From: wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Why horrible code? Date: 17 Jan 1998 09:00:19 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Lines: 8 Message-ID: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!news1.chicago.iagnet.net!iagnet.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu!wendling Hi all, Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? -- || Bill Wendling wendling@ncsa.uiuc.edu ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: smyers@popmail.voicenet.com Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Reply-To: smyers@popmail.voicenet.com References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.2.5 Lines: 66 Message-ID: <7Pkw.29$%o3.1339145@news3.voicenet.com> Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 10:28:19 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: chill.nj.107.voicenet.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 05:28:19 EST Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.voicenet.com!news3.voicenet.com.POSTED!not-for-mail I think there are many reasons why code is so often so bad. 1) Most people develop a style of coding that is often intelligible to them, but not to others. Example, when I write in S/360 Assembler I use BXLE and BXH to form loops, but most people find these instructions difficult to understand. 2) Often the original code is not quite right, and many times it is easier to break the planned approach for the fix, which can be confusing to say the least. The is a particular problem for languages that do not have a block structure. 3) Documentation is a major problem. This seems to be particularly true in block structured langauges. 4) In a sense, programming is like poetry. Even a superbly well documented program contains elements that are undocumentable, that are different from the documentation, or that were never documented. Skills that literature freaks learn to take understand literature should, perhaps, be extended to programming, but usually are not. 5) It is a truism that the program itself is its own document. Generally real programs solve issues beyond the problem statement, because the problem statement is nothing more than a model of the real problem. The problem statement, though, is never updated to match the problem solved. 5a) The other reason the problem statement is inadequate is that it rarely mentions non-problem details, like the mechanics of obtaining file names, opening and closing these files, and what is supposed to be done if a file is not there. Or the mechanics of receiving and (especially) validating the input data processed by a program. 6) It is a truism that programming may well be great art, but it does not last. A ten year old version of TurboTax, for example, is useless today. For this reason, people do not make a great effort to understand code, even their own code, after the fact. In <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) writes: >Hi all, > >Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy >code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just >ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? > >-- >|| Bill Wendling wendling@ncsa.uiuc.edu -- Steve Myers The E-mail addresses in this message are private property. Any use of them to send unsolicited E-mail messages of a commerical nature will be considered trespassing, and the originator of the message will be sued in small claims court in Camden County, New Jersey, for the maximum penalty allowed by law. ###### From: cbh@REMOVE_THIS.teabag.demon.co.uk (Chris Hedley) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 18 Jan 1998 11:40:14 GMT Organization: teabag Message-ID: <69spmu$2a4$2@teabag.demon.co.uk> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost X-NNTP-Posting-Host: teabag.demon.co.uk [193.237.4.110] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.8 Lines: 13 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-dc-3.sprintlink.net!news-dc-1.sprintlink.net!news-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!teabag.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail In article <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) writes: > Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy > code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just > ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? Sometimes lack of time, sometimes laziness, sometimes lack of discipline, sometimes incompetence, sometimes inexperience; in my experience, it generally depends on the circumstances and the individual, although in the latter case I have encountered some people who qualify for most of the things I've listed! Chris. ###### From: cbh@REMOVE_THIS.teabag.demon.co.uk (Chris Hedley) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 18 Jan 1998 11:40:14 GMT Organization: teabag Message-ID: <69spmu$2a4$2@teabag.demon.co.uk> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost X-NNTP-Posting-Host: teabag.demon.co.uk [193.237.4.110] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.8 Lines: 13 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-dc-3.sprintlink.net!news-dc-1.sprintlink.net!news-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!teabag.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail In article <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) writes: > Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy > code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just > ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? Sometimes lack of time, sometimes laziness, sometimes lack of discipline, sometimes incompetence, sometimes inexperience; in my experience, it generally depends on the circumstances and the individual, although in the latter case I have encountered some people who qualify for most of the things I've listed! Chris. ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 20 Jan 1998 08:21:19 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 13 Message-ID: <6a1mpv$rol$1@nntp4.u.washington.edu> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34C40728.D84423CC@ind.tansu.com.au> <6a168h$ijk$1@darla.visi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul3.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp4.u.washington.edu 885284479 28437 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!204.186.0.13.MISMATCH!ptdnetP!newsgate.ptd.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article <6a168h$ijk$1@darla.visi.com>, J. Otto Tennant wrote: > The horrible code is caused by inappropriate >choice of data structures to use in resolving the problem: define the >data first, before the first line of code is written. This is an interesting viewpoint. Maurice Wilkes said soemthing similar (essentially, "Choose the right data structure before you write the program and the problem will be much easier to solve.") And he helped design and build EDSAC (the first working, large-scale, stored-program computer) and wrote a very interesting programming textbook at the time. So he should know. -- Derek ###### From: kjg@dfw.net (Kevin Gilhooly) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 09:58:28 -0600 Organization: DFW Internet Services, Inc. Lines: 36 Message-ID: <1d35f98.1o7q83i11ggfncN@ppp77.dallas.dfw.net> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp77.dallas.dfw.net X-Newsreader: MacSOUP 2.3 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-xfer.netaxs.com!netnews.com!paperboy01.iconnet.net!news.dfw.net!kjg Bill Wendling wrote: > Hi all, > > Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy > code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just > ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? > There are three versions of any program: 1) What the user wants 2) What the user needs 3) What is delivered How to write a program (in pseudocode): While (budget.available) { User.provide(requirements); Developer.design(program); Developer.code(program); User.redefine(requirements); } If requirements change during development, you can end up miles from the original "solution", and most people code around the previoyus attempt, rather than starting over. Of course, my usual defense to code appearance is, "Hey, if it's hard to write, it should be hard to read!" kjg "You can have it fast, you can have it cheap, you can have it right - pick any two" ###### Date: 20 Jan 98 15:30:02 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> Message-ID: <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 32 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.skybus.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.229.87.25!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.126 In article <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) writes: >On Sun, 18 Jan 98 09:16:08 GMT, Robert Billing > wrote: > >> There are three causes of bad code. >> >> 1) Confusion >> 2) Bill Gates >> 3) There's never time to do it right, there's always time to do it >> again. > >I certainly agree with (1) and (3), but I fail to see how (2) has >anything to do with bad code, except that it is now possible for >thousands of people who could never before program to write bad code, >but why is this a problem? Everybody starts out writing bad code, and >matures. Bill Gates proved that you can make billions (literally!) with mediocre code - all you need is enough marketing skill. This was the death knell of carefully-crafted code in the mass market. Why waste time and effort making truly good code if you can get the peepul to settle for less? Even worse, if you spend too much time on quality, some half-assed piece of crap will beat you to market and close your window of opportunity. "Eat shit - 50,000,000 flies can't be wrong." -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: "John D. Burleson" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? X-Nntp-Posting-Host: help.stl.mo.boeing.com Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------C1B6814F85DFA8E7FCDB635B" Message-ID: <34C4DB32.46E81227@boeing.com> Sender: nntp@news.boeing.com (Boeing NNTP News Access) Organization: The Boeing Company - McDonnell Douglas - Huntsville Division References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <1d35f98.1o7q83i11ggfncN@ppp77.dallas.dfw.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 17:13:22 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4u) Lines: 59 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newspeer.monmouth.com!europa.clark.net!208.134.241.18!newsfeed.internetmci.com!199.0.154.56!ais.net!uunet!in2.uu.net!xyzzy!nntp This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------C1B6814F85DFA8E7FCDB635B Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Kevin Gilhooly wrote: > > Bill Wendling wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy > > code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just > > ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? > > > > While (budget.available) > { > User.provide(requirements); > Developer.design(program); > Developer.code(program); > User.redefine(requirements); > } > Unfortunately (all too often) it's: While (budget.available) do in parallel { .... } -- John Burleson (mailto:john.d.burleson@boeing.com) Principal Software Engineer The Boeing Company/McDonnell Douglas Aerospace/Huntsville (205)922-7589 FAX:(205)922-4890 --------------C1B6814F85DFA8E7FCDB635B Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="vcard.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Burleson, John Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="vcard.vcf" begin: vcard fn: John Burleson n: Burleson;John org: The Boeing Co. - McDonnell Douglas Aerospace adr: 689 Discovery Dr.;;MS 32C1;Huntsville;AL;35806-2804;USA email;internet: john.d.burleson@boeing.com title: Principal Software Engineer - System and Technology Development tel;work: 205-922-7589 tel;fax: 205-922-4890 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: TRUE version: 2.1 end: vcard --------------C1B6814F85DFA8E7FCDB635B-- ###### From: werme@alingo.zk3.dec.com (Eric Werme) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 20 Jan 98 20:21:50 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Lines: 55 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> Reply-To: werme@zk3.dec.com NNTP-Posting-Host: alingo.zk3.dec.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!4.1.16.34!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news1.digital.com!pa.dec.com!lead.zk3.dec.com!nntpd.lkg.dec.com!alingo.zk3.dec.com!werme wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) writes: >Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy >code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just >ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? I'm a little surprised at the replies to date. When I went to college at Carnegie-Mellon in 1968, few people had grown up with computers around home. While my father designed process control computers and taught me how to program part of one in 1963, he thought programming would be a fairly uninteresting task, so I didn't pursue tempting things like the Packard Bell 250 at work. However, one of the reasons I chose C-MU was for its CS dept. As a freshman I took S600, the CS intro to computers course, which was taught Algol on an Univac 1108. I quickly discovered Dad was wrong! I also discovered that while most freshman qualified for Mensa, very few did well programming. One person in particular produced incredibly difficult to read code that was 3X bigger than necessary. (He went on to become an operator at a nuclear plant down the river.) On the other hand, I wrote an orbit simulation program that term. The next year Gotos were considered harmful and structured programming was all the rage. Looked at my old program - beautifully structured. As a senior, I took a simulation course. Looked at my old program and found more efficient techniques than were needed to do well in that course! So I concluded that programming talent is a rare trait. Clearly I had it, clearly other people do to, clearly many don't. Last Christmas my sister gave me a book by Thomas Sowell on "Late Talking Children", which he wrote about his son and others he found though his newspaper column. I didn't start talking until four or so, but impressed my 2nd grade teacher by keeping Webster's Collegiate dictionary at school. (I had it mainly for its Roman numerals and number names, e.g. dodecillion.) These kids are nearly alsways male, tend get along fine without talking, catch up quickly, often need some speech therapy, are great at math and wind up in the computer field. (Or nuclear physicists before computers were common - I think Einstein and Feynmann were also late talkers.) Now, people who grew up with Apples and Commodores were exposed to programming and late talkers probably found their way into the field. I'm not so sure about kids today - my Win 95 system needs no programming to be useful. (Of course, a case can readily be made that it needs Linux.) So, what differentiates good and bad programmers these days? If anyone else has late talker stories, please change the subject to "Late talking programmers". -- -- <> ROT-13 addresses: <> The above is unlikely to contain official <> <> <> claims or policies of Digital Equipment Corp. <> <> <> Eric (Ric) Werme <> ###### From: newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 21:38:00 GMT Organization: Pittsburgh OnLine, Inc. Lines: 27 Message-ID: <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp14.s8.pgh.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!howland.erols.net!fastnet!news.pgh.net!not-for-mail I certainly agree with (1) and (3), but I fail to see how (2) has anything to do with bad code, except that it is now possible for thousands of people who could never before program to write bad code, but why is this a problem? Everybody starts out writing bad code, and matures. joe On Sun, 18 Jan 98 09:16:08 GMT, Robert Billing wrote: >In article <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> > wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu "Bill Wendling" writes: > >> Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy >> code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just >> ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? > > There are three causes of bad code. > > 1) Confusion > 2) Bill Gates > 3) There's never time to do it right, there's always time to do it > again. Joseph M. Newcomer newcomer@flounder.com http://www3.pgh.net/~newcomer ###### From: newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 22:02:14 GMT Organization: Pittsburgh OnLine, Inc. Lines: 79 Message-ID: <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp14.s8.pgh.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!204.186.110.126.MISMATCH!ptdnetP!newsgate.ptd.net!fastnet!news.pgh.net!not-for-mail It turns out that there are many definitions of "bad" code. Horrible-to-maintain is high on my list of personal gripes; I teach that the most important thing you can do is build code that is "robust under maintenance", that is resilient to all sorts of changes and doesn't always trust what it is passed in. Buggy code can be caused by anything from poor specs to incompetent coding, but often bugginess increases with a program's lifetime rather than decreases (new features introduce new bugs, sometimes breaking old things that work). In general, I've found that the less-experienced programmers produce the hardest-to-maintain code; it is rigid and fragile. Experienced programmers usually tend to build in defenses against idiosyncratic changes. Here are some examples Amateur: the integer value for flow control options is encoded by the position in a dropdown list in which the flow control description appears, no matter how disorganized the resulting GUI presentation of the table might be to maintain this correspondence. Professional: the dropdown list encodes both the text description and the integer that describes the value, and is organized in a way that makes sense at the GUI level Amateur: uses clever mappings to minimize the total amount of code written. Changes or extensions to the value set render the code useless. Professional: uses simple, straightforward techniques to isloate value dependencies. Amateur: Code Size Is All Professional: Code Size is the least of the concerns. ALWAYS compromise code size in the interest of maintainability, extensibility, and understandability. Amateur: code is small, fast, compact, subtle, and optimized, whether it makes sense to make it so or not. Professional: only the code whose performance matters is optimized, and that only after performance data has been obtained. All other code is gratuitously bulky, slow, and easy to understand and maintain. Amateur: codes DWORD mask = (DWORD)pow(2.0, (float)n); Professional: codes DWORD mask = 1 << n; (This last example is from the inner loop of a realtime system, written to run on a 386 without floating point accelerator. It was the least of the sins I found in that code) Amateur: delivers a system with four .c files, 2 .h files, and one of the .c files contains both the menu handler for the GUI and the interrupt handler for the device. The smallest .c file is 23,000 lines. The average rebuild cycle after any change is 45 minutes. Professional: delivers a system containing 189 .c files, and 245 .h files. The largest .c file is 1800 lines of source code (it took me three weeks to transform the first system into the second). The average rebuild cycle after most changes is 2 minutes. On 17 Jan 1998 09:00:19 GMT, wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) wrote: >Hi all, > >Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy >code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just >ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? Joseph M. Newcomer newcomer@flounder.com http://www3.pgh.net/~newcomer ###### From: wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 21 Jan 1998 06:22:16 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Lines: 29 Message-ID: <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu!wendling Charlie Gibbs wasted electrons by posting: } Bill Gates proved that you can make billions (literally!) with } mediocre code - all you need is enough marketing skill. This } was the death knell of carefully-crafted code in the mass market. } Why waste time and effort making truly good code if you can get } the peepul to settle for less? Even worse, if you spend too much } time on quality, some half-assed piece of crap will beat you to } market and close your window of opportunity. } "Eat shit - 50,000,000 flies can't be wrong." There is a very good article in the current New Yorker magazine about why MS is so powerful. The fact is that the "free market" strategy of letting consumers decide what is the best product isn't always true. For instance, one product has a slight advantage over its competitors. (MS-DOS for one). It gets put on more machines, then a feed-back loop starts. The more machines which the product is on, the more people who need software for it, the more people will need to create software for it in order to survive, the more machines the product gets put on to use this software... It feeds on itself. MS is a perfect example of this. In this way, inferior products become way too popular and choice goes out the window. There is only an illusion of choice in this scenario. -- || Bill Wendling wendling@ncsa.uiuc.edu ###### Date: 21 Jan 98 10:16:06 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> Message-ID: <676.325T300T6163769@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 26 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.244.247.7 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.119 In article <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> john@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au (John "West" McKenna) writes: > char buf[10]; > int i; > > i=function_that_always_returns_an_integer_between_1000_and_9999(); > sprintf(buf,"%d",i); > buf[0]=buf[2]; > buf[1]=buf[3] > buf[2]=0; > i=atoi(buf); Yes, that is horrible. Of course, the proper way to do it is: sprintf (buf, "%04d", i); /* Now it works for 0-999 as well. */ sscanf (buf+2, "%d", &i); /* :-) */ >Took me a while to realise that it is simply doing > i=i%100; Spoilsport. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: john@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au (John "West" McKenna) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 21 Jan 1998 12:38:17 GMT Organization: The University of Western Australia Lines: 43 Message-ID: <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: starfish.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.erols.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsm.ibm.net!ibm.net!uunet!in3.uu.net!munnari.OZ.AU!news.uwa.edu.au!john newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) writes: > Amateur: Code Size Is All > Professional: Code Size is the least of the concerns. > ALWAYS compromise code size in the interest of > maintainability, extensibility, and understandability. I wish I could. I really do. But 32K of EPROM is 32K of EPROM. So I wrote an interpreter for a memory-efficient byte-code, compressed all my strings, and write code like memory doesn't matter. It is really, really slow. About 12500 instructions/second. But I don't care. When the routine that is called twice each second takes 2 seconds to run, you do some optimizing. When the user interface starts to feel sluggish, you do some optimizing. Until then, it doesn't really matter. > Amateur: codes > DWORD mask = (DWORD)pow(2.0, (float)n); > Professional: codes > DWORD mask = 1 << n; >(This last example is from the inner loop of a realtime system, >written to run on a 386 without floating point accelerator. It was >the least of the sins I found in that code) char buf[10]; int i; i=function_that_always_returns_an_integer_between_1000_and_9999(); sprintf(buf,"%d",i); buf[0]=buf[2]; buf[1]=buf[3] buf[2]=0; i=atoi(buf); Took me a while to realise that it is simply doing i=i%100; (My C is rather rusty, so forgive me if the code is not quite right) John West ###### Date: 21 Jan 98 15:47:09 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> Message-ID: <2636.325T462T9473579@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 68 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.244.247.7 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.123 In article <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) writes: >On 21 Jan 1998 06:22:16 GMT, wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill >Wendling) wrote: > >Charlie Gibbs wasted electrons by posting: Hey, they're my electrons... >Frankly, I don't care how rich Bill Gates gets; what I care about is >that the environment that I work in gets better and better. Microsoft >accomplished this I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. > when the oh-so-wonderful Unix was still trying to >figure out what "portability" meant. That's easy - an application that runs on both Win95 and NT. :-) > I can guarantee that if >Microsoft did not exist, we would NOT have 200MHz >Pentium-equivalent-power laptops for $2,500 today (one sits beside me >right now, running Win95). We probably wouldn't miss them quite so badly if we didn't have them, either. It reminds me of something I saw on rec.humor.funny a while back: >From: Vincent Frisina (Grad) > >Two of my housemates recently picked up an old 8088 for free. The >first, Joe, was overjoyed because, well, it was free and free stuff >is good, and it's a computer and computers are good. Chris wasn't >so sure. > >J: Once we get a new video card and a new hard drive in this, it'll > run like new. > >C: So? It's an 8088. What the hell can you do with an 8088? > >J: Come on. Think of all the stuff they did with computers built > thirty years ago. > >C: Okay, you can get to the moon. What else? BTW nowhere did I say that Microsoft was the first to distribute crappy code. I acknowledge all of your examples, and can add a few of my own. Nor do I praise Unix as a pinnacle of perfection; it's got many good things, but a few real warts too. But IMHO M$ was the company that managed to get the general public to accept crashing software as a way of life. A lot of people didn't realize how flaky the mouse buttons are under Windows until I pointed it out to them, at which point it was obvious; they were just so used to clicking the button until something happened. (I can quote Petzold to back this up.) For what it's worth, I just spent the past day in a futile attempt to add a serial port to a Win95 box. Right now my attitude toward Microsoft is even less charitable than usual. Hell, I could have done the corresponding software configuration in that old 90/30 faster than this. So from my point of view we haven't advanced much at all. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: Larry Anderson & Diane Hare Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 18:59:38 -0800 Organization: Goldrush World Access, Ltd. Lines: 35 Message-ID: <34C6B61A.7489@goldrush.com> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> Reply-To: foxnhare@goldrush.com NNTP-Posting-Host: jx-100.goldrush.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Macintosh; U; 68K) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!pushkin.conxion.com!news.he.net!news.pbi.net!news.goldrush.com!usenet Bill Wendling wrote: > > Hi all, > > Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy > code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just > ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? > > -- > || Bill Wendling wendling@ncsa.uiuc.edu I can be guilty of that at times, lack of time and constant revisions are two factors that plague me. Even if I code a 'virtual' gem of a program give a few bug fixes and add in a necessary or missed feature or two, in no time the code is a mess, and I am thinking of the next revision. That's the problem with many compnaies nowadays, I am sure Windows, Mac OS, etc, would be lean mean (read assmbly coded) machines if there were just the time to do it all, but with the crazed market today it is hard to get back to re-coding that ugly but now-stable core. I think with the higher level apps such as Visual-whatever there is more opportunity to have your code lost in just the exccesive (automatic) commenting alone... And the language companies suggests you do not modify your object code... :/ Larry Anderson -- -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Visit our web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/ Call our BBS (Silicon Realms BBS 300-2400 baud) at: (209) 754-1363 -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- ###### From: newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 21:25:05 GMT Organization: Pittsburgh OnLine, Inc. Lines: 77 Message-ID: <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp42.s9.pgh.