all my friends, who need GUI to read email, I recommend using Mozilla and or Evolution
If you are looking for fresh software opposite to very well tested, then there is always a rawhide directory for you. AFAIK, those things are for the next version of RedHat distribution.
I disagree with both methodology and the result of the prediction. As to methodology - I cannot offer anything better ;-)
But result is also wrong. AFAIK (sorry, no URL) India is the second population/growth-population wise country in the world. Therefor "indian" is then supposed to be the second language to be used on the web in the future. But the problem is that there is no such language as "indian". There are plenty of dialects instead, which make English a unifying language for India. Now, I guess we should add all those native English speakers to all those Indian netters, then we add all those who consider English to be international language, and I would say that English is the winner over Chineese.
Also, Chineese is difficult to learn, multi-byte, different direction language, which makes it absolutely not convinient for Internet usage.
Taking "real--time cool translators" unknown out of equation, my bet would be on English.
Oops. I accidentally sent all of your post. :-)
Yeah, a real shame. Not my fault though. I am russian :)
It is even in three languages English, Greek and Turkish, and works in Opera for Linux. So, I would say it's pretty cool.
Wow! Until now we could only see penguins in space, underwater, in the offices, all over Internet, conferences, books, T-shirts, car bumpers and North Pole of course. But it seems that from now on we will see (? or we will now they are there) penguins all over Microsoft Staff asses. :)
...what's the deal with the domains anywya? what's wrong with IP addresses?
j/k
Here is how you can play GodMode(C):
:) Now, it's about time to convince the management to convert the whole company to Linux (or anything else). Done? Good. Move on. Now try to convince them to move back. Managed? Excellent! Now, how about convincing them, that don't need computers at all? Still want more? Make them beleive that they need the top-of-technology-state-of-the-art-machines. Now try to find those :) I can go on for ever. Till the Big Boss level where you have to push them to give everything to charity.
:)
Get a job with b big company. The bigger - the better. Make your way to the top of IT department. That was the Intro level
Ok, now I know that you are a real Bachelor. It's time for multiplayer GodMode - find guys like you and you will be entertained for a long time
Being a backup administrator in our company, I have been surprised once with restore from the tape, I knew was clean.
Apparently, this tape was formatted some time earlier and it happened that format operation was mulfunctioning in that software.
Came as one week shock though.
Thanks... I've missed the point first time.
RedHat 7.2 uses ext3 as a default. I am not sure though, which number assosiates with that, but my bet would be that it is not 83, therefor your statement about 100% of linux distributions is not true :)
I don't want to go deep into history, but not that long ago several floppies installations have been replaced by single CDs.
:)
Now we are actually doing the same thing with different media. I don't like that, to be honest.
Network installation is much more interesting idea, IMHO. It's just that one should remove all possibilities of "network unreachable" and increase bandwidth per unit of money
I guess if /. killed the site, it should mirror it :)
Here is a select-n-middlemousebuttonclick(with my formatting):
Title: Open source programmers stink at error handling.
Outline: Commercial programmers stink at it too, but that's not the point. We should be better.
Summary: Why are we subjected to so many errors? Shouldn't open source be better at this than commercial software? Where are the obsessive-compulsive programmers? Plus, more reader PHP tips. (1,400 words)
Author: By Nicholas Petreley
Body: (LinuxWorld) -- Thanks to my very talented readers I've been able to start almost every recent column with a reader's PHP tip.I'm tempted to make it a regular feature, but with my luck the tips would stop rolling in the moment I made it official.So I want you to be aware that this week's tip is not part of any regular practice. It is purely coincidental that PHP tips appear in column after column. Now that I've jinx-proofed the column, I'll share the tip.
