Linux-Development-Sys Digest #345, Volume #6 Fri, 29 Jan 99 03:14:43 EST
Contents:
Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows (Leslie Mikesell)
Ignorant Socalists (was disheartened gnome developer) ("Bob Taylor")
Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: TAO: the ultimate OS (Matthew Hannigan)
Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows (doug)
Re: - deprecated - why? (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows (Peter Samuelson)
Re: [HELP] How to determine daemon's TCP/IP ports? (Tony Hoyle)
Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows (Mike Dowling)
Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows (Peter Samuelson)
Re: What Am I Missing (Peter Samuelson)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows
Date: 28 Jan 1999 23:35:29 -0600
In article <78qfv0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>>we are talking about new users comming to use Linux for first time, and
>>>suggesting simple things, like adding examples in man pages, to help them
>>>in the process.
>>
>
>>I don't see a lot of middle ground here. You either understand what
>>rm -rf . means or you shouldn't be typing it.
>
>You are really not thinking here.
>
>The example will help someone UNDERSTAND what a command means.
>one shows an example, then explain what the example does.
>An example is an illustration. it is an aid to help someone understand.
It can be. But I don't think that is what people are suggesting
here. I think they are looking for the command with the options
that they happen to want at the moment without having to understand
them.
>An example alone byitself is not enough off course. it just helps people
>understand. it is something extra. some might not need it, some might.
Man pages always show an example with all the options at the beginning.
Once you know how to read it, it doesn't help much to show it
again with fewer options. Useful examples would be the complicated
ones that involve shell and environment variable expansion, wildcards,
pipelines, backtick expansion and the like, but beginners aren't
going to understand them unless they have made the effort to learn
how the shell works first.
>>No, the current situation is the result of experience with end users not
>>a new thing. End users that don't want to learn how to use power tools
>>should have someone else do it for them.
>
>I think you are just going off a steep tanget here.
No, I have some experience with helping people use unix.
>Examples help users learn. First, you do not want examples that will
>help users learn, then you complain that user do not want to learn.
>amazing logic you have.
I'm not complaining, I'm recognizing facts. There are different
types of users. 90% of the users want to use the computers to get
a job done. These people do not want to learn how the computer
works - they have a certain number of things to do and get along
just fine with some menu choices. If you are running a business
it is a waste of money for these people to be reading man pages
with or without examples. The other 10% either want to learn or
are forced to because none of the simple ready-made things that
you can attach to menus work for the job they want to do. These
people get along fine with the current reference-text style of man
pages and they do it much better if they digest the shell syntax
and semantics before the rest of the tools so they understand the
difference between 'rm xxx/*' and 'rm xxx /*'. Otherwise they will
learn by experience.
>All what people are saying, is that one or two examples at end of a man page
>helps many people understand something more. This is not a new concept,
>VMS had this for more than 25 years now. In VMS every command has examples,
>does this mean VMS users are dump, or VMS engineers like to waste their
>time by adding all those examples to every VMS command?
Hmmm, you said it.
>Your position is opposing this simple and obviouse point just
>goes to show why Unix might never makes it as an end user system and why
>many new users view it as hard to use.
I'm all for making a simple front end that will let people do
the basic operations without needing to understand the system.
This has been done with varying degrees of success.
However, if someone does intend to type commands directly, I
think they should learn what they mean. Otherwise it is like
learning a little about law or medicine or driving without an
understanding of traffic rules.
>Maybe one day the Unix programmers will wake up before it is too late.
Too late? I think unix is aging very well. I have a printed
'Unix System User's Manual' circa 1982 that is basically the
man pages and it still serves nicely as a reference. The
time I spent reading the 8 pages of sh(1) back then have been
repaid many times over and retained its value longer than most
computer-related things. I recommend it highly...
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ("Bob Taylor")
Subject: Ignorant Socalists (was disheartened gnome developer)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.x
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 06:00:52 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Michael Powe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[snip]
>
> Marcin> Greed is human characteristics, not political
> Marcin> characteristics, stupid.