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!howland.erols.net!fastnet!news.pgh.net!not-for-mail OK, what is "mediocre code"? While I don't like the bugs in Word or PowerPoint better than anyone else, have you every really *used* mediocre code? FrameMaker, for example, makes the concept of a mediocre GUI look like an improvement, and it was written for the legendary Unix-that-can-do-no-wrong. And it is full of bugs, and its design is incredibly poor in most directions. And anyone who wants to see mediocre code only has to look at nearly *any* Unix source code (for example, one of the major Unix editors once had the property that if the system crashed while you were editing a file, both the changes and the actual file were lost, and this was years before Bill Gates ever wrote a line of 8008 code. I was there. It was my file that was lost, costing me a day of editing). What is "carefully crafted" code and how can I tell if the code I'm running is "carefully crafted" or "crap"? If it does the job well, does it matter overly much? If it doesn't do the job, it is probably a Unix app (look up BQS, or Berkley Quality Software, in The New Hacker's Dictionary). Carefully crafted code apparently is bug-free, and presumably a multi-megaline system that is carefully crafted has no bugs, and pigs fly, and I've got a great bargain on a bridge, just for you. Let's see: OS/360 predated Bill Gates, and I doubt that anyone would argue that it represented the pinnacle of good coding style. TSS/360 took the attitude that function calls could use their own register conventions, but which weren't always documented (I used to maintain parts of TSS/360, tell me about it). TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 were clearly the epitome of carefully-crafted code; just ask anyone who maintained them. And EMACS-20! Who could forget what $$A$&!*P$$ meant! ("What could be more mnemonic than J137" - Alan Newell on IPL-V). I am deeply suspect of anyone who claims that Microsoft is alone in writing "mediocre" code unless they've worked on at least a half-dozen other major systems (>500K source lines); I have, and NOT ONE of the several dozen major systems I've worked on in the last 35 years them would have been in the running for "best code ever written". I also worked on some really nice small systems, that were quite elegantly coded, but were essentially toys; all real systems had huge amounts of crud and cruft, bugs, design flaws, etc. joe On 20 Jan 98 15:30:02 -0800, "Charlie Gibbs" wrote: >In article <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> newcomer@flounder.com >(Joseph M. Newcomer) writes: > >>On Sun, 18 Jan 98 09:16:08 GMT, Robert Billing >> wrote: >> >>> There are three causes of bad code. >>> >>> 1) Confusion >>> 2) Bill Gates >>> 3) There's never time to do it right, there's always time to do it >>> again. >> >>I certainly agree with (1) and (3), but I fail to see how (2) has >>anything to do with bad code, except that it is now possible for >>thousands of people who could never before program to write bad code, >>but why is this a problem? Everybody starts out writing bad code, and >>matures. > >Bill Gates proved that you can make billions (literally!) with >mediocre code - all you need is enough marketing skill. This >was the death knell of carefully-crafted code in the mass market. >Why waste time and effort making truly good code if you can get >the peepul to settle for less? Even worse, if you spend too much >time on quality, some half-assed piece of crap will beat you to >market and close your window of opportunity. > >"Eat shit - 50,000,000 flies can't be wrong." Joseph M. Newcomer newcomer@flounder.com http://www3.pgh.net/~newcomer ###### From: newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 21:44:57 GMT Organization: Pittsburgh OnLine, Inc. Lines: 90 Message-ID: <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp42.s9.pgh.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!howland.erols.net!fastnet!news.pgh.net!not-for-mail OK, the "illusion of choice" goes out the window. Or Windows. How has this hurt me? Most of my career I used a variety of proprietary operating systems, compilers, and languages. Every couple years I had to relearn everything. Then along came Unix. And everything was now uniform. Except that every Unix vendor had to have their own cool features that made it incompatible (only the simplest applications would port without major effort, and "real" apps wouldn't port at all). Compilers were a side issue; one compiler, for one vendor, had the problem that if it constant-folded an integer comparison in an if-statement, it inverted the sense of the branch. Their solution: "Don't do that". Their fix "We'll fix it in the next release, next year". Seven years ago, I was given a RISC-6000 machine. Other than the fact that its compiler didn't work, its debugger didn't work, its linker didn't work, and there was no document production system on it, no one knew how to magnify the fonts so I could read them, or even get the fonts loaded, and it compiled slower than my 386/33, it was all right. Microsoft had *already* produced a development environment that in every dimension exceeded anything I had ever seen or used in any other environment in history, and it only cost $350/seat on a $2,500 machine (as opposed to something like $1500/seat on a $30,000 machine). Given the quality of the environment I have, why do I care? If there is a better environment, it will displace Microsoft, and Microsoft knows it. I never had a choice with Unix anyway, I had to take whatever crappy dialect of Unix that ran on whatever hardware I had, so in what way has Microsoft "limited" my choices over what I had a decade ago? I can't run on a VAX? Why do I care? When has hardware ever been a deciding factor, anyway? And don't blame Microsoft; they supported both MIPS and PowerPC, until the people selling those platforms decided that they didn't want NT on them because nobody was buying them. So the MARKET, not Microsoft, elected to go with Intel. When I can insert pictures, by-reference, in spreadsheets that I can insert in Word documents, print them in full color on any printer I want (check on an article I did in SIGPlan Notices on IDL about 15 years ago; after trying for THREE WEEKS to print it at the SEI on the laser printer, I gave up and printed it on my dot-matrix printer on my DOS box, because THAT WORKED). I don't even want to THINK about the two days it took me to insert a bitmap image in a document under Unix in 1989. And after I inserted it, I couldn't print it! Today, it is a few mouse clicks! Frankly, I don't care how rich Bill Gates gets; what I care about is that the environment that I work in gets better and better. Microsoft accomplished this when the oh-so-wonderful Unix was still trying to figure out what "portability" meant. I can guarantee that if Microsoft did not exist, we would NOT have 200MHz Pentium-equivalent-power laptops for $2,500 today (one sits beside me right now, running Win95). If I'm going to have a "choice", I want a choice that gives me something BETTER than what I already have. I'm not seeing enough difference between most products to feel that I need a lot of choices. joe On 21 Jan 1998 06:22:16 GMT, wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) wrote: >Charlie Gibbs wasted electrons by posting: > >} Bill Gates proved that you can make billions (literally!) with >} mediocre code - all you need is enough marketing skill. This >} was the death knell of carefully-crafted code in the mass market. >} Why waste time and effort making truly good code if you can get >} the peepul to settle for less? Even worse, if you spend too much >} time on quality, some half-assed piece of crap will beat you to >} market and close your window of opportunity. > >} "Eat shit - 50,000,000 flies can't be wrong." > >There is a very good article in the current New Yorker magazine about >why MS is so powerful. The fact is that the "free market" strategy of >letting consumers decide what is the best product isn't always true. > >For instance, one product has a slight advantage over its competitors. >(MS-DOS for one). It gets put on more machines, then a feed-back loop >starts. The more machines which the product is on, the more people who >need software for it, the more people will need to create software >for it in order to survive, the more machines the product gets put on >to use this software... > >It feeds on itself. MS is a perfect example of this. In this way, >inferior products become way too popular and choice goes out the >window. There is only an illusion of choice in this scenario. Joseph M. Newcomer newcomer@flounder.com http://www3.pgh.net/~newcomer ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: "John D. Burleson" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? X-Nntp-Posting-Host: help.stl.mo.boeing.com Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------3464F58B93A9FD63816F3EF2" Message-ID: <34C67D98.AFB830C7@boeing.com> Sender: nntp@news.boeing.com (Boeing NNTP News Access) Organization: The Boeing Company - McDonnell Douglas - Huntsville Division References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 22:58:32 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4u) Lines: 51 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!solaris.cc.vt.edu!newsrelay.netins.net!uunet!in4.uu.net!xyzzy!nntp This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------3464F58B93A9FD63816F3EF2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joseph M. Newcomer wrote: > > OK, what is "mediocre code"? While I don't like the bugs in Word or > PowerPoint better than anyone else, have you every really *used* > mediocre code? FrameMaker, for example, makes the concept of a > mediocre GUI look like an improvement, and it was written for the > legendary Unix-that-can-do-no-wrong. And it is full of bugs, and its > design is incredibly poor in most directions. Huh? What was the last version of FrameMaker you used, 2.0? FrameMaker has an interface that is remarkably consistent across multiple platforms and creates files that are compatible across ALL these platforms as well from version to version. I have never, in 5+ years of using FrameMaker, had a single lock up or crash. I don't have any comment on the rest of your post. Once I got this far I _knew_ you didn't have a clue, so I didn't read anymore of it. -- John Burleson (mailto:john.d.burleson@boeing.com) Principal Software Engineer The Boeing Company/McDonnell Douglas Aerospace/Huntsville (205)922-7589 FAX:(205)922-4890 --------------3464F58B93A9FD63816F3EF2 Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="vcard.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Burleson, John Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="vcard.vcf" begin: vcard fn: John Burleson n: Burleson;John org: The Boeing Co. - McDonnell Douglas Aerospace adr: 689 Discovery Dr.;;MS 32C1;Huntsville;AL;35806-2804;USA email;internet: john.d.burleson@boeing.com title: Principal Software Engineer - System and Technology Development tel;work: 205-922-7589 tel;fax: 205-922-4890 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: TRUE version: 2.1 end: vcard --------------3464F58B93A9FD63816F3EF2-- ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: hoh@approve.se.NO_JUNK_EMAIL (Goran Larsson) Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Message-ID: <1998Jan22.002924.5817@lorelei.approve.se> Originator: hoh@approve.se.NO_JUNK_EMAIL (Goran Larsson) Sender: hoh@lorelei.approve.se.NO_JUNK_EMAIL (Goran Larsson) Organization: [1] + 5934 done /bin/rm -rf ~/ & X-No-Archive: yes X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test60 (5 October 1997) References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 00:29:24 GMT Lines: 51 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!news.algonet.se!fci-se!fci!newsfeed.sunet.se!news99.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!192.71.180.34.MISMATCH!mn6.swip.net!seunet!mn4.swip.net!lorelei!not-for-mail In article <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au>, John "West" McKenna wrote: > i=function_that_always_returns_an_integer_between_1000_and_9999(); > sprintf(buf,"%d",i); > buf[0]=buf[2]; > buf[1]=buf[3] > buf[2]=0; > i=atoi(buf); What about this Ada code taken from a function that translates a text string representing a hexadecimal number to a 16 bit integer. if HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = '0' then NUMBER := 0 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = '1' then NUMBER := 1 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = '2' then NUMBER := 2 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = '3' then NUMBER := 3 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = '4' then NUMBER := 4 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = '5' then NUMBER := 5 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = '6' then NUMBER := 6 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = '7' then NUMBER := 7 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = '8' then NUMBER := 8 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = '9' then NUMBER := 9 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'A' then NUMBER := 10 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'B' then NUMBER := 11 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'C' then NUMBER := 12 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'D' then NUMBER := 13 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'E' then NUMBER := 14 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'F' then NUMBER := 15 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'a' then NUMBER := 10 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'b' then NUMBER := 11 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'c' then NUMBER := 12 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'd' then NUMBER := 13 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'e' then NUMBER := 14 ; elsif HEX(HEX'Last+1-I) = 'f' then NUMBER := 15 ; else NUMBER := 0 ; end if; I found this while trying to understand why the program didn't work when we started using the newest release of the Ada compiler. The compiler silently generated bogous code for the above statement... Both name code author and compiler vendor witheld to protect the guilty. -- Goran Larsson hoh AT approve DOT se I was an atheist, http://home1 DOT swipnet DOT se/%7Ew-12153/ until I found out I was God. ###### From: spam@lisardrock.demon.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:14:50 GMT Message-ID: <885435290.2103.7.nnrp-09.9e98ee68@news.demon.co.uk> References: <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk [158.152.238.104] X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 Lines: 27 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!news.west.agis.net!agis!newsfeed.direct.ca!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!bullseye.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!lisardrock.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-01-21 john@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au(John"West"McKenna) said: -char buf[10]; -int i; -i=function_that_always_returns_an_integer_between_1000_and_9999(); -sprintf(buf,"%d",i); -buf[0]=buf[2]; -buf[1]=buf[3] -buf[2]=0; -i=atoi(buf); -Took me a while to realise that it is simply doing -i=i%100; eurgh!!!!!! however... is there a "quick" way to divide by small odd prime constants, in the same way that there is to multiply? we can't work any out, but we're willing to admit we may be missing something. (eg. : 3* dup dup + + ; but : 3/ ??? ; ) -- Communa - all at lisardrock.demon.net to be sure we read your reply, send to username `communa' Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 - Test Drive ###### From: wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 22 Jan 1998 02:49:47 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Lines: 110 Message-ID: <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news1.chicago.iagnet.net!iagnet.net!129.79.6.160!news.indiana.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu!wendling Joseph M. Newcomer wasted electrons by posting: } OK, the "illusion of choice" goes out the window. Or Windows. Illusion of choice is the only thing that stays. All real choice flies out the Window. } How has this hurt me? Please tell us how products you've used in the distant past have hurt you (way before the GUI, even MS Windows, was "perfected")...oh...I see you have. } Most of my career I used a variety of proprietary operating systems, } compilers, and languages. Every couple years I had to relearn } everything. Then along came Unix. And everything was now uniform. [snip] Well, the number one reason for the ports is that UNIX runs on many different architectures and hardwares. However, there are two main ports: BSD and SVR4. Porting between the two isn't too difficult (esp. with the advent of Posix). However, porting between MS and anything else is a mind-numbingly arduous task. } Except that every Unix vendor had to have their own cool features that } made it incompatible (only the simplest applications would port } without major effort, and "real" apps wouldn't port at all). Compilers You mean like NCSA Mosaic and NCSA Telnet, Emacs, GCC, Perl, VIM, Netscape, Mathematica, etc. etc...All of these are definitely NOT real apps... } Microsoft had *already* produced a development environment that in } every dimension exceeded anything I had ever seen or used in any other } environment in history, and it only cost $350/seat on a $2,500 machine } (as opposed to something like $1500/seat on a $30,000 machine). Except for MS's memory management, threading, editting, compiling, telnetting (or lack thereof), etc., I'd have to agree with you. } Given the quality of the environment I have, why do I care? If there } is a better environment, it will displace Microsoft, and Microsoft } knows it. I never had a choice with Unix anyway, I had to take No, MS is very much aware of their positive feed back loop. All they have to do is compete in a field (browsers, for instance) and they can be almost assured of some success. } whatever crappy dialect of Unix that ran on whatever hardware I had, } so in what way has Microsoft "limited" my choices over what I had a } decade ago? I can't run on a VAX? Why do I care? When has hardware } ever been a deciding factor, anyway? And don't blame Microsoft; they Actually, hardware is a deciding factor among real users of computers. People in graphics are vitally concerned with what types of video cards they have. Some people need really fast access to data on their hard drive. Some need memory up the wazoo. One of the disappointing things about the PC industry is that there really isn't good hardware out there that will optimize your desktop computer with your OS. } supported both MIPS and PowerPC, until the people selling those } platforms decided that they didn't want NT on them because nobody was } buying them. So the MARKET, not Microsoft, elected to go with Intel. Er...MS had already gone with Intel long before the PowerPC came out. THey had (and still have) a contract with Intel. } When I can insert pictures, by-reference, in spreadsheets that I can } insert in Word documents, print them in full color on any printer I } want (check on an article I did in SIGPlan Notices on IDL about 15 } years ago; after trying for THREE WEEKS to print it at the SEI on the } laser printer, I gave up and printed it on my dot-matrix printer on my } DOS box, because THAT WORKED). I don't even want to THINK about the Hm...lpr works for me...Sounds like you are kinda inept at running/understanding your apps. Perhaps you should read that thing called a "Manual" that comes with the software. } two days it took me to insert a bitmap image in a document under Unix } in 1989. And after I inserted it, I couldn't print it! Today, it is a } few mouse clicks! Please do compare software from the same time period. } Frankly, I don't care how rich Bill Gates gets; what I care about is } that the environment that I work in gets better and better. Microsoft I care about that too, however, MS is -way- behind in the OS game. OSes are now moving to 64-bit processors (those damned hardware requirements again), while MS has just gone to 32-bit (barely) within the last 2 years. They are also way behind in multi-processing. They can't handle the load that UNIX machines can (there are several articles on this, one in the current Linux Journal magazine about the company who did effects for _Titanic_ who couldn't use NT machines cause it couldn't do what a Linux box could). NTs aren't as scalable as UNIXes. The list goes on. } figure out what "portability" meant. I can guarantee that if } Microsoft did not exist, we would NOT have 200MHz } Pentium-equivalent-power laptops for $2,500 today (one sits beside me } right now, running Win95). What a waste... } If I'm going to have a "choice", I want a choice that gives me } something BETTER than what I already have. I'm not seeing enough } difference between most products to feel that I need a lot of choices. } Then please get your eyes checked. -- || Bill Wendling wendling@ncsa.uiuc.edu ###### From: wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 22 Jan 1998 02:53:05 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Lines: 10 Message-ID: <6a6cah$nl7$2@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <2636.325T462T9473579@sky.bus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newspeer.monmouth.com!europa.clark.net!208.134.241.18!newsfeed.internetmci.com!128.174.5.49!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu!wendling Charlie Gibbs wasted electrons by posting: :P } > when the oh-so-wonderful Unix was still trying to } >figure out what "portability" meant. } That's easy - an application that runs on both Win95 and NT. :-) Unless it's a game...which won't run on NT cause it's only for 95... -- || Bill Wendling wendling@ncsa.uiuc.edu ###### From: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 22 Jan 1998 10:18:48 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 22 Message-ID: <6a76e8$lis@freenet-news.carleton.ca> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <1998Jan22.002924.5817@lorelei.approve.se> Reply-To: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet5.carleton.ca X-Given-Sender: ab528@freenet5.carleton.ca (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-dc-3.sprintlink.net!news-dc-1.sprintlink.net!news-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!howland.erols.net!news.starnet.net!newsout-2.starnet.net!news.starnet.net!newspump.wustl.edu!biko.cc.rochester.edu!news.acsu.buffalo.edu!srv1.drenet.dnd.ca!crc-news.doc.ca!nott!cunews!freenet-news.carleton.ca!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!ab528 Tom Watson (tsw@cagent.com) writes: > <<>> > > Are there any other examples of horrible code (in whatever language). > Maybe we could all laugh at them. Please post!! "Don't get me started!" Ralph Kramden. Production PL/1 at the defunct grocery warehouser Loeb, (Ont. Can.): ON ENDFILE ( IN_FILE ) BEGIN; /* Allocate the following CONTROLLED structure to avoid a S0C7 abend: */ {Details not important.} END; This code fragment demonstrated to me that at Loeb, one could be a data processing super-star without having a clue about the proper usage of the CONTROLLED storage facility, never mind about how to handle end-of-file. ###### From: dski@cameonet.cameo.com.twx (Dan Strychalski) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 22 Jan 1998 12:13:30 GMT Organization: Cameo Communications, Inc. Lines: 24 Message-ID: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.72.104.4 Originator: dski@ Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newspeer.monmouth.com!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!spring.edu.tw!feeder.seed.net.tw!news.seed.net.tw!!dski Joseph M. Newcomer (newcomer@flounder.com) wrote -- > Frankly, I don't care how rich Bill Gates gets; what I care about is > that the environment that I work in gets better and better.[...] Greetings from Userland, Mr. Programmer Man. The environment I work in has gotten worse and worse as your darling Billy has pulled the wool over more and more people's eyes and forced nearly all the world's computing population to work like six-year-olds. > I can guarantee that if Microsoft did not exist, we would NOT have > 200MHz Pentium-equivalent-power laptops for $2,500 today (one sits > beside me right now, running Win95). To paraphrase you, how has this benefited me? I can guarantee you that we would have such machines in good time, and we would not be forced to use them for tasks that could be done just as well on a 286. Windows sucks like a black hole, fellah, and so does everyone who advocates it. Dan Strychalski dski at cameonet, cameo, com, tw. Apologies for the non-threading newsreader and anti-spam devices. ###### From: "Robert Merkel" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 22 Jan 1998 13:30:36 GMT Organization: Internet News services provided by Mira Networking, Australia Lines: 24 Message-ID: <01bd2739$f1746c40$a42d11cb@rgmerk.mira.net> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <69tfvt$gtg$1@postern.mbnet.mb.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: dp-m-p164.werple.net.au X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1155 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.251.127.50!newsfeed.gte.net!nntp.flash.net!uunet!in1.uu.net!ozemail!news.mel.aone.net.au!newsfeed-in.aone.net.au!news.mira.net.au!newsreader.mira.net.au!not-for-mail In article <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) wrote: ] Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy ] code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just ] ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? Lack of time, quite commonly, but also the requirements - not all software has to be maintained. At the moment I'm involved in a small research project that involves adapting somebody else's hacked together testing scripts. I'm in a hurry to get results, so I'm just doing a cut and paste job on his already hastily written code which is laden with magic numbers and the like. I'm fully aware that the code is bad - but, frankly, there is no point in doing a proper design - it does what it is intended to do. Of course, the result is almost unreadable and unmaintainable - but nobody's ever going to modify it (just like nobody was ever going to read or modify the code I started with . . . ) You can see how bad code can happen . . . ###### From: jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Thu, 22 Jan 98 16:15:36 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 15 Message-ID: <6a7pm8$dub$2@decius.ultra.net> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: d2.dial-13.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 22 Jan 1998 15:47:20 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!news.algonet.se!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!199.232.56.18!news.ultranet.com!d2 In article <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) wrote: > >Except for MS's memory management, threading, editting, compiling, >telnetting (or lack thereof), etc., I'd have to agree with you. I agree with your list; I have an addition: the lack of a buffered mode I/O concept so that files with a size greater than available memory can be opened for in/output. I suppose that this could be classified under [lack of] memory management. /BAH ###### From: Marco S Hyman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 22 Jan 1998 20:49:26 -0800 Organization: S.N.A.F.U. (www.snafu.org) Lines: 15 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: dumbcat.codewright.com X-Trace: 885530966 26422 (none) 206.86.0.12 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsfeed.wli.net!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news1.best.com!nntp2.ba.best.com!not-for-mail Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch writes: > The same as good science result from an open process of public critic > (testing) and improvement (feedback), good software happens when the > social structure making it can tap all of its knowledge and testing > power to drive out the inevitable bugs that will creep in. > > The only OS made on such principles at the moment is GNU/Linux, which I'm curious, why do you believe FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD are closed? Full source (kernel as well as all of user land) is available for a few dollars (CD) or the time it takes it you to download it off the net. // marc ###### From: Malte.Uhl@neuss.netsurf.de (Malte Uhl) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> Message-ID: X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.4.3 UNIX) NNTP-Posting-Host: netsurf62.neuss.netsurf.de Date: 22 Jan 98 20:50:35 GMT Organization: "ebner & martin informationssysteme gmbh" Lines: 18 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!194.162.162.196!newsfeed.nacamar.de!news-hh.maz.net!news.arkaden.net!Malte.Uhl In article <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12>, Joseph M. Newcomer wrote: >everything. Then along came Unix. And everything was now uniform. >Except that every Unix vendor had to have their own cool features that >made it incompatible (only the simplest applications would port >without major effort, and "real" apps wouldn't port at all). Compilers Well, I've written applications as large as 10,000 lines. Source code is in C, includes 16 ifdef's and compiles and runs on 8 Major Unix variants. It's a client server architecture, so it includes networking and it also does deal a lot with files, directories and even load sharing. Guess you must have been in all the wrong places at all the wrong times. >Frankly, I don't care how rich Bill Gates gets; what I care about is >that the environment that I work in gets better and better. Microsoft Then pray that Microsoft, or its competitors, will never have a monopoly. Malte ###### From: genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 20:56:43 GMT Organization: All USENET -- http://www.Supernews.com Lines: 30 Message-ID: <34c7946a.6189114@news.vip.net> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <1998Jan22.002924.5817@lorelei.approve.se> Reply-To: genew@vip.net NNTP-Posting-Host: 24984@204.209.212.20 X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/32.230 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!Supernews60!supernews.com!Supernews69!not-for-mail tsw@cagent.com (Tom Watson) wrote: ><<>> > >Are there any other examples of horrible code (in whatever language). >Maybe we could all laugh at them. Please post!! In dBASE III Plus (and FoxPlus which was a compatible), indexes were not updated unless open along with the database file. Fine. However, if you had the indexes open but operating with no master index (i.e. unindexed order), the indexes would not be updated with any key changes. This was a nasty design bug! My client wanted to be able to browse a DE database file in physical order. He might adjust key values. He also wanted to be able to switch to the normal indexed order. Reindexing would have taken too much time. I solved the problem by creating an index by record number! