John Check writes:
> On Monday 13 May 2002 7:38 pm, Christian Mayer wrote:
> <snip>
> > As written earlier: I didn't like EMACS as I tried it (c'mon, which sane
> > person programms in LISP?). I'll rather try vi (I'm also using it on a
> > few big HPUX at work). Oh, AFAIK you can replace the internal editor of
> > KDevelop with VIM if you want...
> >
> > CU,
> > Christian
> 
> Kind of OT but a snappy quote nonetheless....
> 
> "Calling EMACS a text editor is like calling James Bond a civil servant"

I wanted so much to stay out of this thread, but I'm a glutton for
punishment I guess ...

I agree in large part with Andy's comments.

MSVC like anything else has it's strengths and weaknesses.  I'll avoid
the temptation to take a few obvious pot shots. :-)

Unix like anything else has it's strengths and weaknesses.

I think to demand a superset of MSVC strengths on unix is largely
unfair.  Unix is different, and unix developers have a different set
of tools at their disposal so they often go about solving problems in
different ways.  How you think about a problem, and how you tackle it
is largely affected by the tools you have mastered.

Someone switching from MSVC to unix needs to be prepaired for some
pain.  Expect to waste a lot of time coming up to speed on concepts
like regular expressions, piping applications together, and learning
how to type ... not to mention needing to learn the specifics of using
a myriad of small tools.

It would be similar for someone going the other direction.  A unix
developer would feel stiffled being strapped into a single app only
being able to do the things available on the menus ... and an MSVC
program is nothing more than a "document" and all the useful stuff
that get's done happens as side effects of call backs for opening the
document.  That is just a little too wierd.  And then not being able
to flip between multiple "virtual" desktops and dog slow "command"
windows would make life miserable.  Fortunately, Linux is open-source,
so just about every program you could get for linux, you can compile
and run on windows.  Cygwin is a very impressive practical example of
this.

I'm sure my biases are showing through (which is hard to avoid)

I think the best bet is to approach unix with an open mind and a
willingness to learn something new.  Don't demand productivity from
day one.  Don't demand a tool set identical to what you have on
windows.  Do expect to learn a different way to approach problems.  Do
expect a different culture of users.  Do expect some pain getting up
to speed.  Buy a good linux book (last I looked the suse manual was a
fabulous introduction to many areas of unix/linux.)  Maybe take an
intro to unix class.  I've been doing unix longer than windows 3.1 or
greater (oops bad word, I should say newer) :-) has existed (I think)
so I'm tainted. :-)

Curt.
-- 
Curtis Olson   IVLab / HumanFIRST Program       FlightGear Project
Twin Cities    [EMAIL PROTECTED]                  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Minnesota      http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt   http://www.flightgear.org

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