Hallo, again!
On Thu, Jul 19, 2007 at 08:29:28PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> On Thursday 19 July 2007 08:08:15 Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 18, 2007 at 11:37:38PM -0400,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
[ .... ]
> When I said you are stubborn I was not being unkind. I was stating a
> fact that you have clearly demonstrated in all your posts. You don't
> like change and you don't really like the new technology that is
> available. You want to do things the old way. That is stubborn or a
> softer way to say it you are set in your ways and don't want to change.
Ah, OK. I suspect you are just as "stubborn" in always using the newest
thing. ;-)
As hackers, we are continually bombarded with novelties (and "novelties")
in our field, and I think far too few people ask whether they're any
good, or actually work. Back before the days of Python, when a cobra was
thick, thick cable running under a false floor:
(i) "Everybody" first drew flowcharts before starting to code;
(ii) Variable length character codes abounded; on George (OS for ICL
1900s) characters were 6 bits, and some of them were "shift" characters
to get upper case.
(iii) In common languages like Algol 60, you delimited blocks etc. with
stropped keywords: 'begin' and 'end' (including the quotes). Yuck!
A bit later, thankfully:
(i) People realised flowcharts were actually drawn after the program was
finished, were unreadable and a waste of time anyhow.
(ii) Computers moved to fixed length character codes, like ASCII and
ISO-8559-1; what a relief!
(iii) In common languages, blocks got delimited with '{' and '}' (without
the quotes).
Fast forward to 2007:
(i) Managers think you should draw UML pictures before starting to code;
despite the dearth of studies showing it's anything other than a waste
of time;
(ii) We're getting a variable length character code (UTF8) imposed on us,
complete with "shift" characters to get ä,ö,ü,ß and friends; all for
the convenience of software distributors and that tiny number of people
who need to write in several languages at once.
(iii) We've got XML, where you need to delimit blocks with stropped
keywords: <Long_Unreadable_Tag_Name> and </Long_Unreadable_Tag_Name>
(including the angle brackets). This is so ugly and ungainly that you
really need special tools to edit it - a normal text editor won't cut
it.
Oh, yes and there's
(iv) TFT monitors: with a coarser resolution that CRTs, and so
unresponsive that you actually see visible mouse trails as you move the
mouse and colour fringes as your text scrolls.
But up-to-date always means better, doesn't it? Anybody who has the
audacity to ask whether UML, UTF8, XML and TFT screens are actually any
good, or even what they are good for, gets silenced; whether by being
sacked, side-lined, ridiculed ("don't be ridiculous!"), whatever. It's
not that there aren't arguments for all these novelties; it's that you're
not allowed even to raise the issue, just like in the USA and UK you're
prevented from questioning whether "terrorism" is actually a meaningful
threat at all. [See Paul Graham's essay at
<http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html>.]
So, yes, I'm scepical about new things. That said, I have no doubt
whatever that the most recent release of OpenOffice is better than the
older ones. It's just I don't want to spend the time learning it right
now.
> > Here's a challenge to you: specify a GNU/Linux distribution to me
> > that I can download and straightforwardly install - only routine
> > questions to answer - no gotchas, no "oh, that won't work on _your_
> > hardware I'm afraid, _sir_". That is, it will recognise my video
> > card and mouse and set up my X-Windows properly, recognise my
> > Ethernet connection and hook up to my router, set up my Printer (it's
> > on the parallel port, by the way), leaving me all the customary
> > virtual terminal stuff. My PC is 6 years old, has a 1.2 GHz Athlon
> > and 768 Mb of RAM on an EP-8K7A+ motherboard, and only bog-standard
> > hardware expect for my hard drives being at /dev/hd[gh], hanging off
> > a bolt-on UDMA100 IDE chip on the PCA bus. Distributions which have
> > patent agreements with Microsoft are out, by the way. I doubt you
> > can.
> I will gladly answer your challenge. Go to http://www.pclinuxos.com I
> use to run Fedora and had to jump through hoops to get it to work the
> way I wanted it to work. PcLinuxOS simply works and the developers
> don't have _any_ agreements with Microsoft.
OK. It's downloading as I write. I'm sceptical, but I'm keeping an open
mind.
[ .... ]
--
Alan Mackenzie (Ittersbach, Germany).
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