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That way, I could stay in indexed mode where the indexes would be properly updated. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko C Pronunciation Guide: y=x++; "wye equals ex plus plus semicolon" x=x++; "ex equals ex doublecross semicolon" ###### From: af877@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Harry Dodsworth) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 22 Jan 1998 23:59:02 GMT Organization: National Capital Freenet, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 9 Message-ID: <6a8mg6$2q0@freenet-news.carleton.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet5.carleton.ca X-Given-Sender: af877@freenet5.carleton.ca (Harry Dodsworth) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!atl-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!europa.clark.net!209.130.129.134!node2.frontiernet.net!node17.frontiernet.net!xcski.com!freenet-news.carleton.ca!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!af877 I wasn't sure whether to post under the horrible code, or the self modifying code thread. However the worst bit of COBOL code I ran across, had three ALTER statements in a group of four statements. -- Harry Dodsworth Ottawa Ontario Canada af877@freenet.carleton.ca ---------------------------------------------------------------- ###### From: slavins@hearsay.demon.junkguard.co.uk (Simon Slavin) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 00:01:03 +0000 Organization: First Sirian Bank Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: hearsay.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: hearsay.demon.co.uk [194.222.24.177] Lines: 24 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!hearsay.demon.co.uk!user In article , werme@alingo.zk3.dec.com (Eric Werme) wrote: > Last Christmas my sister gave me a book by Thomas Sowell on "Late > Talking Children", which he wrote about his son and others he found > though his newspaper column. [snip] > These kids are nearly alsways male, tend > get along fine without talking, catch up quickly, often need some > speech therapy, are great at math and wind up in the computer field. > (Or nuclear physicists before computers were common - I think Einstein > and Feynmann were also late talkers.) Standard event when late talkers eventually start talking: Child: Milk ? Mother: He spoke ! Darling, why did you never say anything before ? Child: Never wanted anything before. Simon. -- Simon Slavin -- Computer Contractor. | If I ran usenet, the timestamp for http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk | anything posted between 2am and 5am Check email address for UBE-guard. | would *blink*. -- Nancy Lebovitz My s/ware deletes unread >3 UBEs/day.| Junk email not welcome at this site. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> Organization: Wizvax Communications, Troy, NY. USA From: multics@wizvax.wizvax.net (Richard Shetron) NNTP-Posting-Host: wizvax.wizvax.net Message-ID: <34c7dfee.0@news.wizvax.net> Date: 23 Jan 98 00:10:22 GMT Lines: 16 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!atl-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-feed2.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!ulowell.uml.edu!newsfeed.wizvax.net!news.wizvax.net!wizvax.wizvax.net!multics In article <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12>, Joseph M. Newcomer wrote: [snip] >Let's see: OS/360 predated Bill Gates, and I doubt that anyone would >argue that it represented the pinnacle of good coding style. TSS/360 >took the attitude that function calls could use their own register >conventions, but which weren't always documented (I used to maintain >parts of TSS/360, tell me about it). TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 were clearly >the epitome of carefully-crafted code; just ask anyone who maintained >them. And EMACS-20! Who could forget what $$A$&!*P$$ meant! ("What >could be more mnemonic than J137" - Alan Newell on IPL-V). I'd vote for Multics, but then I'm definilty biased ;) [snip] ###### Path: ccw.ch!usenet From: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 23 Jan 1998 01:53:51 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 58 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) asked: > OK, what is "mediocre code"? Code where the decisions are made on the base of short term avoiding of development costs (budget effective) and not on the base of long term accumulating crash costs (costomer puts up with them). Actually the real issue is not Microsoft vs Unix. It is commercial compromises vs non commercial striving for good. The same as good science result from an open process of public critic (testing) and improvement (feedback), good software happens when the social structure making it can tap all of its knowledge and testing power to drive out the inevitable bugs that will creep in. The only OS made on such principles at the moment is GNU/Linux, which happens to be an variant of Unix. But that was just a conveniance for easy modularising the the project for parallel independant development without requiring an mentally limiting central structure. > What is "carefully crafted" code and how can I tell if the code I'm running is "carefully crafted" or "crap"? By taking what comes from an credible (public) process and not from an "we are the oracle of the world" nose-up-the-ass company like MS. No, that doesn't guarantie qualitiy, but it improves the likelyhood. A lot like the "what is secure" discussion, IMHO. > Berkley Quality Software Annother closed group. Avoid BSD the same as MS. > OS/360 predated Bill Gates, and I doubt that anyone would argue that it represented the pinnacle of good coding style. TSS/360 Annother closed group. Avoid IBM. > TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 were clearly The same. And so on... > >500K source lines) Linux Kernal source. Is actually nice to look at. And you can do so. -- Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch, http://www.ccw.ch/Neil.Franklin/ for Geek Code, Papernet, Voicenet, PGP public key see http: Mac, 95 and NT users are CLUEless (Command Line User Environment) If I go missing, its once again my newsfeed that has craped ###### From: dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 23 Jan 1998 05:56:15 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle Lines: 10 Message-ID: <6a9bdv$d9f$1@nntp4.u.washington.edu> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: saul3.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp4.u.washington.edu 885534975 13615 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: dpeschel Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!europa.clark.net!204.127.161.1!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!dpeschel In article <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12>, Joseph M. Newcomer wrote: > And EMACS-20! Who could forget what $$A$&!*P$$ meant! ("What >could be more mnemonic than J137" - Alan Newell on IPL-V). Well, don't just taunt us unexperienced people! What does $$A$&!*P$$ mean? (I assume the $'s are escapes (altmodes?).) -- Derek ###### From: tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 06:36:50 GMT Organization: none Lines: 122 Message-ID: <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 56k46-118.cyberport.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.nodak.edu!netnews3.nwnet.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news-sea-20.sprintlink.net!207.14.7.19!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!137.192.241.248!mr.net!news-out.microserve.net!news-in.microserve.net!news.supernet.net!news.cyberport.com!not-for-mail wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) wrote: >Well, the number one reason for the ports is that UNIX runs on many >different architectures and hardwares. However, there are two main >ports: BSD and SVR4. Porting between the two isn't too difficult (esp. >with the advent of Posix). However, porting between MS and anything >else is a mind-numbingly arduous task. ....And porting from UNIX (or VMS, or Amiga, or...) to Windows is easy? >} Except that every Unix vendor had to have their own cool features that >} made it incompatible (only the simplest applications would port >} without major effort, and "real" apps wouldn't port at all). Compilers > >You mean like NCSA Mosaic and NCSA Telnet, Emacs, GCC, Perl, VIM, Netscape, >Mathematica, etc. etc...All of these are definitely NOT real apps... Granted, his original statement was overkill, but don't kid yourself: all of these programs have conditional code out the wazoo. Even today in these enlightened POSIX days, it still takes a powerful tool like Autoconf to give the illusion of easy portability. NT programs, on the other hand, pretty much just recomipiled. I guess you could say the same thing about Solaris SPARC and x86, too, FWIW. >} Microsoft had *already* produced a development environment that in >} every dimension exceeded anything I had ever seen or used in any other >} environment in history, and it only cost $350/seat on a $2,500 machine >} (as opposed to something like $1500/seat on a $30,000 machine). > >Except for MS's memory management, threading, editting, compiling, >telnetting (or lack thereof), etc., I'd have to agree with you. Memory management: NT does just fine protecting processes from each other. (Don't kid yourself: no one is advocating Windows 95 in this thread -- that'd be like comparing apples to worms.) Threading: NT does that well, too (it even does some things pthreads doesn't do, like thread-local storage). Editing: the Visual C++ and Borland C++ editors do just fine, and if you don't like them, you can use that $1200 per-seat difference to put towards whatever editor you like. Or, get the Win32 port of emacs or vim -- they work just fine. Compiling: PC compilers are better than most UNIX compilers, probably just because there are more people using them. Borland C++ and Visual C++, for example, both support the newest C++ features better than g++, and definitely better than any stock compilers I've seen. (Sure, spend big money on a third-party toolset and that might change, but PC compilers are still pretty darn good these days.) Telnetting: No one in their right mind sticks with the default telnet client. Come on, splurge on a $30 shareware one. Heck, there are now freeware ones that are good enough for most purposes. >} Given the quality of the environment I have, why do I care? If there >} is a better environment, it will displace Microsoft, and Microsoft >} knows it. I never had a choice with Unix anyway, I had to take > >No, MS is very much aware of their positive feed back loop. All they have >to do is compete in a field (browsers, for instance) and they can >be almost assured of some success. Don't fool yourself: Microsoft has some good stuff these days. As far as browsers go, Netscape and Microsoft are about equal as far as perceived quality goes, and I have no doubts that Microsoft will eventually be the default browser on Windows. Personally, I'm a Netscape guy, but I still think MSIE has its points. For example, it starts up _much_ faster, is feature-competitive, and doesn't seem to crash any more than Navigator. I just don't like the newbie-handholding aspect it purveys. >} whatever crappy dialect of Unix that ran on whatever hardware I had, >} so in what way has Microsoft "limited" my choices over what I had a >} decade ago? I can't run on a VAX? Why do I care? When has hardware >} ever been a deciding factor, anyway? And don't blame Microsoft; they > >Actually, hardware is a deciding factor among real users of computers. I hate it when people use "real" this way -- as if all N million of us PC people are figments of the universe's imagination or something. >People in graphics are vitally concerned with what types of video cards >they have. Some people need really fast access to data on their hard >drive. Some need memory up the wazoo. One of the disappointing things >about the PC industry is that there really isn't good hardware out there >that will optimize your desktop computer with your OS. Take a look at Intergraph and Compaq. They both build SGI killers, and I'm sure there are others. The reason that machines like these are not common in the PC world is that most PC users don't need machines like that -- why pay for what you don't need? >} Frankly, I don't care how rich Bill Gates gets; what I care about is >} that the environment that I work in gets better and better. Microsoft > >I care about that too, however, MS is -way- behind in the OS game. OSes are >now moving to 64-bit processors (those damned hardware requirements >again), while MS has just gone to 32-bit (barely) within the last 2 years. >They are also way behind in multi-processing. They can't handle the I can't speak for anyone else here, but I'm not saying that UNIX is worthless. I have two machines here at home, one of which is a Linux box. At work, we've built our head-end system on a UNIX machine, some of which I'm involved with. If you're just trying to argue that NT isn't the most capable system on the planet, then fine, I agree, and we can go find another thread to haunt. If instead you're trying to get us to believe that UNIX is the across-the-board best OS, you're gonna have to do a lot better than this. >load that UNIX machines can (there are several articles on this, one in >the current Linux Journal magazine about the company who did effects for >_Titanic_ who couldn't use NT machines cause it couldn't do what a Linux >box could). NTs aren't as scalable as UNIXes. The list goes on. Yeah, the article essentially said "We couldn't use NT because it isn't UNIX." Big surprise. (The company had made a big prior investment in UNIX software and was unwilling to port or replace it.) = Warren -- http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent = = Remove the SPAMCATCHER to email. -- Finger me! ###### From: tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 07:04:38 GMT Organization: none Lines: 31 Message-ID: <34cb3ea6.41030719@news.cyberport.com> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: 56k46-118.cyberport.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!news.algonet.se!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!206.102.31.251!news.cmc.net!feeder.swcp.com!news.cyberport.com!not-for-mail newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) wrote: > Amateur: the integer value for flow control options is Amateur: Uses lots of global variables, with names like 'x' and 'i1'. (I did not just make this up -- real code inspired this.) Professional: Likes to test the 31-character identifier limit of C. Amateur: Changes the text messages in the program until it stops crashing. Professional: Runs a bleedin' memory debugger on the sucker. Amateur: Turns off the warnings so he can see the compiler's error reports easier. Professional: Turns on _all_ the warnings and fixes everything reported even if there really is no problem...so he can see the compiler's error reports easier. Amateur: Trustful. Professional: Positively paranoid: checks return values, assert()s passed parameters, liberally uses try {} blocks (C++) and auto_ptr, installs signal handlers, and writes elaborate error handling libraries to handle all of these errors gracefully. = Warren -- http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent = = Remove the SPAMCATCHER to email. -- Finger me! ###### From: Robert Billing Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 23 Jan 98 09:09:00 GMT Message-ID: <885546540snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> Reply-To: unclebob@tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-User: unclebob@tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: post-20.mail.demon.net!post.mail.demon.net!tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 885550426 15109 unclebob tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.29 Lines: 17 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!btnet-peer!btnet!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!tnglwood.demon.co.uk!unclebob In article <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com "Warren Young" writes: > ...And porting from UNIX (or VMS, or Amiga, or...) to Windows is easy? Not really, but porting between Un*x, VMS, Linux, Amiga, OS/2, RSX and all other *real* operating systems is. I've done it. Real in this context means handles multiple tasks with a reasonable form of task interaction. -- I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/ "Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump, Piglet, meet me in transporter room three" ###### From: shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:07:21 -0600 Organization: Shokwave Software, Inc Lines: 52 Message-ID: References: <6a8mg6$2q0@freenet-news.carleton.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: as1-dialup-17.wc-aus.io.com X-Trace: nntp-2.io.com 885571796 14778 (None) 206.224.81.17 X-Complaints-To: usenet@io.com X-Newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.2.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news1.chicago.iagnet.net!iagnet.net!nntp.texas.net!news.io.com!news.io.com!as1-dialup-17.wc-aus.io.com!user You know, it's a wierd little secret, but the Metrowerks development environment (which started out on the Mac, but now is available for the PC as well) is really good, but nearly unknown outside of the Mac community. They call it an "Integrated Development Environment". The editors, compilers and debuggers all work together under a program called the IDE. You organize your project into "project" files. These keep track of the location of your source and libraries and other files. They also keep track of your "targets", which are the things you want to build. Each project can have multiple targets. So, you can have one project that can build PowerMac, 68K Mac and Windows versions of your program. The project also takes the place of makefiles (thankfully), but has a scripting ability so that you can add any external processing you like to the build process (even to running someone else's compiler and importing the result). The code editor does everything you expect: syntax coloring, function pop-ups, parsing for missing parens or braces, auto-indent, block-indent, any font and spacing, pop-ups to take you to include files, etc, etc. The compilers have, in the past, produced some fairly poor code, but they're pretty good these days. In particular, their PowerPC code is quite good. Since the compilers just plug into the environment, they've added support for additional targets (such as the Pilot) and additional languages (such as Java). The source-level debugging is as good as any I've seen anywhere (and works the same for all targets and languages that support the debugger). You can set breakpoints and watchpoints. You can evaluate expressions on the fly. You can change the values of variables as the program runs. You can view variables as their own type or any other type (very helpful with pointers that might point to lots of different things). You can view memory directly, in hex or as any variable. The debugger can be automatically invoked when there's an exception. There's also a fairly handy profiling tool that makes optimization a lot easier. I just finished converting a PC video game to the Mac and it was obvious that the PC programmers hadn't used a profiler on the code (I presume because they didn't have one they liked), because there were some obvious bottlenecks in the code that were pretty easy to work around. One block of ten lines of code was taking up nearly 12% of the processor time. With a little tweaking I brought it down to 2%. This is the sort of thing that you can only find with a profiler. Oh, and it complies and links fast as hell, always an important point. I've rebuilt a 120,000 line project in three or four minutes. A 10,000 line program will compile and link in a few seconds. With a tool like Metrowerks, there's just no excuse for poor code. PS. I don't work for Metrowerks, I just like their products ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:28:19 +0100 Message-ID: From: peterk@combo.ganesha.com (Dr. Peter Kittel) Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Reply-To: peterk @ combo.ganesha.com References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> <34C67D98.AFB830C7@boeing.com> X-Newsreader: rn7.bas Lines: 22 Organization: Private Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed.nacamar.de!blackbush.xlink.net!ganesha.ganesha.com!shorter!combo.ganesha.com!peterk In article <34C67D98.AFB830C7@boeing.com> "John D. Burleson" writes: >Joseph M. Newcomer wrote: >> >> OK, what is "mediocre code"? While I don't like the bugs in Word or >> PowerPoint better than anyone else, have you every really *used* >> mediocre code? FrameMaker, for example, makes the concept of a >> mediocre GUI look like an improvement, and it was written for the >> legendary Unix-that-can-do-no-wrong. And it is full of bugs, and its >> design is incredibly poor in most directions. > >Huh? What was the last version of FrameMaker you used, 2.0? FrameMaker >has an interface that is remarkably consistent across multiple platforms >and creates files that are compatible across ALL these platforms as well >from version to version. I have never, in 5+ years of using FrameMaker, >had a single lock up or crash. Ugh, and that FrameMaker 5.0 here for Mac crashes every quarter of an hour. Weird. On different Mac clones, I should add. -- Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // http://www.pios.de of PIOS Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ office: peterk @ pios.de ###### From: jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 23 Jan 98 15:33:12 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 30 Message-ID: <6aabj3$elc$3@decius.ultra.net> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34C40728.D84423CC@ind.tansu.com.au> <6a168h$ijk$1@darla.visi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: d8.dial-22.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 23 Jan 1998 15:05:07 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!news.ultranet.com!d8 In article <6a168h$ijk$1@darla.visi.com>, jot@visi.com (J. Otto Tennant) wrote: >Raoul Golan writes: > >>Kelsey Bjarnason wrote: > >>> In article <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu >>> says... >>> > Hi all, >>> > >>> > Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy >>> > code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just >>> > ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? >>> > >>> > -- >>> > || Bill Wendling wendling@ncsa.uiuc.edu > >>Uh, job security? > >In my opinion, not usually. > It was others' job security. Consider having to engage the time of a systems programmer to maintain a COBOL program. /BAH ###### From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 23 Jan 1998 16:29:05 GMT Organization: Plethora Internet Lines: 64 Message-ID: <6aaggh$r5g$5@darla.visi.com> References: <6a8mg6$2q0@freenet-news.carleton.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: herd.plethora.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Jan 1998 10:29:05 CST X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test60 (5 October 1997) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.229.87.25!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!209.98.98.14!visi.com!news-out.visi.com!not-for-mail In article , Rob Hafernik wrote: >You know, it's a wierd little secret, but the Metrowerks development >environment (which started out on the Mac, but now is available for the PC >as well) is really good, but nearly unknown outside of the Mac community. Hmph. I wrote them with a couple of bug reports, and they tried to correct me. Specifically, as memory serves, they tried to convince me that int main(void) { return 0; }; is not a syntax error. The rationale? Well, yes, function defns don't take ;'s, but you can just view it as a null statement! Of course, C can't take null statements outside of blocks. >The code editor does everything you expect: syntax coloring, AaAAaAAAAaagggghhh! Would you be happier reading English if prepositions were green, nouns were blue, verbs were red, and adjectives purple, adverbs orange, and everything else yellow? Hint: Syntax coloring is not always a good thing. >function pop-ups, >parsing for missing parens or braces, auto-indent, block-indent, >any font and spacing, pop-ups to take you to include files, etc, etc. Uhm. So far, you've offered a couple of features I want and look for in an editor, but none of the good ones: * Regular expression support * Piping blocks through external commands * Full-featured command set, i.e., "go to every line that has a '.call' at the beginning; there, replace anything that looks like a bunch of letters, followed by the sequence '_foo' followed by a group of numbers, with the same letters, followed by '_bar', followed by the same group of numbers." g/^\.call/s/\([a-z]*\)_foo\([0-9]*\)/\1_bar\2/g [snip] None of the other features you mention are unusual; every Unix system has had them all for decades. >With a tool like Metrowerks, there's just no excuse for poor code. Sure there is! For instance, let's say the compiler fails to warn you about a syntax error, or the manual gives you bad advice, or the example program for "ANSI C" isn't ANSI C, because it declares main wrong. I actually think they're pretty cool, but not as cool as you think they are. -s -- seebs@plethora.net -- I am not speaking for my employer. Copyright '97 All rights reserved. Boycott Spamazon! End Spam. C and Unix wizard - send mail for help, or send money for a consultation. Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! Plethora . Net ###### From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 23 Jan 1998 16:41:35 GMT Organization: Plethora Internet Lines: 138 Message-ID: <6aah7v$r5g$6@darla.visi.com> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: herd.plethora.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Jan 1998 10:41:35 CST X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test60 (5 October 1997) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newspeer.monmouth.com!chippy.visi.com!visi.com!news-out.visi.com!not-for-mail In article <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com>, Warren Young wrote: >...And porting from UNIX (or VMS, or Amiga, or...) to Windows is easy? Except when Windows has a crappy API, for instance, Winsock, yes, it is. I took an implementation of RPC that someone had mostly-ported to Win '95, and I got it running on both kinds of windows in a day or two. >Granted, his original statement was overkill, but don't kid yourself: >all of these programs have conditional code out the wazoo. Even today >in these enlightened POSIX days, it still takes a powerful tool like >Autoconf to give the illusion of easy portability. NT programs, on >the other hand, pretty much just recomipiled. I guess you could say >the same thing about Solaris SPARC and x86, too, FWIW. 99% of the things people use autoconf for are just developer cluelessness. I've had very little trouble porting between Unixes, and what I have had is mostly a result of systems 8-10 years apart in feature set. >Threading: NT does that well, too (it even does some things pthreads >doesn't do, like thread-local storage). Well? You call a system that needs 4x the memory, at least, of a Unix system to run threads "well"? >Editing: the Visual C++ and Borland C++ editors do just fine, and if >you don't like them, you can use that $1200 per-seat difference to put >towards whatever editor you like. Or, get the Win32 port of emacs or >vim -- they work just fine. Uhm. What $1200 per-seat difference? Real Unix (BSDI, NetBSD, Linux) all come with real editors and toolsets. Free. So... >Compiling: PC compilers are better than most UNIX compilers, probably >just because there are more people using them. Oh, nonsense! They're utter crap! I'm sorry, but I collect compilers, and the absolute worst, without doubt, have been the PC ones. gcc is one of the top five compilers I've ever used. Clear, informative diagnostics. When there's a conflict between two headers, it tells you which ones - MSVC 4.x was still just telling you that something was redefined, not telling you where the previous definition is. That, right there, can make a twenty minute to an hour difference in how long it takes to get something running. >Borland C++ and Visual >C++, for example, both support the newest C++ features better than >g++, and definitely better than any stock compilers I've seen. You're joking. This is the Visual C++ that was still using the ARM scope for variables in for loops? When did they get support for 'mutable'? gcc had it around '91 or '92. >(Sure, >spend big money on a third-party toolset and that might change, but PC >compilers are still pretty darn good these days.) No, they're crap. They're horrible. I would rather use a Macintosh compiler than any PC compiler I've had the misfortune to be stuck on. My experience was limited to various VC 4.x's, VC 1.52c, and Borland 4.52 or so... But they were all horrible. >Telnetting: No one in their right mind sticks with the default telnet >client. Come on, splurge on a $30 shareware one. Heck, there are now >freeware ones that are good enough for most purposes. Oh, I see - telnet isn't basic functionality, so it's okay that the default telnet client is completely broken. Nice try, but I'll stick with an OS that has reasonable tools. >Don't fool yourself: Microsoft has some good stuff these days. Really? >As far >as browsers go, Netscape and Microsoft are about equal as far as >perceived quality goes, and I have no doubts that Microsoft will >eventually be the default browser on Windows. Personally, I'm a >Netscape guy, but I still think MSIE has its points. For example, it >starts up _much_ faster, is feature-competitive, and doesn't seem to >crash any more than Navigator. I just don't like the >newbie-handholding aspect it purveys. Well, it starts up much faster for the same reason that M$ apps are always faster - they can cheat, they can put stuff into the OS, and so on. Try starting MSIE on a Unix system some time. >I hate it when people use "real" this way -- as if all N million of us >PC people are figments of the universe's imagination or something. No, but many of you aren't really *using* computers, you're just toying with them. (Hell, I know I am a lot of the time - and for that, I have a PC.) >Take a look at Intergraph and Compaq. They both build SGI killers, >and I'm sure there are others. The reason that machines like these >are not common in the PC world is that most PC users don't need >machines like that -- why pay for what you don't need? I have no idea what you consider an "SGI killer", but I haven't been able to find any PC's comparable to SGI's graphics workstations... >If instead you're trying to >get us to believe that UNIX is the across-the-board best OS, you're >gonna have to do a lot better than this. True - if it weren't for the lack of memory protection, I would have to say AmigaDOS is competitive. >Yeah, the article essentially said "We couldn't use NT because it >isn't UNIX." Big surprise. (The company had made a big prior >investment in UNIX software and was unwilling to port or replace it.) How about MSNBC, who couldn't use NT because it simply couldn't handle real loads? How about the guy I was working with who had an NT server with nine virtual web pages on it... It was overloaded, so they had to up the memory from 128MB to 256MB. The Unix box, with 128MB, was handling ninety. It wasn't heavily loaded yet. How about ftp.microsoft.com, over ten dedicated ftp servers, serving less information than a single unix server at one of the other places... -s -- seebs@plethora.net -- I am not speaking for my employer. Copyright '97 All rights reserved. Boycott Spamazon! End Spam. C and Unix wizard - send mail for help, or send money for a consultation. Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! Plethora . Net ###### From: jdf@pobox.com (Jonathan Feinberg) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 17:21:04 -0500 Organization: Concentric Internet Services Lines: 8 Message-ID: References: <6a8mg6$2q0@freenet-news.carleton.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: ts010d02.hil-ny.concentric.net X-Newsreader: Anawave Gravity v1.10 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!199.0.154.56!ais.net!newsfeed.concentric.net!global-news-master shokwave@well.com said... > Oh, and it complies and links fast as hell, always an important point. ^^^^^^^^ No matter how fast you throw new standards at the Metroworks Complier, it'll keep up, with new Self-Modifying Compliance Modules. -- Jonathan Feinberg jdf@pobox.com Sunny Brooklyn, NY ###### From: jdc@access5.digex.net (John Cochran) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 23 Jan 1998 19:28:20 -0500 Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA Lines: 40 Message-ID: <6abcj4$l2f@access5.digex.net> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <1998Jan22.002924.5817@lorelei.approve.se> NNTP-Posting-Host: access5.digex.net Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.onenet.net!news.oru.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!131.103.1.114!news1.chicago.iagnet.net!iagnet.net!news2.digex.net!digex!digex.net!not-for-mail In article , Tom Watson wrote: ><<>> > >Are there any other examples of horrible code (in whatever language). At a previous assignment, I was asked to evaluate some 'C' code for maintainability. Some of the things I found. 1. emsg[0] = 'E'; emsg[1] = 'r'; emsg[2] = 'r'; .... emsg[68] = '\0'; report_error(emsg); 2. char *strncpy(int n, char *dest, char *source) { /* Code to copy NUL terminated string from source to dest */ /* for at most n characters. Yes, the exact same functionality */ /* as the standard strncpy(). Just that the parameters don't match */ } After finding many more problems (Just the kind of thing you would expect when encountering a group of 10 people who just developed a project without any overall leadership or plan, and it was their FIRST encounter with Unix, and it was their FIRST encounter with C, and it was their FIRST encounter with a certain graphics package.... I finally asked them to provide me with a directory subtree that had everything required to compile the project and NOTHING else. After they claimed to do that, I typed: grep main *.c and about a dozen definitions of main() popped up. I sincerely pity who ever is having to maintain that monster. John Cochran ###### From: spam@lisardrock.demon.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 20:57:54 GMT Message-ID: <885589074.26847.8.nnrp-07.9e98ee68@news.demon.co.uk> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk [158.152.238.104] X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 Lines: 20 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!lisardrock.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-01-22 dski@cameonet.cameo.com.twx(DanStrychalski) said: -> I can guarantee that if Microsoft did not exist, we would NOT have -> 200MHz Pentium-equivalent-power laptops for $2,500 today (one sits -> beside me right now, running Win95). -To paraphrase you, how has this benefited me? I can guarantee you -that we would have such machines in good time, and we would not be -forced to use them for tasks that could be done just as well on a -286. we *knew* there was some reason why our home 386sx20 seemed faster than our work 486dx2/66... -- Communa - all at lisardrock.demon.net to be sure we read your reply, send to username `communa' Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 - Test Drive ###### From: spam@lisardrock.demon.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 20:58:11 GMT Message-ID: <885589091.26847.9.nnrp-07.9e98ee68@news.demon.co.uk> References: <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk [158.152.238.104] X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 Lines: 191 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!lisardrock.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-01-21 newcomer@flounder.com(JosephM.Newcomer) said: -OK, the "illusion of choice" goes out the window. Or Windows. -How has this hurt me? see below. if you had a choice (or rather, let yourself believe you had a choice; modern unices are pretty damn good, especially a linux sysstem running on one computer at work which is generally underspecified for win95. but we know, it's not comparing like with like. a better comparison for linux would be nt/server. which just goes to show...) -Most of my career I used a variety of proprietary operating systems, -compilers, and languages. Every couple years I had to relearn -everything. Then along came Unix. And everything was now uniform. why is having to relearn everything a *bad* thing...? and why couldn't you have used the common principles that you must surely have picked up? a text editor is a text editor is a text editor. an algorithmic language ditto. sure the implementations would have differed, but LDA is the same whichever machine you're doing it on (with the possible exception of the cdc6600). -Except that every Unix vendor had to have their own cool features -that made it incompatible (only the simplest applications would port -without major effort, and "real" apps wouldn't port at all). whatever became of the k&r c library...? or, for that matter, the standard facilities of f77? now look. porting a dos app to a mac is going to be a bit of a bastard too. so what? whenever you port an app from one computer to another (or from one language to another, or whatever) it's a sod. that's just the way of things. it's damned near impossible to do anything useful without doing things specific to the system you're using (sorry, java). these days, porting isn't an issue because your beloved windows has locked people into *one* architecture, running on *one* platform, using *one* company's technology. no options for improvement. but just try porting a windows app to the mac, and then come back and tell us that ms has done away with the compatibility problems of modern computers. better still, try porting it to x/windows. -Compilers were a side issue; one compiler, for one vendor, had the -problem that if it constant-folded an integer comparison in an -if-statement, it inverted the sense of the branch. Their solution: -"Don't do that". well, *don't* do it then, it's not hard to avoid. (what is the extra effort involved in working out the constant beforehand, giving it a meaningful name, and not worrying about whether the compiler can do something you should have done yourself in the first place...? in a perfect world, compilers wouldn't optimise anything.) -Their fix "We'll fix it in the next release, next -year". Seven years ago, I was given a RISC-6000 machine. Other -than the fact that its compiler didn't work, its debugger didn't -work, its linker didn't work, and there was no document production -system on it, no one knew how to magnify the fonts so I could read -them, or even get the fonts loaded, and it compiled slower than my -386/33, it was all right. Microsoft had *already* produced a -development environment that in every dimension exceeded anything I -had ever seen or used in any other environment in history, and it -only cost $350/seat on a $2,500 machine (as opposed to something -like $1500/seat on a $30,000 machine). hmm. which environment was that, then? can't have been visual basic, next got there first several years beforehand (and in much better taste and style) and they even took the cue from smalltalk (remember mvc, anyone?) also can't have been anything they've ever done with c, we haven't seen anything remotely functional coming from that direction. or maybe you meant mbasic on the trs-80...? :> -Given the quality of the environment I have, why do I care? If -there is a better environment, it will displace Microsoft, and -Microsoft knows it. *WRONG*! look at nextstep. look at the mac. look at any number of great, beautiful, powerful failures. look at os/2, ferchrissakes!!! ms has done an extremely effective job of locking any possible competitor out of the market almost completely. once a company eliminates competition, it doesn't *have* to be good. or cheap. or effective. all it has to do is sit there and give the orders. and so many machines use it, and so much software relies on it (and can't be redeveloped), that there *is* no competition effectively. otherwise, why is cobol still a thriving opportunity of employment? -I never had a choice with Unix anyway, I had -to take whatever crappy dialect of Unix that ran on whatever -hardware I had, so in what way has Microsoft "limited" my choices -over what I had a decade ago? I can't run on a VAX? Why do I well, actually, that almost certainly isn't the case. there were and are plenty of choices of unix for most machines. even in freeware, you can have linux, minix or one of half a dozen different BSD ports. and manufacturers have never been terribly good at giving their customers operating systems that made the best of the underlying irons. -care? When has hardware ever been a deciding factor, anyway? And -don't blame Microsoft; they supported both MIPS and PowerPC, until -the people selling those platforms decided that they didn't want NT -on them because nobody was buying them. So the MARKET, not umm, microsoft wasn't forced into giving up on support for those platforms. the last thing we need from anyone is a "poor microsoft, aren't they victims?" speech. -Microsoft, elected to go with Intel. When I can insert pictures, -by-reference, in spreadsheets that I can insert in Word documents, -print them in full color on any printer I want (check on an article -I did in SIGPlan Notices on IDL about 15 years ago; after trying -for THREE WEEKS to print it at the SEI on the laser printer, I gave -up and printed it on my dot-matrix printer on my DOS box, because -THAT WORKED). I don't even want to THINK about the two days it -took me to insert a bitmap image in a document under Unix in 1989. -And after I inserted it, I couldn't print it! Today, it is a few -mouse clicks! yep. 1989. sure. in 1989 we can imagine that inserting a bitmap image into a document under windows would have been something of a hassle too. after all, no ole, no dde, none of the technologies (all of which are available from others, better implemented, with more power and scope and fewer stupid blind points) that actually make all of this stuff possible. but please, point to which of these technologies microsoft have developed, pioneered, and used long before they were credible elsewhere. take your time, please. and then take a few minutes to consider whether doing what you find so wonderful now would even have been *possible* had microsoft achieved their current level of market domination a few minutes earlier. nowadays, ms has to rip off public domain solutions. it's driven all it's commercial competitors to the wall. it's even started buying into universities (cambridge, of all places). what happens when ms own all of them? you don't want choice? fine. we'll assume you don't want any of the benefits you raved about above either - or certainly, you won't want the equivalents that should have been along in five years' time. -Frankly, I don't care how rich Bill Gates gets; what I care about is -that the environment that I work in gets better and better. same here. shame it won't. (until we get linux at work, that is.) -Microsoft accomplished this when the oh-so-wonderful Unix was still -trying to figure out what "portability" meant. I can guarantee ms didn't have to worry about portability. so what? -that if Microsoft did not exist, we would NOT have 200MHz -Pentium-equivalent-power laptops for $2,500 today (one sits beside -me right now, running Win95). bollocks. intel have done their own thing in the micro race (except perhaps for mmx). they've had to, because people like digital weren't going to slow down for anyone - even intel has to stay competitive. and the pda revolution would've happened anyway (and it seems like a little company in the uk will win that particular battle). so no, we wouldn't have had 200MHz pentia, perhaps, but we would probably still have had 500MHz strongarms, 250MHz powerpcs, etc. for the same price. and probably with better overall performance. and hey, we might have had 200MHz 80860-based systems instead, which would have been much nicer. -If I'm going to have a "choice", I want a choice that gives me -something BETTER than what I already have. I'm not seeing enough -difference between most products to feel that I need a lot of -choices. so in other words, ms - who are so wonderful - aren't actually all that different to anyone else...? -- Communa - all at lisardrock.demon.net to be sure we read your reply, send to username `communa' Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 - Test Drive ###### From: Marco S Hyman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 24 Jan 1998 15:46:36 -0800 Organization: S.N.A.F.U. (www.snafu.org) Lines: 24 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> <6aah7v$r5g$6@darla.visi.com> <34ca035b.7585327@news.cyberport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: dumbcat.codewright.com X-Trace: 885685596 29007 (none) 206.86.0.12 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!209.150.160.22.MISMATCH!newsfeed!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news1.best.com!nntp2.ba.best.com!not-for-mail tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) writes: > NT wants 32MB to run well, just like all of the commercial UNIXes I'm > familiar with. Of course, they all want more if they can get it, but > that's just computers in general. Make sure you're comparing apples > to apples here: both running window systems, for example. > > No, NT is not a slim OS -- Linux is a slim OS -- but when you can get > 64MB of memory for $100, who's counting? ARGGGGHHHHHHHH! Not everyone (especially those who may be reading a folklore group) want to throw away that old hardware. I can run the latest/greatest *BSD on my 8 year old 20 MHz 386. What I can't do is get memory for it. They don't make the proprietary memory expansion boards any more and the motherboard is maxed out at 8 Meg. Now I don't run X on that particular machine, but I did at one time. It's nice being able to run the same OS on my 8 year old 386 (8 meg ram), my 3 year old portable (24 meg ram), and my 2 year old sun (although the sun is still running SunOS for the next month or so). // marc ###### From: Marco S Hyman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 24 Jan 1998 15:57:13 -0800 Organization: S.N.A.F.U. (www.snafu.org) Lines: 12 Message-ID: References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: dumbcat.codewright.com X-Trace: 885686233 29007 (none) 206.86.0.12 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news1.best.com!nntp2.ba.best.com!not-for-mail newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) writes: > I had Word on Windows, I had *roff on Unix.) What convinced me that Word vs *roff is an interesting comparison. I've learned (the hard way) that I write MUCH better using *roff than using a wysiwyg editor. Maybe it's lack of self control on my part, but I found that given the opportunity to easily play with a document format I spent all too much time doing just that -- to the detriment of what was being written. // marc ###### From: tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 16:08:44 GMT Organization: none Lines: 144 Message-ID: <34ca035b.7585327@news.cyberport.com> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> <6aah7v$r5g$6@darla.visi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 56k1-118.cyberport.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.102.31.251!news.cmc.net!feeder.swcp.com!news.cyberport.com!not-for-mail seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) wrote: >In article <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com>, >Warren Young wrote: >>...And porting from UNIX (or VMS, or Amiga, or...) to Windows is easy? > >Except when Windows has a crappy API, for instance, Winsock, yes, it is. >I took an implementation of RPC that someone had mostly-ported to Win '95, >and I got it running on both kinds of windows in a day or two. Well, I may be biased, since I'm a Winsock evangelist, but it seems to me that it works just fine. Sure, it has a few limitations and bugs, especially on Windows 95, but we're not going to talk about _that_ OS. On NT, the only limitation I can find, compared to common UNIX systems, is that it doesn't allow most kinds of raw sockets. Since this latter is a feature (Windows doesn't have a reputation as a cracker OS, and I'm sure Microsoft wants to keep it that way), I'm not inclined to be too hard on MS for doing that. What was hard about your RPC port? And incidentally, why couldn't you just use Microsoft RPC? I know that there are differences, but I think there's at least _some_ interoperability. >>Threading: NT does that well, too (it even does some things pthreads >>doesn't do, like thread-local storage). > >Well? You call a system that needs 4x the memory, at least, of a Unix >system to run threads "well"? NT wants 32MB to run well, just like all of the commercial UNIXes I'm familiar with. Of course, they all want more if they can get it, but that's just computers in general. Make sure you're comparing apples to apples here: both running window systems, for example. No, NT is not a slim OS -- Linux is a slim OS -- but when you can get 64MB of memory for $100, who's counting? >>Editing: the Visual C++ and Borland C++ editors do just fine, and if >>you don't like them, you can use that $1200 per-seat difference to put >>towards whatever editor you like. Or, get the Win32 port of emacs or >>vim -- they work just fine. > >Uhm. What $1200 per-seat difference? Real Unix (BSDI, NetBSD, Linux) >all come with real editors and toolsets. Free. So... Just using the example given by the orignal post. >>Compiling: PC compilers are better than most UNIX compilers, probably >>just because there are more people using them. > >Oh, nonsense! They're utter crap! I'm sorry, but I collect compilers, >and the absolute worst, without doubt, have been the PC ones. > >gcc is one of the top five compilers I've ever used. Clear, informative >diagnostics. When there's a conflict between two headers, it tells you >which ones - MSVC 4.x was still just telling you that something was redefined, >not telling you where the previous definition is. No doubt, gcc diagnostics are nice. I wasn't saying that _everything_ is better about the compilers I've chosen. I was mainly referring to language support, about which more below. In any case, Borland C++ _does_ tell you where the earlier definition was, and in many respects, I prefer Borland C++ over Visual C++. (If _Borland_ cared more about BC++, I'd still be using it.) >>Borland C++ and Visual >>C++, for example, both support the newest C++ features better than >>g++, and definitely better than any stock compilers I've seen. > >You're joking. This is the Visual C++ that was still using the ARM scope >for variables in for loops? Granted, VC++ doesn't do everything all that well, but it does tend to do templates better than g++. For example, g++ barfs on templates as default template parameters and on nested templates. For those keeping score, BC++ does do templates as default template parameters, but doesn't handle nested templates, while VC++ does both correctly. And hey, if you wanna be snippy, how `bout those great g++ diagnostics: x.cpp:5: warning: namespaces are mostly broken in this version of g++ >When did they get support for 'mutable'? gcc had it around '91 or '92. It wasn't added to the Draft Standard earlier than a year or so ago. (April 1995 DWP, IIRC.) So, if what you're saying is true, it was only as a vendor-specific extension. Again, Borland C++ had this feature soon after it was released from committee. >>starts up _much_ faster, is feature-competitive, and doesn't seem to > >Well, it starts up much faster for the same reason that M$ apps are >always faster - they can cheat, they can put stuff into the OS, and >so on. > >Try starting MSIE on a Unix system some time. It probably starts up faster because it uses a lot of DLLs and things that are already loaded. On a UNIX system, they aren't there, so it has to load them itself. >>I hate it when people use "real" this way -- as if all N million of us >>PC people are figments of the universe's imagination or something. > >No, but many of you aren't really *using* computers, you're just toying >with them. (Hell, I know I am a lot of the time - and for that, I have >a PC.) Hmmmm...that's interesting -- I have a Linux box that _I_ toy with, and I had an SGI once for the same reason. I get my actual work done on my NT box. My point is that a computer is what you make of it -- you can toy with a Cray, if you want, and you can get real work done on an Apple ][, too. >>Take a look at Intergraph and Compaq. They both build SGI killers, >>and I'm sure there are others. The reason that machines like these >>are not common in the PC world is that most PC users don't need >>machines like that -- why pay for what you don't need? > >I have no idea what you consider an "SGI killer", but I haven't been >able to find any PC's comparable to SGI's graphics workstations... I suspect that at the high end (maybe even what SGI calls its "midrange") you're right, but there are many many people using high-end PCs that would have been using an SGI not too long ago. Again, I'm not saying that UNIX is junk or that Windows NT does everything. I'm just trying to bring a little reason into this thread: NT isn't junk, either. >>Yeah, the article essentially said "We couldn't use NT because it >>isn't UNIX." Big surprise. (The company had made a big prior >>investment in UNIX software and was unwilling to port or replace it.) > >How about MSNBC, who couldn't use NT because it simply couldn't handle >real loads? How about Sun, which uses mainframes? = Warren -- http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent = = Remove the SPAMCATCHER to email. -- Finger me! ###### From: kelseyb@no.spam.usa.net (Kelsey Bjarnason) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 19:37:47 -0800 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> <6aah7v$r5g$6@darla.visi.com> X-Newsreader: Anawave Gravity v2.00 NNTP-Posting-Host: light67.lightspeed.bc.ca Lines: 27 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!light67.lightspeed.bc.ca [snips] In article <6aah7v$r5g$6@darla.visi.com>, seebs@plethora.net says... > Well? You call a system that needs 4x the memory, at least, of a Unix > system to run threads "well"? > > >Editing: the Visual C++ and Borland C++ editors do just fine, and if > >you don't like them, you can use that $1200 per-seat difference to put > >towards whatever editor you like. Or, get the Win32 port of emacs or > >vim -- they work just fine. You know, it's funny. People talk about unix vs NT all the time, usually about "efficiency" and "response" and "memory/resource requirements". Meanwhile the old HP-1000 is still merrily serving 40-odd people and running 60-80 processes, on average, with good response times, and has just recently been upgraded - it now has 2Mb of RAM. Oh, and let's note that the HP users generally run dumb terminals, not workstations; the real work is all done on the server. Oh, yeah, but unix is so much more efficient, right? :) Lemme know when I can run Linux serving even 20 users with good response times in 2Mb. With the server doing all the work. Even in plain old text mode. -- Remove .no.spam from my address to respond. ###### From: kelseyb@no.spam.usa.net (Kelsey Bjarnason) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 20:06:59 -0800 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> <6a9bdv$d9f$1@nntp4.u.washington.edu> X-Newsreader: Anawave Gravity v2.00 NNTP-Posting-Host: light27.lightspeed.bc.ca Lines: 16 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!light27.lightspeed.bc.ca In article <6a9bdv$d9f$1@nntp4.u.washington.edu>, dpeschel@u.washington.edu says... > In article <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12>, > Joseph M. Newcomer wrote: > > > And EMACS-20! Who could forget what $$A$&!*P$$ meant! ("What > >could be more mnemonic than J137" - Alan Newell on IPL-V). > > Well, don't just taunt us unexperienced people! What does $$A$&!*P$$ mean? > (I assume the $'s are escapes (altmodes?).) It meant then the same thing it means now: "shoot the person who did the command syntax and interface for this thing." :) -- Remove .no.spam from my address to respond. ###### From: Pete Fenelon Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 24 Jan 1998 21:18:22 GMT Organization: home Message-ID: <6adlqu$5q2$2@irk.zetnet.co.uk> References: <6a8mg6$2q0@freenet-news.carleton.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-095.dialup.zetnet.co.uk User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980105 (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.30 (i486)) Lines: 13 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!peer.news.zetnet.net!zetnet.co.uk!fenelon.zetnet.co.uk!pete Rob Hafernik wrote: > With a tool like Metrowerks, there's just no excuse for poor code. Nothing you mentioned in that article hasn't been available on other environments before. Metrowerks is just another IDE; not a bad one, but there's nothing I've not seen in MPW, or Visual C++, or Oberon, or Lisp environments, or Mesa, or... or... you get the idea. pete -- Pete Fenelon ("There's no room for enigmas in built-up areas") pete@fenelon.zetnet.co.uk http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/petef/ 3 Beckside Gardens, Melrosegate, York, Y01 3TX +44 1904 438472 ###### From: newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 21:43:38 GMT Organization: Pittsburgh OnLine, Inc. Lines: 97 Message-ID: <34e95db9.351445589@206.210.64.12> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp25.s8.pgh.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!newsxfer.visi.