>
> Fortunately, your lack of manners is not a human characteristic, but
> one of persons not brought up in a proper home. You have my sympathy
> for your deprivation.
You are wrong on *both* counts.
> >> Even the corporations, billionaires, and politicians all
> >> understand that capitalism is destructive; they ceased to
> >> believe in it after the Great Depression.
>
> Marcin> Actually, Great Depression was caused by government, or
> Marcin> Federal Reserve ineptly replacing clearing system worked
> Marcin> out by banks, which successfully defended against runs on
> Marcin> banks on the beginning of 20th century for example.
>
> A shame your expertise does not match your presumption. The 19th
> Century and early 20th Century were just a long cycle of economic
> growth, recession and depression. I don't know to what "runs on
> banks" you are referring, or why, since the major economic problems of
> recessions are not associated with these.
If you don't know what "runs on banks" means then you are also ignorant
concerning the events of and shortly after 1929.
> Marcin> Actually, the body of evidence against socialism is
> Marcin> staggering. There were lots of various flavors of
> Marcin> socialism, all of them failed.
>
> There's no such body of evidence. All the evidence is that
> cooperative projects are far more effective in reaching goals than
> tooth-and-claw competition. Certainly, cooperation is more effective
> than the monopolistic capitalism which you unthinkingly worship.
My yes! You really *do* live in another universe. It is a *fact* that
Socialism has failed miserably. Furthermore Capitalism and a free
market created the most effective, powerful and largest economy the
world has ever seen while Socialism has created misery, poverty and
a dirty environment. This is *fact*. Please take your Socialist
Propaganda back to the sewer from which it came. Any attempt to show
you the facts that are before your very eyes does nothing more than
prove how BLIND you are. You insufferable, arrogant pseudo
intellectual.
Please note Followup-To.
Bob
--
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows
Date: 29 Jan 1999 00:01:06 -0600
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Nix <$}xin{[email protected]> wrote:
>Jan Andres <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>> I think this is the way Unix is meant to be used: You don't have
>> multiple programs that partially do the same thing, as this would be
>> like reinventing the wheel.
>
>The exception that proves the rule: awk sed perl
Historically those didn't all exist at the same time. Awk does
things sed doesn't, perl came later and does even more. Sed
is nearly a straight superset of grep, though. If sed had been
done first, operating as grep could have been a command line
option.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthew Hannigan)
Crossposted-To:
alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.os.misc,comp.sys.misc,comp.unix.advocacy
Subject: Re: TAO: the ultimate OS
Date: 26 Jan 1999 01:21:44 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
steve mcadams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>[Snipped for brevity, quoted material marked with ">"]
>On 22 Jan 1999 23:26:32 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jeremy Crabtree)
>wrote:
>
>>Better yet, show us the agreement you made with Tao Systems that let's you
>>use the name of /their/ OS
>
>I doubt they can prevent it. It's not like they invented the word Tao
>ya know, it's been around for what, 4,000 years? -steve
Er, so has the word 'Sun'. But just try and start up another
computer company called Sun!
------------------------------
From: doug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 11:05:25 -0500
Walter van der Schee wrote:
>
> Anyway, to make a long story short, we (the UNIX/Linux community) need
> to rewrite the man-pages and put them in a seperate package.
>
> Any comments?
>
> Walter van der Schee
Walter,
I think some pages could be better. A complete
rewrite is kinda going overboard. Alot of people
simply don't read, and wouldn't read, the directions no matter how
simplified they were.
I think Windows proved that. You could spend the time doing the
wonderful rewrite down to what you feel is a very understandable
workable level and as soon as you distribute them you would get the same
questions from the same people. Windows found this out and now tries as
much as possible to configure and install automatically with nothing
more than a few clicks from the user. I kinda think that if someone
can't understand what's going on now, perhaps with alot of research and
a few questions, that maybe it is best if they not even get involved
with Linux (Unix). Linux does not have to be for everyone, and perhaps
should not. Doug
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Subject: Re: - deprecated - why?
Date: 28 Jan 1999 10:06:40 -0600
In article <78ogu0$pck$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Matthew Hannigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>>What the heck is Unix98, anyway?