Reader Michael Anderson wrote in with an alternative to using arrays to pass database information to PHP functions. As you may recall from the column Even more stupid PHP tricks, you can retrieve the results of a query into an array and pass that array to a function this way:
<?PHP
$result = mysql_query("select name, address from customer where cid=1");
$CUST = mysql_fetch_array($result);
do_something($CUST);
function do_something($CUST) {
echo $CUST["name"];
echo $CUST["address"];
}
?>
Michael pointed out that you can also retrieve the data as an object and reference the fields as the object's properties. Here's the above example rewritten to use objects:
<?PHP
$result = mysql_query("select name, address from customer where cid=1");
$CUST = mysql_fetch_object($result);
do_something($CUST);
function do_something($CUST) {
echo $CUST->name;
echo $CUST->address;
}
?>
I can't help but agree with Michael that this is a preferable way to handle the data, but only because it feels more natural to me to point to an object property than to reference an element of an array using the string name or address. It's purely a personal preference, probably stemming from habits I learned using C++.
Subtitle: OCD programmers unite
Nothing could be a better segue into the topic I had planned for this week. I'm thinking about starting a group called OLUG, the Obsessive Linux User Group. Although I know enough about psychology to know I don't meet the qualifications of a person with full-fledged OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), I confess that I went back and rewrote my PHP code to use objects instead of arrays even there was no technical justification for doing so.
Certain things bring out the OCD in me. Warning messages, for example. It doesn't matter if my programs seem to work perfectly. If a compiler issues warnings when I compile my code, I feel compelled to fix the code to get rid of the warnings even if I know the code works fine. Likewise, if my program generates warnings or error messages at run time, I feel driven to look for the reasons and get rid of them.
Now I don't want you to get the wrong impression. My PHP and C++ code stand as testimony to the fact that my programming practices don't even come within light years of perfection. But just because I do not live up to the standards I am about to demand isn't going to stop me from demanding them. It's my right as a columnist. Those who can, do. Those who can't, write columns.
I'll be blunt. Open source programmers need to stop being so darned lazy about error handling. That obviously doesn't include all open source programmers. You know who you are.
If you want a demonstration of what I mean, start your favorite GUI-based open source applications from the command line of an X terminal instead of a menu or icon. In most cases this will cause the errors and warnings that the application generates to appear in the terminal window where you started it. (There are exceptions, depending on the application or the script that launches the application.)
Many of the applications I use on a daily basis generate anywhere from a few warnings or error messages to a few hundred. And I'm not just talking about the debug messages that programmers use to track what a program is doing. I mean warning messages about missing files, missing objects, null pointers, and worse.
These messages raise several questions. Doesn't anyone who works on these programs check for such things?Why do they go unfixed for so long? Are these problems something that should be of concern to users?Worse, what if these messages appear because of a problem with my installation or configuration, and not because the program hasn't been fully debugged?But even if it is my installation that is broken, shouldn't the application report the errors? Why do I have to start the application from a terminal window to see the messages?
Subtitle: Getting a handle on errors
At first I wondered if this was a problem that you would be more likely to find when developers use one graphical toolkit rather than another. But I see both good and bad error handling no matter which tools people use. For example, the GNOME/Gtk word processor AbiWord has been flawless lately. Not a single warning or error message appears in the console. It's possible that AbiWord simply isn't directing output to the console, but I'm guessing that it's simply a well-tested and well-behaved application.
On the other hand, GNOME itself has been a nightmare for me lately. At one point I got so frustrated that I deleted all the configuration files for all of GNOME and GTK applications in my home directory in disgust, determined never to use them again. When I regained my composure and restarted GNOME with the intent of finding the cause of the problems, the problems had already disappeared. Obviously one or more of my configuration files had been at fault. Which one, I may never know, because GNOME or some portion of it lacked the proper error handling that should have told me.
In this case I was lucky that the problems were so bad I lost my temper and deleted the configuration files. In most cases, the applications appear to function normally. Aside from being ignorant of any messages unless you start the application from a terminal, there's no way of knowing why the warnings exist, or if they are cause for concern. The warnings could be harmless, or they could mean the application will eventually crash, corrupt data, or worse.
Subtitle: Examples
Just so you know I'm not making this up, here are some samples of the console messages that appeared after just a couple of minutes of toying with various programs. By the way, did you know you can actually configure the Linux kernel from the KDE control panel? Bravo to whoever added this feature. Nevertheless, when I activate that portion of the control panel, I get the message:
QToolBar::QToolBar main window cannot be 0.