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!howland.erols.net!fastnet!news.pgh.net!not-for-mail There are several interesting classes of programming: - Space matters (embedded systems with limited ROM capability) - Speed matters (real-time systems or systems with serious performance requirements) - Everything else It is important not to confuse these categories. For example, when coding the inner loop of a performance-demanding application, I wrote relatively simple and straightforward code. It verified that everything else worked, but the performance sucked. I then tweaked the inner loop a bit and tripled its performance, and then turned on "The Full Monty" of the compiler optimization and got another factor of 4. At that point it was fast enough that it met the required performance goals. But I didn't waste time optimizing, say, the dispatch of mouse clicks, which went through some rather heavy layering to produce clear, easily maintained code. I've also done space-constrained programming, and again, I wrote code as simple and straightforward as possible, then began trimming it when we hit the space limit. Most of the trimming was in trading off code size and performance for preloaded table size (I could compress a table by a factor of 4 by writing hairier--and larger, slower--code, and performance wasn't the bottleneck; 64K ROM was). By adding 400 bytes of code I could save 16K of table space (a combination of compression and some nonlinear interpolation to halve the number of points required in the table). I've also done real-time programming, where the overhead of taking an interrupt made the difference between meeting the realtime window and missing it. All the interrupt routine had to do was check to see if a new interrupt was pending, and if so, loop instead of taking the interrupt. The saving in interrupt latency tripled the data rate we could handle. Since the data came in bursts, we got out of the interrupt handler often enough to service the GUI. I've learned what often makes code expensive to develop is to confuse either of the first two cases with the last case. Good application of experience can suggest where some effort should be put, but until you've built the system, you don't know for sure. OK, here's a question: what's the difference between a hacker, a computer scientist, and a software engineer? [stay tuned for the answer...I'll give a few days for other inputs] joe On 21 Jan 1998 12:38:17 GMT, john@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au (John "West" McKenna) wrote: >newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) writes: > >> Amateur: Code Size Is All > >> Professional: Code Size is the least of the concerns. >> ALWAYS compromise code size in the interest of >> maintainability, extensibility, and understandability. > >I wish I could. I really do. But 32K of EPROM is 32K of EPROM. > >So I wrote an interpreter for a memory-efficient byte-code, compressed all >my strings, and write code like memory doesn't matter. > >It is really, really slow. About 12500 instructions/second. But I don't >care. When the routine that is called twice each second takes 2 seconds to >run, you do some optimizing. When the user interface starts to feel >sluggish, you do some optimizing. Until then, it doesn't really matter. > >> Amateur: codes >> DWORD mask = (DWORD)pow(2.0, (float)n); > >> Professional: codes >> DWORD mask = 1 << n; > >>(This last example is from the inner loop of a realtime system, >>written to run on a 386 without floating point accelerator. It was >>the least of the sins I found in that code) > > char buf[10]; > int i; > > i=function_that_always_returns_an_integer_between_1000_and_9999(); > sprintf(buf,"%d",i); > buf[0]=buf[2]; > buf[1]=buf[3] > buf[2]=0; > i=atoi(buf); > >Took me a while to realise that it is simply doing > i=i%100; >(My C is rather rusty, so forgive me if the code is not quite right) > >John West Joseph M. Newcomer newcomer@flounder.com http://www3.pgh.net/~newcomer ###### From: newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 22:59:03 GMT Organization: Pittsburgh OnLine, Inc. Lines: 172 Message-ID: <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp25.s8.pgh.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-xfer.netaxs.com!fastnet!news.pgh.net!not-for-mail Userland? Mr. Programmer Man? Hmmm, I've missed something here. *I AM A USER*. Admittedly, a signficant percentage of my time goes into programming, but I write books, handle email, and when I have time, participate in these discussions. I cannot think of a single activity that I do now that was better under Unix, TOPS-10, OS/360, TSS/360, TOPS-20, RSX-11M, MVS, or VMS. When I say "The environment gets better" I mean the *entire* environment, not just the compiler. The last time I tried to do email under Unix, about six years ago, I had my choice of six undocumented mailers, each of which almost worked. I could almost read newsgroups without significant agony. The drawing tools could be most politely referred to as a joke (when I could draw instantly using PowerPoint on Windows, I had to use PIC on Unix! When I had Word on Windows, I had *roff on Unix.) What convinced me that Windows was a winner was that I could go down to my local software store and have my choice of a half-dozen packages for whatever I wanted to do, from $29.95-just-barely-above-shareware to $600 professional packages. On Unix I had my choice of two freeware, barely-functional packages, providing I could recompile them with my C compiler (not guaranteed), and one professional product that was crap and cost $5,000/seat. Not counting the $1500/year support package without which I couldn't get tech support at all. My choices are greater, the tools more powerful, and the cost is negligible. In 20 years, Unix never succeeded in having a "shrink-wrapped" market (albeit there were a couple products, this does not a new wave make. For example, how many computer stores existed selling Unix products ten years into Unix's reign? How many stores existing selling Microsoft-compatible products ten years into Microsoft's reign). Out here in the Real World, we want cost-effect solutions to problems, not solutions that are "Microsoft-free". I don't care *who* makes the solution; I care that it makes my life, which includes email, accounting, invoicing, letter-writing, book-writing, backup, printing, Web page design, etc. easier. Unix never managed to do that, not in 20 years. In fact, I cannot name a single operating system that was easier to use and gave me more power than Windows. Yes, it can be miserable to program, but I've programmed so many operating systems with so many problems that I don't see the problems of programming Windows as any different (I could regularly crash the X-server by sending it perfectly legitimate requests, so had to limit what I could do to what that particular X-server on that particular Unix box could handle without crashing, independent of the X-spec. Of course, the first time we tried the app on another Unix flavor, we discovered that *its* X-server had a different set of bugs! THIS does not make my life easier). I do not have a blind love of Windows; in fact, there are parts of it that are *really* miserable to program. And Word crashes occasionally. Eudora was written by people who never used dial-up ISPs or heard of multithreading. ActiveVirus is a terrible technology for the Internet, albeit a wonderful technology for abstraction when used as originally intended. TOPS-20 required reading the tape status register three times and voting on the results to see if the status was valid. I remember CMU spending six months getting the high-density Storage Technology tape drivers to work with our KL-10. The Unix site at the SEI would successfully print only one out of ten tries on a good day (mostly it just lost the request somewhere between my machine and the printer). We spent years trying to get IBM's TSS/360 to work. Unix self-destructed 30 workstations in one night (after having failed to back up 80 of them for something like a year!). Configuring a Macintosh in a real-world network was a nightmare (in spite of what Apple liked to say, it wasn't that easy). If you want perfection in this world, you need to be in some other profession than computing. Last week I was in the hospital. The admissions people had IBM displays with light pens, running half-duplex, and dot-matrix high-speed line printers. They hope by next year to have laser printers installed so they don't have to put up with the infernal racket. BY NEXT YEAR! I had a personal laser printer in 1986! (The first laser printer I used was in 1970, somewhat before they had lasers). The progress in mainframes is astounding in its rapidity... When I went to the ITC at CMU in 1990 for a year, the BIG NEWS was that they could now support color displays in color! I had been using a color display for four years. The only downside to this Great Advance was that it took over 30 seconds to drop down a menu on a $50,000 RISC-6000 (when I switched from 16-color to 256-color mode, I found that it took 10 seconds to drop down a Windows menu, so I went out and spent $150 for a new SVGA card and at 256-colors could drop one down instantly, on a 386/33). Color Comes To Unix was big news in 1990. Ho hum. Everyone seems down on Microsoft. Anyone who was around during the 60s and 70s should remember that IBM was treated the same way. Why is it that software from Microsoft, one of America's foremost free-enterprise companies, is evil, when software from AT&T, one of America's foremost government-protected monopolies, was Good? Did it become more moral after it was sold to Novell, perpetrator of the worst example of networking I've ever seen (even beats NFS for bogosity. At least Sun publishes their protocols. I know of very few sites who can run a Novell network without constant fondling of the server by the sysadmin, and very few sites that require other than casual administration of a Microsoft network). The Wintel platform has produced more millionaires than any hardware/software technology in history. This is bad? Oh yes, the issue with a Black Hole is that nothing comes out of it. Poor analogy. btw, you obviously know a better operating system and software packages than most of us. How much did it cost, how much does the software cost, how much effort does it take to install these wonderful packages, and are they utterly bug-free and never crash? Can they do everything my software packages do? I'm surprised I haven't heard of such a wonderful system. How many millions has it made for its creators, and how many millions of happy users does it have? Can my brother afford four instances of it for his four kids? Complete with game software, network support, CD-ROM support, education software, accounting software, etc.? Does it fully support all standard peripherals, including scanners, tape drives, modems, FAX modems, color printers, still and video cameras, 24-bit 3-D color cards, 16-bit 3-D sound, high-performance CD-ROMs, writeable CDs, etc.? Does it support a file server system capable of backing up both the server and individual workstations? Does it have a full GUI? How many different drawing, desktop publication, and image processing systems can I get for it at my local computer store? Can I buy a 6-lb laptop that runs it? Can I simply install it and expect it to run within minutes of completing the installation? Do all the products have free customer support? Premium customer support? Is its GUI documented effectively with less than 3ft of manuals (this rules out anything based on X, the Mac, or Windows). Clearly, this is the Market Winner, if only I'd ever heard of it.. The example of my brother is a good one. He is a purchasing agent for a small company. He has no interest in computers as computers; only as devices that can help him get work done, and help his kids. His four kids fought over who got the machine with the color printer until we installed a network. (One afternoon, most of the time spent threading the wire through the basement). With one machine having a tape drive he can back up the entire network. He is missing very little from the above list (no CD-R, and his 24-bit color cards don't support 3D, and no digital cameras [yet]). His youngest was using it at age 2 (try THAT with Unix!) and by age 26 months had figured out how to turn it on and double-click the icon for her favorite game. His wife uses the computer to design needlepoint, when she can get in (fortunately, the youngest is now in 1st grade so she actually can play with the computers in the afternoons). This, folks, is what I mean by progress. Any other opinion had better be able to come up with at least as good justifications. On 22 Jan 1998 12:13:30 GMT, dski@cameonet.cameo.com.twx (Dan Strychalski) wrote: >Joseph M. Newcomer (newcomer@flounder.com) wrote -- > >> Frankly, I don't care how rich Bill Gates gets; what I care about is >> that the environment that I work in gets better and better.[...] > >Greetings from Userland, Mr. Programmer Man. The environment I work in >has gotten worse and worse as your darling Billy has pulled the wool >over more and more people's eyes and forced nearly all the world's >computing population to work like six-year-olds. > >> I can guarantee that if Microsoft did not exist, we would NOT have >> 200MHz Pentium-equivalent-power laptops for $2,500 today (one sits >> beside me right now, running Win95). > >To paraphrase you, how has this benefited me? I can guarantee you that >we would have such machines in good time, and we would not be forced to >use them for tasks that could be done just as well on a 286. > >Windows sucks like a black hole, fellah, and so does everyone who >advocates it. > >Dan Strychalski >dski at cameonet, cameo, com, tw. >Apologies for the non-threading newsreader and anti-spam devices. Joseph M. Newcomer newcomer@flounder.com http://www3.pgh.net/~newcomer ###### From: john@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au (John "West" McKenna) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 25 Jan 1998 04:09:16 GMT Organization: The University of Western Australia Lines: 16 Message-ID: <6aedtc$l53$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> References: <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <885435290.2103.7.nnrp-09.9e98ee68@news.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: starfish.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news.he.net!Supernews60!supernews.com!uunet!in4.uu.net!munnari.OZ.AU!news.uwa.edu.au!john spam@lisardrock.demon.co.uk writes: >however... is there a "quick" way to divide by small odd prime >constants, in the same way that there is to multiply? we can't work any >out, but we're willing to admit we may be missing something. >(eg. : 3* dup dup + + ; but : 3/ ??? ; ) Isn't : 3* dup 2* + ; better? (I assume Forth has a way of shifting a number one bit to the left). If you've got a fast multiply, x/n = ((65536/n)*x)>>16. More or less. There might be some clever rounding trick that will make it always correct, but it's far too early in the morning to think about it. John West ###### From: spam@lisardrock.demon.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 06:08:15 GMT Message-ID: <885708495.19868.1.nnrp-11.9e98ee68@news.demon.co.uk> References: <34ca035b.7585327@news.cyberport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk [158.152.238.104] X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 Lines: 79 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newspeer.monmouth.com!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!lisardrock.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-01-24 tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com(WarrenYoung) said: -No, NT is not a slim OS -- Linux is a slim OS -- but when you can -get 64MB of memory for $100, who's counting? that one again. only someone who really doesn't care about computers could come out with this line. look. NT wants 32mb to stand up straight. but it really doesn't offer very much more functionality than something like AmigaDOS, which took up 512k to stand up, kick a ball around, and score a few goals. what has been gained??? shouldn't having to put 32Mb in a system get you a *hell* of a lot more than going out and picking up a second hand amiga, rather than just a few trimmings around the edges? the only conceivable reason for a system needing 32Mb is code-bloat gone utterly insane. there is no justification, no reason, no sense in it. and it certainly isn't good value for money, even if 32mb only costs you fifty quid. -And hey, if you wanna be snippy, how `bout those great g++ -diagnostics: -x.cpp:5: warning: namespaces are mostly broken in this version of g++ we'd call that refreshing honesty, personally. you won't ever find that in a microsoft compiler. but then, if you did, you'd be buggered, whereas in g++ you can at least (in fact, we suspect you're somewhat expected to) dig around the source and put it right. it's not so much the difference in ability that appeals, more the difference in philosophy. -It wasn't added to the Draft Standard earlier than a year or so ago. -(April 1995 DWP, IIRC.) So, if what you're saying is true, it was -only as a vendor-specific extension. Again, Borland C++ had this -feature soon after it was released from committee. oh, right, so g++ gets an extension 4 years before it's a standard, and it's a proprietasry extension. bc++ gets it a short while after, and it's a fast implementation of the standard and a major selling point. never mind that it was probably g++ which *defined* the standard in the first place... but then, you must like standards. you seem to be applying two at once. :> :> :> ->Try starting MSIE on a Unix system some time. -It probably starts up faster because it uses a lot of DLLs and -things that are already loaded. On a UNIX system, they aren't -there, so it has to load them itself. hmm... it's not unreasonable to expect unix to have a sockets package loaded on startup... and it's not reasonable to expect it to load activex to do its desktop, when it has far superior technologies available to it... -Hmmmm...that's interesting -- I have a Linux box that _I_ toy with, -and I had an SGI once for the same reason. I get my actual work -done on my NT box. we get our work done (kinda) on a win95 box. what of it? let's face it, in the world of work, we all do what we're told by our customers, because if we tell them they're daft, they'll find someone else who will (and who probably won't do it half so well either). unix isn't crap. nt isn't crap. but unix was small once, and could become so again. it's highly unlikely that fate will ever befall nt... -- Communa - all at lisardrock.demon.net to be sure we read your reply, send to username `communa' Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 - Test Drive ###### From: spam@lisardrock.demon.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 06:08:17 GMT Message-ID: <885708497.19868.2.nnrp-11.9e98ee68@news.demon.co.uk> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk [158.152.238.104] X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 Lines: 27 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!4.1.16.34!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!lisardrock.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-01-24 kelseyb@no.spam.usa.net(KelseyBjarnason) said: -You know, it's funny. People talk about unix vs NT all the time, -usually about "efficiency" and "response" and "memory/resource -requirements". Meanwhile the old HP-1000 is still merrily serving -40-odd people and running 60-80 processes, on average, with good -response times, and has just recently been upgraded - it now has -2Mb of RAM. Oh, and let's note that the HP users generally run -dumb terminals, not workstations; the real work is all done on the -server. -Oh, yeah, but unix is so much more efficient, right? :) Lemme know -when I can run Linux serving even 20 users with good response times -in 2Mb. With the server doing all the work. Even in plain old text -mode. which just goes to show, getting the hardware architecture right for the use in the first place probably has a hell of a lot more impact on eventual performance than any amount of flashy programming afterwards. :> -- Communa - all at lisardrock.demon.net to be sure we read your reply, send to username `communa' Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 - Test Drive ###### From: spam@lisardrock.demon.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 06:08:28 GMT Message-ID: <885708508.19868.3.nnrp-11.9e98ee68@news.demon.co.uk> References: <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk [158.152.238.104] X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 Lines: 200 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!lisardrock.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail you know, on a folklore group, this kind of post is really asking for it - maybe you'd be better posting these particular diatribes in alt.windows.advocacy - but you enlivened our evening, so we return the compliment... On 1998-01-24 newcomer@flounder.com(JosephM.Newcomer) said: -Userland? Mr. Programmer Man? Hmmm, I've missed something here. *I -AM A USER*. Admittedly, a signficant percentage of my time goes -into programming, but I write books, handle email, and when I have -time, participate in these discussions. I cannot think of a single -activity that I do now that was better under Unix, TOPS-10, OS/360, -TSS/360, TOPS-20, RSX-11M, MVS, or VMS. When I say "The environment -gets better" I mean the *entire* environment, not just the compiler. unfortunately, empirical data around us demonstrates that the environment is deteriorating rapidly. and we don't suppose it's helped by all those dioxins churned out by pcb manufacturers who have to race to build ever bigger, better, faster computers just to justify billy gates's refusal to employ any programmer who might just possibly show him up. if we all started using computers to their full potential, we'd be able to recycle about the last ten years' worth of technological advances - but that would require the sacking of at least 75% of programmers and a general moratorium on hardware development. we'd love to see it, but we doubt we're going to... maybe when the physical limits of silicon are hit, we can all sit back and take a bit of a breather. please...? -The last time I tried to do email under Unix, about six years ago, *six*years*ago*. meanwhile one of our university professor was automarking our work using email only a couple of years after. he wouldn't have done that if it hadn't been reliable enough to use. -I had my choice of six undocumented mailers, each of which almost -worked. I could almost read newsgroups without significant agony. funny; we've *never* yet found a newsreader as good as tin... -The drawing tools could be most politely referred to as a joke -(when I could draw instantly using PowerPoint on Windows, I had to -use PIC on Unix! When I had Word on Windows, I had *roff on Unix.) yes, where you have to use that long-neglected capacity, your visuo-spatial imagination. it's called not being lazy. besides, the unix philosophy has always been about power before prettiness (where the hell else would awk come from???) so to find such tools isn't actually so surprising. of course, there are probably fast, easy x/windows front ends for them these days. certainly there is for tex. which give you the best of both worlds; the raw power of a command language (both tex and ?roff are turing-equiv) combined with the convenience of a graphical editor. show us *that* in windows. -What convinced me that Windows was a winner was that I could go -down to my local software store and have my choice of a half-dozen -packages for whatever I wanted to do, from $29. -95-just-barely-above-shareware to $600 professional packages. On -Unix I had my choice of two freeware, barely-functional packages, -providing I could recompile them with my C compiler (not -guaranteed), and one professional product that was crap and cost $5, -000/seat. Not counting the $1500/year support package without -which I couldn't get tech support at all. but then, unix wasn't really written for end-users anyway; it was written for people to write software on. that it's possible now to use it for the former just demonstrates the strength of the system. -My choices are greater, the tools more powerful, and the cost is -negligible. In 20 years, Unix never succeeded in having a -"shrink-wrapped" market (albeit there were a couple products, this -does not a new wave make. For example, how many computer stores -existed selling Unix products ten years into Unix's reign? How many you know, in some areas that could be classed as a point in unix's favour... shrink-wrapped software is all very well so long as it can be guaranteed bug-free. if it can't, then for god's sake give us the source! -stores existing selling Microsoft-compatible products ten years into -Microsoft's reign). Out here in the Real World, we want cost-effect -solutions to problems, not solutions that are "Microsoft-free". I -don't care *who* makes the solution; I care that it makes my life, -which includes email, accounting, invoicing, letter-writing, -book-writing, backup, printing, Web page design, etc. easier. Unix -never managed to do that, not in 20 years. In fact, I cannot name a -single operating system that was easier to use and gave me more -power than Windows. Yes, it can be miserable to program, but I've -programmed so many operating systems with so many problems that I -don't see the problems of programming Windows as any different (I -could regularly crash the X-server by sending it perfectly -legitimate requests, so had to limit what I could do to what that -particular X-server on that particular Unix box could handle -without crashing, independent of the X-spec. Of course, the first -time we tried the app on another Unix flavor, we discovered that -*its* X-server had a different set of bugs! THIS does not make my -life easier). microsoft the empowerer! whee! *snort* or to put it another way: if we apply your arguments to government, democracy is really inefficient, because of all those messy incompatibilities; besides which, you never get the perfect set of tools anyway, and a lot of the tools you do find just aren't worth using. so wouldn't life be so much easier with a really benign dictatorship? the trouble is that you forget that dictatorships don't stay benign any longer than they have to. we don't like the way microsoft is forcing competition aside through no other ability than marketing clout and some highly dubious selling practices, for precisely that reason. and whilst the unix world is probably even more flawed than you would suggest, at least it was always democratic. (if not anarchistic, which is even better ;> ) -I do not have a blind love of Windows; in fact, there are parts of -it that are *really* miserable to program. And Word crashes -occasionally. ^^^^^^^ you spelled "works" wrongly. hth. -Everyone seems down on Microsoft. Anyone who was around during the -60s and 70s should remember that IBM was treated the same way. Why -is it that software from Microsoft, one of America's foremost -free-enterprise companies ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ the last thing microsoft wants is a free market, and well you know it. -is evil, when software from AT&T, one of -America's foremost government-protected monopolies, was Good? Did it AT&T weren't particularly pleasant either, but the great thing about government protected monopolies (and at&t were never a monopoly, btw) is that they tend to be so hopelessly inefficient that they drop diamonds through their fingers (unix v6, anyone...?) -The Wintel platform has produced more millionaires than any -hardware/software technology in history. This is bad? yes, and gerald ratner became a millionaire in an astonishingly short time selling crap too. your point...? crap systems are much more likely to produce millionaires that good ones, and closed systems far more likely to produce people with power than open ones. does that make either instrinsically worth having? -btw, you obviously know a better operating system and software -packages than most of us. How much did it cost, how much does the -software cost, how much effort does it take to install these -wonderful packages, and are they utterly bug-free and never crash? (etc.etc... 8< ) linux. free. free. a reasonable chunk of effort, but no more than justified - you get back what you put in. no, but what the hell is??? (and as regards your vast list of devices to support: against all the odds, linux supports zip drives. because someone took the time and care to reverse-engineer the proprietary interface protocol when confronted with a manufacturer who didn't want to give out such information. doesn't that strike you as anti-competitive practice...?) -The example of my brother is a good one. He is a purchasing agent -for a small company. He has no interest in computers as computers; -only as devices that can help him get work done, and help his kids. -His four kids fought over who got the machine with the color -printer until we installed a network. (One afternoon, most of the -time spent threading the wire through the basement). With one -machine having a tape drive he can back up the entire network. He -is missing very little from the above list (no CD-R, and his 24-bit -color cards don't support 3D, and no digital cameras [yet]). His -youngest was using it at age 2 (try THAT with Unix!) and by age 26 -months had figured out how to turn it on and double-click the icon -for her favorite game. His wife uses the computer to design -needlepoint, when she can get in (fortunately, the youngest is now -in 1st grade so she actually can play with the computers in the -afternoons). yeah, whatever. at age 10 we were designing operating systems. -This, folks, is what I mean by progress. Any other opinion had -better be able to come up with at least as good justifications. sorry, but when your justifications are any good, and have less to do with "well, it makes my life easier", they may be worth trying to beat. on the other hand, if it all turns to shit in ten years, we'll be there saying "i told you so"... -- Communa - all at lisardrock.demon.net to be sure we read your reply, send to username `communa' Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 - Test Drive ###### From: Mike Swaim Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 25 Jan 1998 17:33:47 GMT Organization: Charter Communications International, Inc. Lines: 21 Message-ID: <6aft1r$oo2$1@uhura1.phoenix.net> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: shell.c-com.net Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!209.127.0.50!gryphon.phoenix.net!uhura1.phoenix.net!shell.c-com.net!swaim Peter van Hooft wrote: : In <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) writes: : >Unix self-destructed 30 workstations in one night (after having failed : >to back up 80 of them for something like a year!). : This convinced me not to read any further. I don't know of _any_ : serious environment where this situtation would have allowed to : continue after a _week_, let alone a year. I know of 2, and I haven't been around that much. At the first, one of the programmers took to deleting a file that he didn't need once a month and requesting that it be restored "just to be sure." At the second, I found out by accident, and had one of the netware sysadmins give me rights to the accounting data so I could back it up via an NT machine I controlled. I also told the head of IS, who didn't know about it, either. -- Mike Swaim, Avatar of Chaos: Disclaimer:I sometimes lie. Home:swaim@phoenix.net or swaim@c-com.net, I'm just not sure. Work:mpswaim@gdseng.com Silly:whatsewhose@gdseng.com Alum: swaim@rice.edu Quote: "Boingie"^4 Y,W&D ###### From: shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 19:10:34 -0600 Organization: Shokwave Software, Inc Lines: 33 Message-ID: References: <6a8mg6$2q0@freenet-news.carleton.ca> <6adlqu$5q2$2@irk.