>>
>> The commercial Unix world rolling over and giving the market to
>> NT, that's what.
>>
>>>How is it diffrent than POSIX, X/OPEN, FIPS, etc?
>>
>> It's *new*, and it's *improved*, and it's *better* because it's
>> *new* and *improved*.
>Aren't you being a little too cynical?
>
>Conventional wisdom says that Unix has to get standardised
>to some extent at least or NT will rule. Your first
>sentence seems to carry the opposite view.
>
>Care to explain?
The best standards are the ones that pick the best of an existing,
well tested, freely available code base and specify that for
new work. The worst thing is to come up with something that
breaks all the old code and doesn't give you anything new. I don't
know enough about Unix98 to say which category applies but you
are correct in saying that the earlier standards didn't quite
work well enough, so I'm not really optimistic about new ones either.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows
Date: 29 Jan 1999 00:23:59 -0600
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> > I don't see a lot of middle ground here. You either understand
> > what rm -rf . means or you shouldn't be typing it.
[<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> You are really not thinking here.
Beg to differ. He really is thinking here. I agree with him, in fact:
if you do not understand `rm -rf .' you should not be using it.
> > End users that don't want to learn how to use power tools should
> > have someone else do it for them.
> I think you are just going off a steep tanget here.
I think Les is talking from the POV of the earlier suggestion that if
you want to learn `find' you should read the manpage on `sh'. Anyone
who knows how to use `find' knows why this is: you have to know about
shell metacharacters and how/why to escape them, or you'll have a
terrible time with `find'.
Not a tangent -- quite relevant, in my opinion. The original poster
(whose identity I have lost track of) was complaining about having a
lot of trouble figuring out how to use `find'. In my experience the
hardest thing to figure out about `find' is quoting those metachars.
Assuming that was the difficulty, a suggestion to read up on the shell
is more than appropriate. If you are not willing to read about shell
for use with `find', it will only bite you when you start having
trouble with metacharacters for `sed'. And `tr'. And `grep'....
> All what people are saying, is that one or two examples at end of a
> man page helps many people understand something more. This is not a
> new concept, VMS had this for more than 25 years now.
I learned Unix largely from manpages, with the occaional question for
the gurus thrown in here and there. For those who cannot do what I
did, and I know some people can, there are intro-to-Unix books. These
always have plenty of examples.
But there are many users who will not read man pages, examples or no
examples. These are the same people who own "Linux Unleashed" but have
never opened it either. Maybe you have never dealt with this type. I
have. They have no interest in learning something new, they want the
system to be intuitive enough that they don't have to learn anything.
No command line is going to ever be there. Ever.
> Maybe one day the Unix programmers will wake up before it is too late.
Now this sentence makes absolutely no sense. Too late for what?
After a low profile in the '80s, Unix has been getting more and more
popular for several years now. Linux in particular has been growing
its user base almost exponentially in the past few years. This despite
any alleged problems understanding manpages. All this has of course
pros and cons. The big con, of course, being that there are getting to
be a lot of stupid users out there, formerly babysat by Apple and
Microsoft, that we now have to contend with.
So if we manage to turn off the users who can't even parse a manpage,
and send them running back to the wonderful world of Windoze 2002, what
have we lost? I will not be crying. I will be more than a little
surprised, however, if the trend is even noticeable. There are no
indications so far of a mass revolt against Linux because people have
suddenly realized that some manpages aren't written with art history
majors in mind.
Did that sound snotty? (Yes.) Oh well. I really do not see why one
OS has to be for everyone. If you want to make it for everyone,
please. Be a hero. Patch and redistribute those pesky manpages with
all the examples people can ever want. Earn a place in Valhalla. (If
you aren't planning to contribute to this effort, maybe you can explain
why not, and maybe even withdraw your complaint.)
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: Tony Hoyle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: [HELP] How to determine daemon's TCP/IP ports?
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 16:40:02 +0000
Lam Dang wrote:
>
> Given an executable running on, say, Red Hat
> 5.2, is it possible to determine the TCP/IP port
> or ports it responds to, without documentation and
> source? If so, what's the best way to do it?