Is there supposed to be a toolbar that isn't displayed as a result? I may never know.
The e-mail client sylpheed generates this informative message after about a minute of use:
Sylpheed-CRITICAL **: file main.c: line 346 (get_queued_message_num): assertion `queue != NULL' failed.
The Ximian Evolution program generates tons of warnings, but most are repetitions. They begin with the following:
evolution-shell-WARNING **: Cannot activate Evolution component -- OAFIID:GNOME_Evolution_Calendar_ShellComponent
evolution-shell-WARNING **: e_folder_type_registry_get_icon_for_type() -- Unknown type `calendar'
evolution-shell-WARNING **: e_folder_type_registry_get_icon_for_type() -- Unknown type `tasks'
The KDE Aethera client generates even more warning messages than Evolution, but many of them are simply debug messages about what the program is doing. By the way, I finally figured out why I couldn't login to my IMAP server with Aethera. The Aethera client couldn't deal with the asterisks in my password. I could log in after I changed my password, but I still can't see my mail. The program simply leaves the folder empty and says there's nothing to sync. Here are just a few of the countless warnings I get from Aethera, including the sync message.
Warning: ClientVFS::_fact_ref could not create object vfolderattribute:/Magellan/Mail/default.fattr
Reason(s): -- object does not exist on server
Warning: VFolder *_new() was called on an already registered path
clientvfs: warning: could not create folder [spath:imap_00141, type:imap]
RemoteMailFolder::sync() : Nothing to sync!
The spreadsheet Kspread reports these errors all the time, even though what I'm doing has nothing to do with dates or times:
QTime::setHMS Invalid time -1:-1:-1.000
QDate::setYMD: Invalid date -001/-1/-1
The e-mail client Balsa popped up these messages just moments after using it:
changing server settings for '' ((nil))
** WARNING **: Cannot find expected file "gnome-multipart-mixed.png" (spliced with "pixmaps") with no extra prefixes
The Gnumeric spreadsheet only reported that it couldn't find the help file, as shown below:
Bonobo-WARNING **: Could not open help topics file NULL for app gnumeric
Many of these problems could easily have been handled more intelligently. For example, Gnumeric could have asked for the correct path to the help file, perhaps adding an option so a user can decide not to install the help files and disable the message. Unless GTK and Bonobo are a lot more complicated than they should be, it should be easy to create a generic component for handling things like this and then use the component to handle all optional help files as a rule.
The only conclusion I can draw is that, like most commercial software developers, many open source programmers are just plain lazy about proper error handling. But we're supposed to be better than that, and it's time we started to live up to the reputation. I realize that most of these programs are works in progress. But good error handling is not something that should be left for last. It should be part of the development process. Although I may not practice it myself, I'm not the least bit ashamed to preach it.
...be funny actually... :)
:)
:)
1. CNN article titled "Windows XP hits the streets" pops up "Shit hits the fan" in my head.
2. Pictures of Bill Gates in both (CNN and BBC) articles are funny
3. From CNN: "The system promises fewer computer crashes and will allow users to delete data from their hard drive." That sounds interesting. I guess it's time for Windows users to clean up some disk space after 6 years since Win95.
4. Gates says (from CNN again): "Today is a great day for PC users and a great day for the PC industry," said Gates. "With the launch of Windows XP, we are entering an exciting new era of personal computing."
The era of Open Source and Free Software I presume.
"This powerful new version of Windows offers so much to customers --"
...that they are not sure if they want it all.
"...it unlocks the full power of the PC and enables them to enjoy the best of what the digital world has to offer."
So, they actually decided to switch from MS products?
"New York City is the perfect place to announce the worldwide availability of Windows XP," he said.
Not to offend anyone, but the guy is not without a sense of humor. Black humor, but humor.
5. In general, both articles (especially quotes) are a fun to read if you think for a moment that MS is sure that XP will kill Windows and promote OSS/FS.
I guess you are a bit wrong in here. I didn't know and I will upgrade my test box
That's the idea of the news site actually - to deliver news. And to give people a chance to discuss those news is another purpose of slashdot. bero-rh comments, for instance, are very informative and interesting.