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: as2-dialup-28.wc-aus.io.com X-Trace: nntp-3.io.com 885777159 17564 (None) 206.224.81.74 X-Complaints-To: usenet@io.com X-newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.2.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!207.207.0.25!nntp.texas.net!news.io.com!news.io.com!as2-dialup-28.wc-aus.io.com!user In article <6adlqu$5q2$2@irk.zetnet.co.uk>, Pete Fenelon wrote: > Rob Hafernik wrote: > > With a tool like Metrowerks, there's just no excuse for poor code. > > Nothing you mentioned in that article hasn't been available on other > environments before. Metrowerks is just another IDE; not a bad one, but > there's nothing I've not seen in MPW, or Visual C++, or Oberon, or Lisp > environments, or Mesa, or... or... you get the idea. Well, for one thing, it runs a HELL of a lot faster than MPW in a fraction of the memory, that would be enough for me. The editor is also a LOT nicer than MPW (unless you have a command-line fetish, in which case you should stick with MPW). The debugger is also far ahead of the debugger in MPW. Also, I'm not sure about all of the environments you mention, but I don't recall them all being able to compile to different platforms in different languages. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear: the Metrowerks compiler will let you run on a Mac or PC and compile projects that target the Mac, PC, pilot and a couple of other hardware platforms in multiple languages. Someone earlier didn't like the idea of syntax coloring. Fine, turn it off. Also, there was a mention of regular expressions across multiple files. The Metrowerks compiler does this, I just didn't mention it. The Find dialog also lets you search just the project source, just the project headers, just the system headers or a custom set of files that you define. There's a LOT of stuff I didn't mention (such as a very nice implementation of "diff" for files). ###### From: spam@lisardrock.demon.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 20:29:36 GMT Message-ID: <885760176.13808.0.nnrp-09.9e98ee68@news.demon.co.uk> References: <6aedtc$l53$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: lisardrock.demon.co.uk [158.152.238.104] X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 Lines: 37 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!lisardrock.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-01-25 john@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au(John"West"McKenna) said: ->(eg. : 3* dup dup + + ; but : 3/ ??? ; ) -Isn't : 3* dup 2* + ; better? (I assume Forth has a way of shifting -a number one bit to the left). it does, but if you're using a register based machine it makes little difference whether you code SHL AX, 1 or ADD AX, AX and if you have an inlining forth compiler, you can get the effect of 2* without having to write the optimiser for it. hence our preference. :> -If you've got a fast multiply, x/n = ((65536/n)*x)>>16. More or -less. There might be some clever rounding trick that will make it -always correct, but it's far too early in the morning to think -about it. we went down that route at one point - even to the extent of working out the trick to make it round properly (otherwise exact multiples tend to be one off) - but it still assumes the presence of a fast multiplier, and if you don't have one of those you do have a problem - if you have to code up a multiply routine, you may as well code up a divide routine too... -- Communa - all at lisardrock.demon.net to be sure we read your reply, send to username `communa' Net-Tamer V 1.09.2 - Test Drive ###### From: Marco S Hyman Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 25 Jan 1998 20:44:37 -0800 Organization: S.N.A.F.U. (www.snafu.org) Lines: 30 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: dumbcat.codewright.com X-Trace: 885789878 8327 (none) 206.86.0.12 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!204.156.128.20!news1.best.com!nntp2.ba.best.com!not-for-mail Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch writes: > * could you give a concise description of what differs the 3 groups > and their versions of the system. Oh boy! This is sure to get people mad at me as I get the details wrong. Oh well... I believe FreeBSD started out as BSD specifically for the i386 family. NetBSD was BSD 4.4 (more or less) for all architectures, and OpenBSD started out due to personality differences between the maintainers and concentrated on "security" issues. But (at least from my perspective) they all seem to track each other these days, with nice things from the BSD/OS (BSDI) croud thrown in, too. I'm certain you can find diehards that will point to some specific piece of code and say xbsd does it better than ybsd. And they are probably correct. But when ic came down to deciding wich one to run I picked the first one that booted on my portable with its specific mix of hardware. In honesty, once I figured out what the real problem was (I don't know my portable had a 'sound card' that lived at teh IRQ my network card was trying to use) any of the three would have probably booted. If I have a preference at all it is probably OpenBSD because they support anon CVS access to the source. I've used all of them (plus BSDI up to 2.0). They all work fine. // marc ###### From: Robert Billing Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sun, 25 Jan 98 21:21:18 GMT Message-ID: <885763278snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> <6aah7v$r5g$6@darla.visi.com> <34ca035b.7585327@news.cyberport.com> Reply-To: unclebob@tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-User: unclebob@tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: post-10.mail.demon.net!post.mail.demon.net!tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 885773497 20279 unclebob tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.29 Lines: 16 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!tnglwood.demon.co.uk!unclebob In article <34ca035b.7585327@news.cyberport.com> tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com "Warren Young" writes: > Hmmmm...that's interesting -- I have a Linux box that _I_ toy with, > and I had an SGI once for the same reason. I get my actual work done > on my NT box. I started by doing that, now I'm *paid* for using Linux... -- I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/ "Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump, Piglet, meet me in transporter room three" ###### Path: ccw.ch!usenet From: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 25 Jan 1998 22:07:26 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 34 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch writes: > The same as good science result from an open process of public critic > (testing) and improvement (feedback), good software happens when the > social structure making it can tap all of its knowledge and testing > power to drive out the inevitable bugs that will creep in. > The only OS made on such principles at the moment is GNU/Linux, which Marco S Hyman asked: > I'm curious, why do you believe FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD are closed? > Full source (kernel as well as all of user land) is available > for a few dollars (CD) or the time it takes it you to download it > off the net. Hmmm, good question. Source certainly is available since the deal with UOotM (Unix Owner of the Month). But how is it about modifications done by users? Has that changed relative to the UCB days (up to 4.4BSD), when with exception of a few handpicked universities all code came from the group in UCB? Thinking about it, it must have changed. After all UCB isn't involved any more. And with 3 different versions Free/Net/Open* there must be 3 different groups working on it, nost likely with different policies. I suppose my claim isn't valid any more these days. * could you give a concise description of what differs the 3 groups and their versions of the system. Neil "confused by xxxBSD" Franklin -- Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch, http://www.ccw.ch/Neil.Franklin/ for Geek Code, Papernet, Voicenet, PGP public key see http: Mac, 95 and NT users are CLUEless (Command Line User Environment) If I go missing, its once again my newsfeed that has craped ###### Path: ccw.ch!usenet From: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 25 Jan 1998 23:35:54 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 166 Message-ID: References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) wrote: > I cannot think of a single activity > that I do now that was better under Unix, TOPS-10, OS/360, TSS/360, > TOPS-20, RSX-11M, MVS, or VMS. When I say "The environment gets > better" I mean the *entire* environment, not just the compiler. Better shell with better command language (I've just been analysing Web server logs). Multiple apps running without others freesing or the entire system crashing (I got the Win3.1 shock treatment). Real Web server to test my pages off-line before an quick and easy transfer to the on-line server (via the wonder of rsync). Effective proxy server based filtering of .gif junk from Webpages (by Junkbuster). A real local cache for once downloaded Web pages (Squid). A Netscape that has crashed about one every 3 months. A real News server for off-line news reading/posting without expiry of groups I want (INN). Oh, not to forget a system that stays alive and automatically recovers from an X server crash (thanks to xdm), just re-login and click forward to the web page I was fetching (that is still downloading while the X server crash/recovery thanks to Squid); a Windows (95 or NT) with a crashed GDI.EXE would be fully dead. > The last time I tried to do email under Unix, about six years ago, I had > my choice of six undocumented mailers, each of which almost worked. I > could almost read newsgroups without significant agony. Interesting. I first time met email was on a NeXT. Their Mail.app still beats everything I have seen on any platform. The GNUemacs GNUS (I am wtiting this on it) comes a close second. MS Mail (I had that thrust upon me at work) was sufficiently bad for me to give it up and prefer a X login to an VAX and on that the VT terminal MAIL program. CCmail was not much better either. > What convinced me that > Windows was a winner was that I could go down to my local software > store and have my choice of a half-dozen packages for whatever I > wanted to do, from $29.95-just-barely-above-shareware to $600 > professional packages. On Unix I had my choice of two freeware, > barely-functional packages, providing I could recompile them with my C > compiler (not guaranteed), and one professional product that was crap > and cost $5,000/seat. Not counting the $1500/year support package > without which I couldn't get tech support at all. Am I just imagining, that the $60 10-CD set with everythign I am running on this Linux PC at the moment (a few Internet downloads excepted) was a dream then :-). > the tools more powerful, If you had said "easier" I would agree, but "more powerfull" no. > I care that it makes my life, > which includes email, accounting, invoicing, letter-writing, > book-writing, backup, printing, Web page design, etc. easier. I am member of a computer club including many Win 95 and NT users, some of them PC dealers and system supporters. I have lost count how often I hear the sentance "I've got to reinstall, the Registry is broken". Sure that makes life easier, just click on the Install button and pray that the drivers are there. I will use the saved time to learn a bit more about the power of my system. > Unix self-destructed 30 workstations in one night (after having failed > to back up 80 of them for something like a year!). I have seen Windows PCs take down 3 years of work because the User in question had never heard of backup and there is no operator doing it. In the end the problem disappeared after we got all users to install Ethernet and save all important stuff to the VAX. > Why is it that software from Microsoft, one of America's foremost > free-enterprise companies, is evil, when software from AT&T, one of > America's foremost government-protected monopolies, was Good? No one insists that AT&T is good. Have you never heard the "Live AT&T free or die" slogan. Unix became good through Berkley, GNU and Linus. A democratic world where users count more than bureaucracies (private profit driven or government incompetence driven ones). > The Wintel platform has produced more millionaires than any > hardware/software technology in history. This is bad? Not bad. But also no guarantee for good, as you seen to be implying. > btw, you obviously know a better operating system and software > packages than most of us. How much did it cost, how much does the > software cost, how much effort does it take to install these wonderful > packages, and are they utterly bug-free and never crash? Can they do > everything my software packages do? I'm surprised I haven't heard of > such a wonderful system. How many millions has it made for its > creators, and how many millions of happy users does it have? Example Linux: $60 for the CDs (used for 4 installs, so $15 per machine), uses standard PC hardware, installs in 30..60 min, I have found ca 5 bugs (non serious) in 300MB of code, ca 5 crashes in 3 years (all hardware related), no millions for its inventors (but that is no important measure, see above), ca 5 mio happy users. > Can my brother afford four instances of it for his four kids? Complete with > game software, network support, CD-ROM support, education software, > accounting software, etc.? $15 per seat. He can surely afford that. > Does it fully support all standard > peripherals, including scanners, tape drives, modems, FAX modems, > color printers, still and video cameras, 24-bit 3-D color cards, > 16-bit 3-D sound, high-performance CD-ROMs, writeable CDs, etc.? Does > it support a file server system capable of backing up both the server > and individual workstations? Does it have a full GUI? Yes, all of these. > How many different drawing, desktop publication, and image processing systems > can I get for it at my local computer store? Many CDs full. > Can I buy a 6-lb laptop that runs it? I even run it on an 3/2-lb palmtop (http://www.ccw.ch/NeilFranklin/Palmtops/). > Can I simply install it and expect it to run within > minutes of completing the installation? Do all the products have free > customer support? Premium customer support? It ran direct from Install for me. Free support via Internet/Usenet/Web. Premium support from people who get paid for nothing else (and if you don't like one of them, go to an other, no manufacturers support department has a monopoly here). > Is its GUI documented > effectively with less than 3ft of manuals (this rules out anything > based on X, the Mac, or Windows). Clearly, this is the Market Winner, > if only I'd ever heard of it.. OK, one bad point for Linux, you need to RTFM. I accept that one for all the good I get. Ever heard the quip "Make it so an fool can use it and only a fool will"? Replace fool with beginner (not the same thing) and you stil have an valid sentance. > This, folks, is what I mean by progress. Any other opinion had better > be able to come up with at least as good justifications. Or simply be as good or better as those you stated. -- Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch, http://www.ccw.ch/Neil.Franklin/ for Geek Code, Papernet, Voicenet, PGP public key see http: Mac, 95 and NT users are CLUEless (Command Line User Environment) If I go missing, its once again my newsfeed that has craped ###### From: tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:19:46 GMT Organization: none Lines: 44 Message-ID: <34cbefca.133651120@news.cyberport.com> References: <34ca035b.7585327@news.cyberport.com> <885708495.19868.1.nnrp-11.9e98ee68@news.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 56k65-118.cyberport.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.102.31.251!news.cmc.net!feeder.swcp.com!news.cyberport.com!not-for-mail spam@lisardrock.demon.co.uk wrote: > -It wasn't added to the Draft Standard earlier than a year or so ago. > -(April 1995 DWP, IIRC.) So, if what you're saying is true, it was > -only as a vendor-specific extension. Again, Borland C++ had this > -feature soon after it was released from committee. > >oh, right, so g++ gets an extension 4 years before it's a standard, and >it's a proprietasry extension. bc++ gets it a short while after, and >it's a fast implementation of the standard and a major selling point. > >never mind that it was probably g++ which *defined* the standard in the >first place... > >but then, you must like standards. you seem to be applying two at once. >:> :> :> My point is that it's all well and fine for one C++ compiler to have a given feature, but if you can't count on it, it's only worthwhile if you're willing to strap yourself to that compiler. And yes, I do like standards, which is why I wouldn't have found the G++ extension useful. I'm sure that if this sort of thing came out in a PC compiler, you'd call it a proprietary extension, too. In fact, I've got such an example: STL, which was created under Borland C++ because none of the UNIX compilers did templates well enough to support its development. Before 1994ish, STL could be thought of as a proprietary Borland extension. But now that it's been added to the Standard and its becoming ubiquitous, it's a wonderful feature and everything's nice and spiffy. `Course, Visual C++ and Borland C++ _still_ do STL better than g++.... >unix isn't crap. nt isn't crap. but unix was small once, and could >become so again. it's highly unlikely that fate will ever befall nt... And it depends on your perspective whether this is a good thing or not. Actually, you could argue that Windows CE is "NT become small": portable Win32 workalike, etc. The real issue is that Microsoft is not interested in porting WinCE to low-end, commodity hardware, whereas the Linux community has no such problem. = Warren -- http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent = = Remove the SPAMCATCHER to email. -- Finger me! ###### From: newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 02:46:42 GMT Organization: Pittsburgh OnLine, Inc. Lines: 160 Message-ID: <34ecef52.454270580@206.210.64.12> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aft1r$oo2$1@uhura1.phoenix.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp46.s8.pgh.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!204.186.110.126.MISMATCH!ptdnetP!newsgate.ptd.net!fastnet!news.pgh.net!not-for-mail >Peter van Hooft wrote: >: In <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) writes: > >: >Unix self-destructed 30 workstations in one night (after having failed >: >to back up 80 of them for something like a year!). >: This convinced me not to read any further. I don't know of _any_ >: serious environment where this situtation would have allowed to >: continue after a _week_, let alone a year. The environment in which this was allowed to persist for over a year was the Software Engineering Instittute of Carnegie Mellon University. Here's the story: We bought a lot of MicroVax IIs. After several months of trying to get them running at all (it turns out that the chip company from Japan had delivered umpteen hundreds of thousands of chips with no physical connection between the refresh line on the chip and the external pin on the package; VMS ran just fine because it touched so many locations that it automatically forced a refresh, while Ultrix didn't), we found that due to a complete lack of imagination on the part of DEC they decided that a 70MB drive was sufficient for a workstation [famous quote by Ken Olsen: "Why would anyone want to put as much as 70MB on a *workstation*?"; he thought disks that big were frivolous, and smaller disks would have been more than adequate]. Anyway, we ended up violating the DEC hardware assumptions and putting a *second* 70MB drive on the machines. These were configured with soft links so that the user files were all on the second drive while the system files were on the first drive, all transparent to the users. The software was largely crap, and eventually I even refused to read email on the machines; I had my secretary print out my email each morning and I had her respond to it. There is something about an eight-minute turnaround on the "send" command that makes using email frustrating. Why eight minutes? Well, some people complained that having the hosts.txt list on their machine took up too much of their disk, so instead it was soft-linked to the server. With the typical brilliance exhibited by the then-sysadmins, we were not permitted to actually *have* the copy on our workstations, *even if we wanted it*, so instead of 30 seconds to send a message (still too long), it took between 3 and 8 minutes depending on the load on the server! So anyway, the documentation group, responsible for the 1-year and 5-year plans, hit a disk space limit on the tiny 70MB drives, but by that time someone had located a larger drive. So they put a larger drive on the machine, and went to restore the files from tape. Whoops! No files! It turns out that the backup program which ran on the server cleverly didn't follow soft-links, so for a year it had been backing up 80 copies of the Unix kernel, the Unix man pages, the Unix utilities, *and not a single user file*. By this time, due to cricumstances that are murky, the original disk had been clobbered. Less than a week before the 1-year and 5-year plans were due at DoD, they had been lost! OK, the first thought is to use the new Kurzweil OCR system that someone had bought but never tested. So they tried to OCR the existing pages. This didn't work (OCR was pretty primitive in the mid-1980s). So instead every secretary in the building was co-opted into retyping pieces of the proposals, and they were re-assembled (including the formatting commands) in a marathon session by the documentation folks. Why the then-head-of-operations was not fired on the spot at that time is completely unknown. But this isn't the worst. They changed the option that followed soft-links so the backup software would now back up all the user files. The problem is that the backup system had a couple different aspects, one of which was to resynch all the workstations with the file server. If a file existed on the server and did not exist on the workstation, it was downloaded to the workstation. If the FS version was newer than the WS version, it overwrote the version. And if a file had been deleted from the FS, it was deleted from the WS. Do you see it coming? That night. The next night, one of the junior system programmers was working late, when suddenly all his files disappeared. Some quick checking indicated that they had all been deleted within a small window of time. He checked, and a couple other machines were equally bare of files. He quickly shut down the backup system. It turns out that since it now followed soft-links, it found all the user files. But there were no copies of these files on the corresponding non-existent directories on the file server, so it decided that they had to be deleted from the workstations. 30 machines were destroyed. Of course, none of these files had been backed up. My machine was one of the 30 destroyed. Fortunately, I had decided that Unix was crap, and had insisted on having an IBM PC installed in my office. All my real work, except for email, was done on my PC. I had been out of town on an extended vacation, and lost a month's worth of email. I made the most progress of anyone during that month; I lost no real work. Everyone else lost all their work so made negative progress. In some cases, a whole year's worth of work was lost. I agree. No professionally-run installation could have this happen. However, in spite of the protestations of all of the senior staff (such as myself, who was an experienced sysadmin of a TOPS-20 site), the SEI would not spring for the salary of an experienced Unix sysadmin; instead choosing to "bring up" someone from inside and hire fresh CMU graduates as cheap system labor. In 1986, the SEI director responsible for this and many other fiascos resigned to pursue other opportunities. He was given a faculty appointment at the Graduate School of Industrial Administration. Much to the dismay of his considerable ego, he was given a shared office with a graduate student. This is someone who put in the SEI budget a line item for his chauffer, and designed the new SEI building with a helipad so he could be brought into work via helicopter if necessary (it turns out the area he lives in has a specific ordinance against landing helicopters, so he had to back down on this one). He was personally affronted when the Air Force explained that such frivolities were *not* going to be covered by any contract *they* administered. Just to give you an idea of the quality of management at that time, the head sysadmin STILL KEPT HIS JOB! There were many problems with this environment; and then we discovered that we were not permitted to know the root password on our machines. Something about NFS and if I became root on my machine, I was implicitly root on every machine...wow! This is what is known as Robust Security. Of course, none of these people understood that you could boot standalone, change the root password to whatever you wanted, then reboot back to the network. When it was finally explained to them, they decided to make it impossible to boot a machine standalone. As far as we could tell, this was impossible, besides being incredibly stupid. Then one day they decided to build a line concentrator that would allow the sysadmin types to reboot any machine and administer it from a single physical location. The junior types came in with a design for the hardware for the multiplexor box and a design for the packets down to the bit level that would be sent between the multiplexor box and the administrative host. Someone sitting around the table did the arithmetic of 9600x150 (the projected number of machines was 150) and pointed out that the single 9600-baud link between the multiplexor box and the central host would be, shall we say, a little overburdened. And the designed multiplexor box did not have enough RAM to handle the buffering. Of course, nobody thought of something as obvious as a PC with a multiport serial card (real programmers don't consider PCs as computers), instead this was a design from the chip level up using at best MSI components, home-built, with its own embedded operating system. Like the staff had nothing else to do but build and debug this... The guy responsible for this idea was the same person responsible for the backup fiasco. Shall we say he had no true appreciation of any form of reality? Professionally-administered is not a term I would have applied to that site at that time. I left in 1987 (My letter of resignation started off "Next week I shall be 40. I have decided to give myself a birthday present: I'm resigning"). Fortunately, the new director, Larry Druffel, eventually got the situation under control, but it was a struggle because of the years of incompetence and neglect that had preceded his tenure. Joseph M. Newcomer newcomer@flounder.com http://www3.pgh.net/~newcomer ###### From: tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 05:09:34 GMT Organization: none Lines: 18 Message-ID: <34d61a50.144536822@news.cyberport.com> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> <6aah7v$r5g$6@darla.visi.com> <34ca035b.7585327@news.cyberport.com> <885763278snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 56k65-118.cyberport.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!206.102.31.251!news.cmc.net!feeder.swcp.com!news.cyberport.com!not-for-mail Robert Billing wrote: >In article <34ca035b.7585327@news.cyberport.com> > tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com "Warren Young" writes: > >> Hmmmm...that's interesting -- I have a Linux box that _I_ toy with, >> and I had an SGI once for the same reason. I get my actual work done >> on my NT box. > > I started by doing that, now I'm *paid* for using Linux... I tried that, but my employer would have none of it. B-) Still, I've managed to sneak in some fairly vital programs that only run on Linux. If nothing else, it keeps it in his face. = Warren -- http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent = = Remove the SPAMCATCHER to email. -- Finger me! ###### From: tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 05:15:13 GMT Organization: none Lines: 22 Message-ID: <34d71ac8.144656545@news.cyberport.com> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: 56k65-118.cyberport.