>
netstat -a will list the sockets that are being listened on,
and 'fuser -n tcp <port>' should list the apps using a given port
(although I couldn't get that bit to work on my system).
====================================================================================
If Bill Gates had a dime for every time a Windows box crashed...
.... Oh, wait a minute, he already does.
====================================================================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://falklands.magenta-logic.com
====================================================================================
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mike Dowling)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows
Date: 28 Jan 1999 16:41:37 GMT
On 28 Jan 1999 00:03:01 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>There is by the way some people in the world, who believe that one should
>only give theories and proofs and no examples. There is some of this
>mentaility in the field of mathematics, where you find some Math book
>or Math teachers where only theoris are defined, proofs shown, but no
>examples of how a theory is used given.
>
>This way the book remain 'pure'. However almost all students
>would say that books with examples makes it much easier to
>understand the theory.
Of course, it is bad style not to give examples, where possible. It's not
always possible. For example, there is no means of trisecting an angle
using only a ruler and a compass. Now give me an example! I can give you
the proof.
Being able to prove something is being able to understand it.
But, heck, what has this got to do with comp.os.linux.development?
Please continue this thread in comp.os.linux.advocate. At least, cross post
it there. That way I get the thread kill filed automatically. Please,
please, cross this damn thread!
Cheers,
Mike Dowling
--
My email address [EMAIL PROTECTED] above is a valid email address.
It is, in fact, a sendmail alias; the digit 'N' is incremented regularly.
Spammed aliases will be deleted. Currently, mike[5,7,8] have been deleted.
If email to mikeN bounces, try mikeN+1.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Why I'm dumping Linux, going back to Windblows
Date: 29 Jan 1999 00:51:42 -0600
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[John]
> > How many man pages have rewritten so far? What response did you
> > receive from the maintainers you submitted them to?
[<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> I think of a man page as PART of the system. when I modify the
> program, I certainly need to update the man page at the same time to
> reflect the changes.
Ummm, that wasn't the question. And I think it is a good question.
The sort of question where your answer will demonstrate your
credibility on the issue.
I'll answer the question, to get you started. I have only patched one
manpage in my life that I can recall (Debian packaging of GNU cmp), and
the maintainer never responded. Then again, this is probably because I
was adding a nontrivial feature to the program, which is of course why
I rewrote the page, and I guess the feature wasn't wanted. (Details,
for the curious or suspicious, are at http://bugs.debian.org/16735 .)
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Samuelson)
Subject: Re: What Am I Missing
Date: 29 Jan 1999 01:16:32 -0600
Reply-To: Peter Samuelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[Smitty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]
> I have been developing application for DOS and Windows for many years
> now, and have gotten bored with it, so I switched to Linux.
Sounds like a good reason.
> Why isn't there a decent IDE to go with this beautiful Front End !
Depends on how you define "decent IDE". I've got a perfectly fine IDE
by combining XEmacs, make, gcc, gdb, and (optionally) an X server.
I can't think what more a "real" IDE offers:
- Specialized text editor: XEmacs in C mode does color syntax
highlighting, automatic indentation, xref tags, and excellent
version control support.
- Integrated compiler: Emacs drives make (which drives gcc) and parses
gcc error messages well enough to put me on the relevant line of
code.
- Integrated debugger: XEmacs in GUD mode drives gdb plenty well
enough for me. Perhaps memory watching could be a little more
obvious. Some say DDD is good for this but I haven't felt the need
to try it out yet.
- Project files: I like Makefiles just fine. They're not hard to set
up. They're also very flexible.
- Library reference: XEmacs has a pretty context-sensitive `man'
command.
Anyway, there do exist other programmer's editors out there for Linux,
some of which aspire to be a full IDE. I haven't tried them. Look
around. For me, I find XEmacs much more powerful than anything I have
seen labeled "IDE", not that I've had *that* much experience with
anything but Borland C++ for DOS.
--
Peter Samuelson
<sampo.creighton.edu!psamuels>
------------------------------
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