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.102.31.251!news.cmc.net!feeder.swcp.com!news.cyberport.com!not-for-mail Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch wrote: >Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch writes: >> The only OS made on such principles at the moment is GNU/Linux, which >Marco S Hyman asked: >> I'm curious, why do you believe FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD are closed? > >* could you give a concise description of what differs the 3 groups >and their versions of the system. I don't know how they differ, but I believe they're all "cathedral" systems (see http://www.ccil.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-paper.html), like Emacs: you can change your copy, but few people outside the "inner circle" actually change the main source. `Course, better perceived stability is why so many ISPs choose FreeBSD over Linux... Do read that paper -- it's kinda long, but very good. A landmark, really. = Warren -- http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent = = Remove the SPAMCATCHER to email. -- Finger me! ###### From: wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 26 Jan 1998 06:30:10 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Lines: 124 Message-ID: <6ahahi$7eg$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!128.174.5.49!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu!wendling Warren Young wasted electrons by posting: } wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) wrote: } >Well, the number one reason for the ports is that UNIX runs on many } >different architectures and hardwares. However, there are two main } >ports: BSD and SVR4. Porting between the two isn't too difficult (esp. } >with the advent of Posix). However, porting between MS and anything } >else is a mind-numbingly arduous task. } ...And porting from UNIX (or VMS, or Amiga, or...) to Windows is easy? Of course not. } >You mean like NCSA Mosaic and NCSA Telnet, Emacs, GCC, Perl, VIM, Netscape, } >Mathematica, etc. etc...All of these are definitely NOT real apps... } Granted, his original statement was overkill, but don't kid yourself: } all of these programs have conditional code out the wazoo. Even today } in these enlightened POSIX days, it still takes a powerful tool like } Autoconf to give the illusion of easy portability. NT programs, on } the other hand, pretty much just recomipiled. I guess you could say } the same thing about Solaris SPARC and x86, too, FWIW. The code that is conditionalized is not much and it's certainly much less than what would have to be #ifdef'ed if porting to/from MS. } >Except for MS's memory management, threading, editting, compiling, } >telnetting (or lack thereof), etc., I'd have to agree with you. } Memory management: NT does just fine protecting processes from each } other. (Don't kid yourself: no one is advocating Windows 95 in this } thread -- that'd be like comparing apples to worms.) Up until very recently (and maybe even yet), mem management was a separate program (EMM386, right). It probably is still that way. } Editing: the Visual C++ and Borland C++ editors do just fine, and if } you don't like them, you can use that $1200 per-seat difference to put } towards whatever editor you like. Or, get the Win32 port of emacs or } vim -- they work just fine. Putting EMACS or VIM on NT would need the X port to NT...The editting in VC++ leaves me cold. } Compiling: PC compilers are better than most UNIX compilers, probably } just because there are more people using them. Borland C++ and Visual } C++, for example, both support the newest C++ features better than } g++, and definitely better than any stock compilers I've seen. (Sure, } spend big money on a third-party toolset and that might change, but PC } compilers are still pretty darn good these days.) However, they aren't portable to other OS's and aren't cross-compilers, and aren't free... } Telnetting: No one in their right mind sticks with the default telnet } client. Come on, splurge on a $30 shareware one. Heck, there are now } freeware ones that are good enough for most purposes. I did mean that you can't telnet into the box, unless you put an X server on it. } >No, MS is very much aware of their positive feed back loop. All they have } >to do is compete in a field (browsers, for instance) and they can } >be almost assured of some success. } Don't fool yourself: Microsoft has some good stuff these days. As far } as browsers go, Netscape and Microsoft are about equal as far as } perceived quality goes, and I have no doubts that Microsoft will } eventually be the default browser on Windows. Personally, I'm a } Netscape guy, but I still think MSIE has its points. For example, it } starts up _much_ faster, is feature-competitive, and doesn't seem to } crash any more than Navigator. I just don't like the } newbie-handholding aspect it purveys. MS's and Netscape's browsers are bloated and slow. If you get Opera, there's a dramatic change. They also don't have some of the nice standard features that Mosaic had...Ie. annotations, full-screen display for presentations, the ability to link your browser to another browser, etc., etc. } >People in graphics are vitally concerned with what types of video cards } >they have. Some people need really fast access to data on their hard } >drive. Some need memory up the wazoo. One of the disappointing things } >about the PC industry is that there really isn't good hardware out there } >that will optimize your desktop computer with your OS. } Take a look at Intergraph and Compaq. They both build SGI killers, } and I'm sure there are others. The reason that machines like these } are not common in the PC world is that most PC users don't need } machines like that -- why pay for what you don't need? Take a look at the big graphics houses which are designing graphics for movies, they are probably running Alphas or SGIs. } >I care about that too, however, MS is -way- behind in the OS game. OSes are } >now moving to 64-bit processors (those damned hardware requirements } >again), while MS has just gone to 32-bit (barely) within the last 2 years. } >They are also way behind in multi-processing. They can't handle the } I can't speak for anyone else here, but I'm not saying that UNIX is } worthless. I have two machines here at home, one of which is a Linux } box. At work, we've built our head-end system on a UNIX machine, some } of which I'm involved with. If you're just trying to argue that NT } isn't the most capable system on the planet, then fine, I agree, and } we can go find another thread to haunt. If instead you're trying to } get us to believe that UNIX is the across-the-board best OS, you're } gonna have to do a lot better than this. There are a lot of reasons I hate MS's stuff...My argument was with the other guy, you are unknown to me. } >load that UNIX machines can (there are several articles on this, one in } >the current Linux Journal magazine about the company who did effects for } >_Titanic_ who couldn't use NT machines cause it couldn't do what a Linux } >box could). NTs aren't as scalable as UNIXes. The list goes on. } Yeah, the article essentially said "We couldn't use NT because it } isn't UNIX." Big surprise. (The company had made a big prior } investment in UNIX software and was unwilling to port or replace it.) Not really. They had bought new machines (Alphas) and could have put NT, VAX, DEC UNIX, or Linux on it... -- || Bill Wendling wendling@ncsa.uiuc.edu ###### From: wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 26 Jan 1998 07:19:27 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Lines: 8 Message-ID: <6ahddv$7eg$2@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aft1r$oo2$1@uhura1.phoenix.net> <34ecef52.454270580@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news2.chicago.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu!wendling Joseph M. Newcomer wasted electrons by posting: [long story about sysop disasters snipped] I see now your hatred of UNIX stems from the fact that you had inept people running the system...No wonder! Duh! -- || Bill Wendling wendling@ncsa.uiuc.edu ###### From: "David Thompson" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:34:10 -0800 Organization: WRQ Inc. Seattle, WA Lines: 14 Message-ID: <6aikvj$pku$1@wrqnews.wrq.com> References: <34ca035b.7585327@news.cyberport.com> <885708495.19868.1.nnrp-11.9e98ee68@news.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.215.90.112 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!192.220.251.22!netnews.nwnet.net!wrq.com!not-for-mail spam@lisardrock.demon.co.uk wrote in message <885708495.19868.1.nnrp-11.9e98ee68@news.demon.co.uk>... >look. NT wants 32mb to stand up straight. but it really doesn't offer >very much more functionality than something like AmigaDOS, which took up >512k to stand up, kick a ball around, and score a few goals. > This is just flat out wrong. You may not use all (or apparently even know about many) of the services provided by all the DLLs and services loaded into the first 32 megs of NT, but to say it does not provide much more functionaility is the stupidest thing I have read this year. ###### From: shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:39:45 -0600 Organization: Shokwave Software, Inc Lines: 24 Message-ID: References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: as2-dialup-42.wc-aus.io.com X-Trace: nntp-2.io.com 885832954 6240 (None) 206.224.81.88 X-Complaints-To: usenet@io.com X-newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.2.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-feed1.tiac.net!nntp.texas.net!news.io.com!news.io.com!as2-dialup-42.wc-aus.io.com!user Here's my vote for the worst code I've ever seen: A couple of years ago, some of my folks were re-writing a terminal emulator for a Company That Shall Not Be Named. They ran across a function that, at first, made no sense at all. It seemed that this function called the C "pow" function (to raise a number to a power) inside a for loop to raise 2 to an integer power, then cast the result back to an integer. Later in the for loop, it did it again with a call to pow. Right away, we knew we were in trouble. It turns out that the original programmer had evidently never heard of the shift operators. The purpose of the function was to reverse the bits in a word (which was required for some dumb reason anyway). To do this, the bozo had written a for loop that used POW to get 2^^i and AND it with the word in question. If the AND operation detected a bit, he set the corresponding reverse bit by AGAIN calling POW to get an integer with the right bit set and ORing it with his result. In other words, to reverse the bits in a 16-bit word, this function called POW between 16 and 32 times. All this on a PC that wasn't all that good at floating point anyway. I wouldn't have believed it if they hadn't showed me the code... ###### From: shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:52:24 -0600 Organization: Shokwave Software, Inc Lines: 32 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <34e95db9.351445589@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: as2-dialup-42.wc-aus.io.com X-Trace: nntp-2.io.com 885833713 6288 (None) 206.224.81.88 X-Complaints-To: usenet@io.com X-newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.2.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!news1.chicago.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!nntp.texas.net!news.io.com!news.io.com!as2-dialup-42.wc-aus.io.com!user In article <34e95db9.351445589@206.210.64.12>, newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) wrote: > OK, here's a question: what's the difference between a hacker, a > computer scientist, and a software engineer? [stay tuned for the > answer...I'll give a few days for other inputs] Here's my answers: hacker: cares if code is cool enough. computer scientist: cares if code is designed an written according to latest and best principles. software engineer: cares if code WORKS. Of course, I may be showing a little bias here . I'm an egineer FIRST and a programmer SECOND... Seriously, though, I've managed all three types at various times and they all have their strong points. If you've got a tricky little problem that requires a counter-intuitive approach, the hacker is the one to give it to. If you've got a complicated program that will require multiple processes with multiple threads and semaphore access to shared memory or a common database and you may have to "prove" some of your algorithms, then give it to the CS type (but stand back and give them some time). If you've got a big, straightforward application that has to be maintained for a while, then give it to a software engineer. Most projects, though, have aspects of all three and you need a team that has aspects of all three. ###### From: Michael Kircher Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 26 Jan 1998 11:06:13 +0100 Organization: CipLab - Institutes for Physics, University of Cologne, Germany Lines: 9 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <1998Jan22.002924.5817@lorelei.approve.se> <6adpbf$krs$1@usenet85.supernews.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: jupiter.ph-cip.uni-koeln.de X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsxfer.visi.net!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsfeed.ecrc.net!news.duesseldorf.ecrc.net!RRZ.Uni-Koeln.DE!usenet kth@srv.net (Kevin Handy) writes: > [snip some COBOL code, whose author didn't know, that 'varying' exists.] ROTFL :-) Cheers, Michael ###### From: "George R. Gonzalez" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:08:20 -0600 Organization: SkyPoint Communications, Inc. Lines: 73 Message-ID: <6aift3$1q0$1@shadow.skypoint.net> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> NNTP-Posting-Host: dial104.skypoint.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!streamer1.cleveland.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.he.net!news.pagesat.net!skypoint.com!not-for-mail Rob Hafernik wrote in message ... >Here's my vote for the worst code I've ever seen: >In other words, to reverse the bits in a 16-bit word, this function called >POW between 16 and 32 times. All this on a PC that wasn't all that good >at floating point anyway. > >I wouldn't have believed it if they hadn't showed me the code... I can do better than that... Years ago one programmer was given the task of writing a routine to read a random line of text from a file. Now the way any rational person would do this is to build a little index array giving the starting offset of each line, do a seek(), a readln(), and you're done.. It took them several weeks to write this routine. In the meantime we wrote our own one in about an hour. But eventually they delivered the code, and first glance it looked impressive, with lots of comments and lots of code. Must be a lot of optimized in-line code and error checking in there we thought.... We didnt look closely at the code, but just accepted it and wrote a test program: for i := 1 to 1000 do writeln( GetLine(f,i) ); (This was in Mac Pascal on a 8MHz 68000). Lines 1,2,3,4,5,6 showed up fine. Line 7 took a sec to show up. Line 8 took 15 secs to show up. By line 10 we gave up waiting.... Guess what algorithm they used? To show line X: for L := 1 to X do rewind the file. for L2 := 1 to L make a head node repeat read a char. insert char into linked list of chars until ch = CR; end ( for L2 ) end (for L); convert linked list of chars to string return value := string; A order( factorial ) algorithm, mixed in with a lot of node allocation and linking, and a bad memory leak. I couldnt think of a worse algorithm if I tried.... But it *did* work as per the spec..... Makes you wonder how much code out there was written to the spec and not to any rational considerations.... Ever since then I try to at least *mention* that it would be nice if the algorithm would deliver its results in xxx.xxx seconds at worst, and not chew up more than yyy bytes. Regards, George ###### From: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 26 Jan 1998 15:46:29 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 8 Message-ID: <6aib4l$gb9@freenet-news.carleton.ca> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <34e95db9.351445589@206.210.64.12> Reply-To: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet2.carleton.ca X-Given-Sender: ab528@freenet2.carleton.ca (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.new-york.net!node2.frontiernet.net!node17.frontiernet.net!xcski.com!freenet-news.carleton.ca!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!ab528 Joseph M. Newcomer (newcomer@flounder.com) writes: > > OK, here's a question: what's the difference between a hacker, a > computer scientist, and a software engineer? The first is an insult, the second is scarce, and there's no such profession as software engineering! ###### From: R!ch Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 16:30:42 +0000 Lines: 34 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <34e95db9.351445589@206.210.64.12> <6aib4l$gb9@freenet-news.carleton.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: paddington.uk.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Sender: richardt@paddington To: "Heinz W. Wiggeshoff" In-Reply-To: <6aib4l$gb9@freenet-news.carleton.ca> Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!204.186.0.13.MISMATCH!ptdnetP!newsgate.ptd.net!fastnet!news-xfer.netaxs.com!newsfeed.wli.net!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!venus.sun.com!uk-usenet.uk.sun.com!paddington!richardt On 26 Jan 1998, Heinz W. Wiggeshoff wrote: > Joseph M. Newcomer (newcomer@flounder.com) writes: > > > > OK, here's a question: what's the difference between a hacker, a > > computer scientist, and a software engineer? > > The first is an insult, the second is scarce, and there's no such ~~~~~~ You seem to be confusing "hacker" with "cracker"; to me, being called a hacker is a sign of respect, not an insult! > profession as software engineering! From what I've - true! -- R!ch (Email is flakey at present: use richardt@keaton.uk.sun.com) If it ain't analogue, it ain't music. #include \\|// - ? (o o) /==================================oOOo=(_)=oOOo========\ | Richard Teer richard.teer@uk.sun.com | | | | | | WWW: www.rkdltd.demon.co.uk | | .oooO | | ( ) Oooo. | \===================================\ (==( )==========/ \_) ) / (_/ ###### From: John Ahlstrom Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 17:01:19 -0800 Organization: Cisco Systems, Inc. Lines: 34 Message-ID: <34CD31DF.794BDF32@cisco.com> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <34e95db9.351445589@206.210.64.12> <6akd61$a5r$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> NNTP-Posting-Host: waterboy.cisco.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (X11; I; SunOS 4.1.4 sun4m) To: bmeyer@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!su-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-master.cisco.com!not-for-mail bmeyer@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au wrote: --snip snip > > >software engineer: cares if code WORKS. > > Bernie I disagree. Except in the case of life-critical software (in which case the most important thing is It must not Kill anyone) the most important characteristic of code is that it be MODIFIABLE. Modifiability is more important because we know that it doesn't work. It must be modified and modified and modified to approach an acceptable state of workingness and then must be modified and modified and modified again to get new features and functions and environments into an acceptable state of workingness. I think a software engineer knows this. Or I would like not to characterize anyone who does not know this as a software engineer. (There may be other situations, ROMmed code in an appliance?, that can be more easily rewritten completely than modified.) John Ahlstrom jahlstrom@cisco.com Reporting sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable from mental illness. Apologies to Arthur C Clarke ###### From: "T.W. Seddon" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 26 Jan 1998 17:14:37 GMT Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne Lines: 20 Message-ID: <6aig9t$g5b$1@ucsnew1.ncl.ac.uk> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> <6ahahi$7eg$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: mere3.ncl.ac.uk X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsxfer.visi.net!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!server5.netnews.ja.net!news.ncl.ac.uk!mere3.ncl.ac.uk!n5013784 Bill Wendling (wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu) wrote: > Up until very recently (and maybe even yet), mem management was a separate > program (EMM386, right). It probably is still that way. Not quite. Windows manages its own memory. You don't need EMM386 to run Windows, and generally you're best off doing without it, if you can, beacuse then Windows can have each DOS window individually configured for EMS. This may not be true for Windows '95, but was for 3.11. EMM386 is to provide UMB support for DOS, so that TSRs can be loaded out of the 640K conventional part, and to provide EMS support for DOS applications. It also has a VCPI interface built in, I seem to remember, for those programs that use VCPI. So I suppose EMM386 counts as memory management for DOS, but you have to stretch the definition of "management" somewhat... -- --Tom ###### From: danh@danpc.cris.com (Dan Haskell) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 26 Jan 1998 20:10:42 GMT Organization: Concentric Internet Services Lines: 10 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ts006d05.por-or.concentric.net X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.4.3 UNIX) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsxfer.visi.net!news.idt.net!ais.net!newsfeed.concentric.net!global-news-master In article <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu says... > > Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy > code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just > ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? > Because Gates want's Windows98 out the door as soon as possible? ###### From: slavins@hearsay.demon.junkguard.co.uk (Simon Slavin) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 22:52:26 +0000 Organization: First Sirian Bank Message-ID: References: <6a8mg6$2q0@freenet-news.carleton.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: hearsay.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: hearsay.demon.co.uk [194.222.24.177] Lines: 19 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!hearsay.demon.co.uk!user In article , jdf@pobox.com (Jonathan Feinberg) wrote: > shokwave@well.com said... > > Oh, and it complies and links fast as hell, always an important point. > ^^^^^^^^ > No matter how fast you throw new standards at the Metroworks Complier, it'll > keep up, with new Self-Modifying Compliance Modules. Great. Does that mean I can write 'psychic newsreader' with it ? You know, the one which knows what threads you'll want to read and which new groups you'll be interested in ? Simon. -- Simon Slavin -- Computer Contractor. | If I ran usenet, the timestamp for http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk | anything posted between 2am and 5am Check email address for UBE-guard. | would *blink*. -- Nancy Lebovitz My s/ware deletes unread >3 UBEs/day.| Junk email not welcome at this site. ###### Path: ccw.ch!usenet From: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 26 Jan 1998 23:37:53 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 28 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <34df6431.90918744@206.210.64.12> <34d71ac8.144656545@news.cyberport.com> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch writes: > The only OS made on such principles at the moment is GNU/Linux, which Marco S Hyman asked: > I'm curious, why do you believe FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD are closed? tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) >I don't know how they differ, but I believe they're all "cathedral" >systems (see http://www.ccil.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-paper.html), >like Emacs: you can change your copy, but few people outside the >"inner circle" actually change the main source. `Course, better >perceived stability is why so many ISPs choose FreeBSD over Linux... > >Do read that paper -- it's kinda long, but very good. A landmark, >really. The famous ESR cathedral vs bazaar paper. I have actually already read it (printed in the Linux Journal or Linux Magazine I borowed). Thaks for the URL to it. Actually thinking about it, it may be that that paper (and weak memory) fooled me into still thinking that BSD is an closed system. Actually I should one get an BSD, just to compare it with Linux. -- Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch, http://www.ccw.ch/Neil.Franklin/ for Geek Code, Papernet, Voicenet, PGP public key see http: Mac, 95 and NT users are CLUEless (Command Line User Environment) If I go missing, its once again my newsfeed that has craped ###### From: daolath@news1.mnsinc.com (Mike Williams) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 27 Jan 1998 06:35:55 GMT Organization: Monumental Network Systems Lines: 20 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <1d35f98.1o7q83i11ggfncN@ppp77.dallas.dfw.net> Reply-To: daolath@mnsinc.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.55.11.75 X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.2.1 BETA OS/2) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!206.55.3.16!news2.mnsinc.com!news1.mnsinc.com!daolath On Tue, 20 Jan 1998 09:58:28 -0600, Kevin Gilhooly wrote: >Bill Wendling wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> Does anyone know why people design and create horrible-to-maintain, buggy >> code? I have seen and heard about some real horror stories. Is it just >> ignorance/incompetence on the coder's part? Lack of time, maybe? >> The biggest problems I have seen are - Programs Designed By Committee - Programs Designed With Poor Specifications - Programs Written Under Unrealisticly Short Deadlines -- -Mike Williams http://www.mnsinc.com/daolath/index.html I can also be reached at work: mike.williams@swift.com ###### From: shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:18:25 -0600 Organization: Shokwave Software, Inc Lines: 40 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <34e95db9.351445589@206.210.64.12> <6akd61$a5r$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> <34CD31DF.794BDF32@cisco.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: as5-dialup-08.wc-aus.io.com X-Trace: nntp-3.io.com 885921638 27491 (None) 206.224.81.192 X-Complaints-To: usenet@io.com X-Newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.2.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!ais.net!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!207.207.0.25!nntp.texas.net!news.io.com!news.io.com!as5-dialup-08.wc-aus.io.com!user In article <34CD31DF.794BDF32@cisco.com>, John Ahlstrom wrote: > Except in the case of life-critical software > (in which case the most important thing is It must not Kill anyone) > the most important characteristic of code is that it be > MODIFIABLE. > > Modifiability is more important because we know that > it doesn't work. It must be modified and modified and > modified to approach an acceptable state of workingness > and then must be modified and modified and modified again > to get new features and functions and environments into > an acceptable state of workingness. I think a software > engineer knows this. Or I would like not to characterize > anyone who does not know this as a software engineer. > > (There may be other situations, ROMmed code in an appliance?, > that can be more easily rewritten completely than modified.) I agree to a point, but lots and lots of programs are one-shot deals. Maybe my perception is skewed, working as a contractor, but I see a LOT of code that goes out the door and is never modified, as long as it works fairly well at the time of release. Computer games are a good example. You don't see version 2.0 of a video game. You may see a sequel, but those are often re-writes. In the arena of shrink-wrapped consumer software, I've been involved in many "version 2.0" projects that started out by throwing away the version 1.0 code. This can happen for lots of reasons: to take advantage of a new language or new class library, to update the software to comply with changes to the operating system, to architect the software better in light of the experience gained from version 1, etc. Also, speaking as a contract software developer, the most important consideration is that the code WORKS WHEN DELIVERED. If it doesn't, you DON'T GET PAID!! Even if you ask, clients rarely rate maintainability as highly as on-delivery fitness. This may be (is) shortsighted, but it's the way the world works. ###### From: David Wragg Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 27 Jan 1998 11:32:42 +0000 Organization: Dept. of Computing, Imperial College, University of London, UK. Lines: 21 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <1d35f98.1o7q83i11ggfncN@ppp77.dallas.dfw.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: outoften.doc.ic.ac.uk X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.4.37/XEmacs 19.15 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-dc-3.sprintlink.net!news-dc-1.sprintlink.net!news-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!server6.netnews.ja.net!server4.netnews.ja.net!doc.ic.ac.uk!not-for-mail daolath@news1.mnsinc.com (Mike Williams) writes: > The biggest problems I have seen are > > - Programs Designed By Committee > - Programs Designed With Poor Specifications > - Programs Written Under Unrealisticly Short Deadlines > Of course, the worst problems of all result from programs designed by committee who produce a poor (though remerkably long winded) specification, which has to be implemented under unrealistically short deadlines. And when it becomes clear that it will be very late, buggy and incomplete the managers make a decision: "Lets hire a load of cheap (= inexperienced) programmers in a desperate attempt to get it finished". Why horrible code? As the morale of the programmers plummets, it becomes more a case of "Why not?" Dave Wragg ###### Date: 27 Jan 98 12:55:38 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <1d35f98.1o7q83i11ggfncN@ppp77.dallas.dfw.net> Message-ID: <2368.331T1914T7754983@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 59 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.skybus.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsxfer.visi.net!news.idt.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.120 In article dpw@outoften.doc.ic.ac.uk (David Wragg) writes: >daolath@news1.mnsinc.com (Mike Williams) writes: > >> The biggest problems I have seen are >> >> - Programs Designed By Committee >> - Programs Designed With Poor Specifications >> - Programs Written Under Unrealisticly Short Deadlines > >Of course, the worst problems of all result from programs designed >by committee who produce a poor (though remerkably long winded) >specification, which has to be implemented under unrealistically >short deadlines. Don't forget specifications that are about as stable as a house of cards. (I suppose this could be classified under "poor specifications", but I like to distinguish volatile specs from ones that are just poorly defined. "Frozen specs and the Abominable Snowman have a lot in common: both are myths, and both melt when enough heat is applied." I forget who said this, but it sure sounds like Fred Brooks. My worst case was one when I pretty much wrote the programs first, then got the specs. Well, I went to the department and got enough of an idea what they wanted so I could make an educated guess, but getting solid information was like pulling teeth. So I went ahead and wrote something, then went through several iterations of the "That's not what I wanted" cycle. Amazingly, the code still had some sort of integrity by the time I was done. But once you have a working application, it'll have to be changed. In an in-house environment, new needs will arise, while in the marketplace you'll need new bells and whistles to match your competitors'. Keeping a program from turning into a pile of loose ends requires more than a quick-and-dirty approach. >And when it becomes clear that it will be very late, buggy and >incomplete the managers make a decision: "Lets hire a load of >cheap (=inexperienced) programmers in a desperate attempt to >get it finished". "Adding programmers to a late project makes it later." Fred Brooks definitely did write that one, and he backs it up with mathematical proof. >Why horrible code? As the morale of the programmers plummets, >it becomes more a case of "Why not?" But pointy-haired managers will forever fail to realize how things got that way in the first place. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: glass2@glass2.cv.lexington.ibm.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 27 Jan 1998 14:41:46 GMT Organization: IBM Austin Lines: 53 Message-ID: <6akrna$opg$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aft1r$oo2$1@uhura1.phoenix.net> Reply-To: wa4qal@vnet.ibm.com NNTP-Posting-Host: glass2.cv.lexington.ibm.com X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 2.0 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-dc-3.sprintlink.net!news-dc-1.sprintlink.net!news-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed.direct.ca!Supernews60!supernews.com!uunet!in4.uu.net!ausnews.austin.ibm.com!not-for-mail In <6aft1r$oo2$1@uhura1.phoenix.net>, Mike Swaim writes: >Peter van Hooft wrote: >: In <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> newcomer@flounder.com (Joseph M. Newcomer) writes: > >: >Unix self-destructed 30 workstations in one night (after having failed >: >to back up 80 of them for something like a year!). >: This convinced me not to read any further. I don't know of _any_ >: serious environment where this situtation would have allowed to >: continue after a _week_, let alone a year. > > I know of 2, and I haven't been around that much. At the first, one of >the programmers took to deleting a file that he didn't need once a month >and requesting that it be restored "just to be sure." At the second, I >found out by accident, and had one of the netware sysadmins give me rights >to the accounting data so I could back it up via an NT machine I >controlled. I also told the head of IS, who didn't know about it, either. > >-- >Mike Swaim, Avatar of Chaos: Disclaimer:I sometimes lie. >Home:swaim@phoenix.net or swaim@c-com.net, I'm just not sure. >Work:mpswaim@gdseng.com Silly:whatsewhose@gdseng.com >Alum: swaim@rice.edu Quote: "Boingie"^4 Y,W&D At a place I once worked, the semi-automated mainframe backup system would backup user files to tape at night. However, it required an operator to mount the tapes from the backup pool onto the tape drives. It seems that, due to increased numbers and sizes of user files, that the backup tape pool ran short of tapes. So, the operations person merely mounted a tape from the scratch tape pool, allowed the backup job to finish, and then returned the tape to the scratch pool! And, to make matters worse, this had been going on for over six months before I accidentally deleted a file that I needed and tried to recover it from the backup system. It caused a bit of a panic when word got out that about half of the user files on the system weren't backed up (Well, ok, so they had been backed up, it's just that the backup tapes had been reused as scratch tapes!). That's probably even worse than the time that I had a tape assigned to me, dumped some stuff on it, and then came back a week later to dump some more stuff to it. After the tape mount was pending for a couple of hours, operations finally called me up and ask 'Why are you trying to mount a non-existant tape?'. They were a little surprised when I told them that I had just used that tape last week, and that it had been assigned to me by the automated tape system. They claimed "Well, we've never had a tape with that volume serial number here.". Ok, scratch that data that I had archived to tape. Write only storage anyone? :*) Dave P.S. Standard disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for them. ###### From: bjh21@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ben Harris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 27 Jan 1998 17:03:23 GMT Organization: University of Cambridge, England Lines: 28 Message-ID: <6al40r$s6u$1@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d71ac8.144656545@news.cyberport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ursa.cus.cam.ac.uk Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!server1.netnews.ja.net!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!bjh21 In article <34d71ac8.144656545@news.cyberport.com>, Warren Young wrote: >Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch wrote: >>Marco S Hyman asked: >>> I'm curious, why do you believe FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD are closed? >> >>* could you give a concise description of what differs the 3 groups >>and their versions of the system. I think the traditional claim is that FreeBSD is tall and thin, NetBSD is low and wide and OpenBSD is somewhere in-between. >I don't know how they differ, but I believe they're all "cathedral" >systems (see http://www.ccil.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-paper.html), >like Emacs: you can change your copy, but few people outside the >"inner circle" actually change the main source. `Course, better >perceived stability is why so many ISPs choose FreeBSD over Linux... *BSD aren't pure 'cathedral' systems. For instance, the current development (read: probably functional) sources for NetBSD are made available daily through the NetBSD-current tree. Does this mean the Linux kernel source tree is effectively world-writeable, or does it just have a very large 'inner circle'? -- Ben Harris Computer Officer, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. ###### From: bmeyer@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 27 Jan 1998 21:33:37 +1100 Organization: This is innd taking over... Lines: 45 Message-ID: <6akd61$a5r$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <34e95db9.351445589@206.210.64.12> Reply-To: bmeyer@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au NNTP-Posting-Host: modem06.cs.monash.edu.au X-NNTP-Posting-User: root Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news-xfer.siscom.net!207.114.4.11.MISMATCH!nntp.abs.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!innfeed.telstra.net!news.telstra.net!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!towncrier.cc.monash.edu.au!wombat.cs.monash.edu.au!not-for-mail shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) writes: >hacker: cares if code is cool enough. hacker: Programs intuitively; Churns out incredible code at incredible rates, and most of it almost works most of the time. >computer scientist: cares if code is designed an written > according to latest and best principles. computer scientist: Knows that you shouldn't start coding before you have the algorithm and data structures worked out, and sometimes is able to follow that rule. In fact, sometimes is not able to code at all (or at least not in any fashion that should be published), but that's what programmers/postgrad students for ;-) >software engineer: cares if code WORKS. software engineer: Knows that you have to do a design first. Even knows that you should do rapid prototyping to find out what the customer really wants. Also knows how to write maintainable code. Due to being employed by companies in which pointy haired bastards decide over project schedules, all this knowledge usually gets sacrificed to the gods of "make it work well enough to meet the deadline". Whether it really _works_ doesn't often matter. Can you tell I am not too impressed by the current state of programming? Just about the only times you get really good software is if someone with the knowledge of all three groups works on his/her own time, with any PHBs messing things up. TeX is a good example for this --- and Word is a good example for the opposite. Bernie -- ============================================================================ "It's a magical world, Hobbes ol' buddy... ...let's go exploring" Calvin's final words, on December 31st, 1995 ###### From: rhawkins@iastate.edu (Rick Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 27 Jan 1998 21:39:11 GMT Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa USA Lines: 19 Message-ID: <6alk5v$cc7$1@news.iastate.edu> References: <6a8mg6$2q0@freenet-news.carleton.ca> <6adlqu$5q2$2@irk.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: pv2086.vincent.iastate.edu Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newspeer.monmouth.com!news1.chicago.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!newsrelay.iastate.edu!news.iastate.edu!rhawkins In article , Rob Hafernik wrote: >Someone earlier didn't like the idea of syntax coloring. Fine, turn it off. Don't like it? It's the only reason to have a color display . . . :) [ok, the kids like color for their games, too. But last fall marks the first time out of my dozen or so machines starting in the late 70's that I've had color. And if this display hadn't originally been the kids, it would be 19" or 20" mono rather than 17" color . . .] -- R E HAWKINS rhawkins@iastate.edu These opinions will not be those of ISU until they pay my retainer. ###### From: Robert Billing Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Tue, 27 Jan 98 21:43:34 GMT Message-ID: <885937414snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> References: Reply-To: unclebob@tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-User: unclebob@tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: post-10.mail.demon.net!post.mail.demon.net!tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 885940935 29176 unclebob tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.29 Lines: 19 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsxfer.visi.net!news.idt.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!tnglwood.demon.co.uk!unclebob In article shokwave@well.com "Rob Hafernik" writes: > In the arena of shrink-wrapped consumer software, I've been involved in > many "version 2.0" projects that started out by throwing away the version OTOH there is something which I wrote years ago, which is now on version 50-something. In general what happens is that it becomes broadly stable, then is tweaked to add some features, then goes through half a dozen releases in a fortnight, and then becomes stable again. Version 46 for example was in series production for nearly two years. -- I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/ "Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump, Piglet, meet me in transporter room three" ###### From: "Benz" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> <6a446o$l3a$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34e067db.91857012@206.210.64.12> <6a6c4b$nl7$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34c934ee.38542581@news.cyberport.com> <6ahahi$7eg$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d05caa.152375514@news.cyberport.com> Message-ID: <01bd2c1b$a3684260$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1155 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.3.250.107 Date: 28 Jan 98 18:32:18 GMT Lines: 12 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!198.190.226.3!pgh.nauticom.net!207.3.250.107 Warren Young wrote in article <34d05caa.152375514@news.cyberport.com>... > wendling@news.cso.uiuc.edu (Bill Wendling) wrote: > aren't free, but then, you get what you pay for. If you want a > _really good_ compiler under UNIX, you pay for that, too, and for a > pretty penny, too. Errr... but on Unix, if you want a _good_ compiler, you already have one. In the MicroSlop world, you even have to pay for a crippled compiler. ###### From: bjh21@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ben Harris) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 28 Jan 1998 20:51:09 GMT Organization: University of Cambridge, England Lines: 56 Message-ID: <6ao5nt$lv3$1@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d71ac8.144656545@news.cyberport.com> <6al40r$s6u$1@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk> <34d160e5.153458802@news.cyberport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ursa.cus.cam.ac.uk Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-dc-3.sprintlink.net!news-dc-1.sprintlink.net!news-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!server1.netnews.ja.net!lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk!bjh21 In article <34d160e5.153458802@news.cyberport.com>, Warren Young wrote: >bjh21@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ben Harris) wrote: >>I think the traditional claim is that FreeBSD is tall and thin, NetBSD is >>low and wide and OpenBSD is somewhere in-between. > >Could you clarify that? Does that mean FreeBSD does many things but >only does them on a certain small subset of hardware, or something >like that? If so, then, that means NetBSD runs on many things, but >does it also mean that it doesn't do as _many_ things? Roughly, though others may disagree. I mostly use NetBSD (because I've got far too many silly machines), so I don't know much about FreeBSD, but I've nicked several bits of FreeBSD userland code that hadn't got into NetBSD yet. I need to work out if their SCSI CD driver is any better than ours at some point, too. >>*BSD aren't pure 'cathedral' systems. For instance, the current >>development (read: probably functional) sources for NetBSD are made >>available daily through the NetBSD-current tree. > >Well, yes, but the main thing (I think) about cathedral systems is >that input is effectively nil -- all the code comes from the inside >only. (It may start out as someone's personal patch and then get >donated to the project, but it has to go through that screening first, >and I'm guessing that they're not terribly open about letting source >in.) It does look that way, yes. Admittedly, the only bit of code I've contributed (the dl driver for NetBSD/vax) was accepted without a murmur (ignoring documentation errors), but that was hardly very deep kernel stuff. Things like ATAPI and PCMCIA seemed to hang around for quite a while as semi-official patch kits before they got into the official kernel. >>Does this mean the Linux kernel source tree is effectively world-writeable, >>or does it just have a very large 'inner circle'? > >Oh no, So how big _is_ the Linux 'inner circle'? I'm curious. >AFAIK, there is only _one_ FreeBSD distribution. (More than one CD >house people pressing the disks, of course, but the code on them is >all the same, for a given release of FreeBSD.) Indeed. Or you could think of it the other way. In Linux, there is one only one kernel, whereas *BSD has three . >It's all shades of gray, but I think Linux is closer to the "bazaar" >end of the spectrum than FreeBSD is. I expect it is, yes. -- Ben Harris Computer Officer, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. ###### From: ehrice@his.com (Edward Rice) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 01:06:25 -0500 Organization: NDS Lines: 18 Message-ID: References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <885114968snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <34d018f1.6105793@206.210.64.12> <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: pm3-48.his.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsxfer.visi.net!news.idt.net!netnews.com!news-xfer.netaxs.com!news.his.com!news3.his.com!user In article <1204.324T125T9303658@sky.bus.com>, "Charlie Gibbs" wrote: > Bill Gates proved that you can make billions (literally!) with > mediocre code - all you need is enough marketing skill. This > was the death knell of carefully-crafted code in the mass market. > Why waste time and effort making truly good code if you can get > the peepul to settle for less? Even worse, if you spend too much > time on quality, some half-assed piece of crap will beat you to > market and close your window of opportunity. And then he has the nerve to lecture the hardware people periodically, that they'd better bring out faster machines in a hurry or they'll be left behind. Yeah, left behind the dust of the newest Windows release wasting all those cycles. ###### From: ehrice@his.com (Edward Rice) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 01:06:26 -0500 Organization: NDS Lines: 29 Message-ID: References: <6a8mg6$2q0@freenet-news.carleton.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: pm3-48.his.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsxfer.visi.net!feeder.qis.net!news-xfer.netaxs.com!news.his.com!news3.his.com!user In article , shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) wrote: > The code editor does everything you expect: syntax coloring, function > pop-ups, parsing for missing parens or braces, auto-indent, block-indent, > any font and spacing, pop-ups to take you to include files, etc, etc. But it doesn't do grammatical-indent, which THINK Pascal and Lightspeed 'C' do. While CodeWarrior isn't bad, I think it's not as clean an environment as THINK/Lightspeed are. But, CodeWarrior offers multiple compilers and a better code generation facility, so I'm using it for now. > The source-level debugging is as good as any I've seen anywhere (and works > the same for all targets and languages that support the debugger). You > can set breakpoints and watchpoints. You can evaluate expressions on the > fly. You can change the values of variables as the program runs. You can > view variables as their own type or any other type (very helpful with > pointers that might point to lots of different things). You can view > memory directly, in hex or as any variable. The debugger can be > automatically invoked when there's an exception. ALL available at least ten years ago, with THINK Pascal. ###### From: shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 09:02:35 -0600 Organization: Shokwave Software, Inc Lines: 23 Message-ID: References: <6a8mg6$2q0@freenet-news.carleton.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: as5-dialup-05.wc-aus.io.com X-Trace: nntp-2.io.com 886086338 765 (None) 206.224.81.189 X-Complaints-To: usenet@io.com X-newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.2.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-dc-3.sprintlink.net!news-dc-1.sprintlink.net!news-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed.internetmci.com!131.103.1.114!news1.chicago.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!mr.net!news.io.com!news.io.com!as5-dialup-05.wc-aus.io.com!user In article , ehrice@his.com (Edward Rice) wrote: > > > The source-level debugging is as good as any I've seen anywhere (and > works > > the same for all targets and languages that support the debugger). You > > can set breakpoints and watchpoints. You can evaluate expressions on > the > > fly. You can change the values of variables as the program runs. You > can > > view variables as their own type or any other type (very helpful with > > pointers that might point to lots of different things). You can view > > memory directly, in hex or as any variable. The debugger can be > > automatically invoked when there's an exception. > > ALL available at least ten years ago, with THINK Pascal. Well, the Codewarrior debugger is a LOT more flexible and does a lot of little things that the THINK versions never did. This is hardly surprising, since the core team at Metrowerks was stolen from the THINK team. Someone should do an article on those guys, they've been doing very good work in the development environment field for a long time. ###### Date: 03 Feb 98 11:53:04 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <34d6b671.417499030@news.xmission.com> <01bd30bb$066d83e0$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> Message-ID: <1978.338T202T7133759@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 43 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.skybus.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.121 In article <01bd30bb$066d83e0$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> benz@danet.com (Benz) writes: >R!ch wrote in article >... > >> "vi" is short for visual. It was called a visual editor, because >> you could see a screenful at ata time. ed et al print one line at >> a time, unless you tell them to print more - but even then, editing >> is line orientated. "Orientate" is an example of the trend toward polysyllabificationizing. :-) >Actually, it's line oriented in vi too - vi is just a layer on top of >ex - which is a layer on top of ed. The commands you give at the ':' >prompt in vi are actually ex commands, and I've seen many instances >where some error in the vi source, or some bad keypress, drops you >completely out of vi and leaves you sitting at an ex prompt. I learned about vi's ex roots somewhat by accident myself. Someone who was around when I was learning vi would save files by typing :x instead of :wq. It was short, so I picked it up, and still use it to this day. But it always puzzled me that nobody else used this command, and I knew I'd have no peace until I figured it out. So I dug through the manuals until all became clear. I still use :x - I wear my idiosyncracies proudly. When I first looked at vi, I thought that that hjkl nonsense was just too screwy for words, but it was frightening how fast my fingers learned (and retain) it. I worked out some mnemonics while getting used to it, though. Control-h is a backspace, so H moves left. Control-J is a line feed, so J moves down. The other two keys took a bit longer, although with L being the rightmost key it sort of makes sense that it moves right - so by a process of elimination K moves up. Someone else told me he remembered J and K by thinking that J stood for Jump (down), while K stood for Klimb (climb, arrgh). -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### Date: 03 Feb 98 12:05:44 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <6b6f4k$h96$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au> <01bd30ba$8af05b20$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> Message-ID: <1031.338T2248T7255089@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 23 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.skybus.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.121 In article <01bd30ba$8af05b20$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> benz@danet.com (Benz) writes: >Vi keystrokes do not come from my brain anymore - they are programmed >into my hands - I don't have to think about the keystrokes, I just >think 'insert this word here on this line' and my fingers do the >walking. To retrain *that* circuitry is a major effort - indeed, >when typing a letter like this into a DOS window, I often find myself >starting off with 'i' as the first character in the e-mail ('i' puts >you in 'insert' mode in vi). I know what you mean. I switch between several editors on various machines, and sometimes when I go to KEDIT on an MS-DOS box after an intensive vi session I'll put a string of Js into a document before realizing it's not moving me down the screen. As for favourite editors, if I have any really heavy-duty editing to do, I'll ship the file over to my Amiga and fire up CygnusEd. Now THERE's an editor... -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: "Benz" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <6b6f4k$h96$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au> Message-ID: <01bd30ba$8af05b20$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1155 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.3.250.107 Date: 3 Feb 98 15:36:37 GMT Lines: 35 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.ysu.edu!news.ece.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!pitt.edu!portc02.blue.aol.com!prodigy.com!newscon01!news3.buffnet.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!198.190.226.3!pgh.nauticom.net!207.3.250.107 Kin Hoong CHUNG wrote in article <6b6f4k$h96$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au>... > Gene Wirchenko (genew@vip.net) wrote: > > : I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it > : awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not a > : flame, I'd really like to know. > > It is no more awkward than any other editor. Now you've hit on a favorite topic of mine - vi. Having been a vi user for about 20 years now (I have a first edition of the K&R C 'bible') I can honestly say I've never encountered a Unix system where I couldn't count on typing 'vi' at the prompt and find myself on familiar ground. You can't say that about EMACS or any other editor I know - vi is almost part of Unix, while EMACS is just another application. Even when a Unix has crashed, and rebooted in maintenance mode, vi is still there - but the partitions that EMACS typically inhabits are not mounted. So if you are a System Administrator, vi skills are pretty much required - that's the way you fix a sick system, usually. This is not to say vi is the greatest editor ever (don't get all happy - EMACS ain't even close). But I've always believed that the *first* editor you learn is the best for *you* - an editor is a tool, and once you know how to use it competently, moving to a new editor without a compelling reason (different OS, or a non-OS like DOS) is simply counterproductive. Vi keystrokes do not come from my brain anymore - they are programmed into my hands - I don't have to think about the keystrokes, I just think 'insert this word here on this line' and my fingers do the walking. To retrain *that* circuitry is a major effort - indeed, when typing a letter like this into a DOS window, I often find myself starting off with 'i' as the first character in the e-mail ('i' puts you in 'insert' mode in vi). ###### From: Jan van den Broek Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 3 Feb 1998 19:58:18 +0100 Organization: Bond van Verdronken Zeelieden Message-ID: <6b7pca$b0i$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <34d6b671.417499030@news.xmission.com> <01bd30bb$066d83e0$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: xs2.xs4all.nl X-XS4ALL-Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 19:58:20 CET X-Order: Two pints of lager and a packet of crisps, please. X-Question: never, never known not even by many to exist X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #4 Lines: 36 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-dc-3.sprintlink.net!news-dc-1.sprintlink.net!news-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!195.173.173.151!woodstock.news.demon.net!demon!bullseye.news.demon.net!demon!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!xs4all!nestorix2.xs4all.nl!xs4all!not-for-mail To get back to the horrible code, I can imagine why it is there. At my work we use something develish written[1] in Access. This thing[2] is split in two parts, one for the programs and one for the data. On the first version I received those parts didn't match, The program-part was looking for fields that didn't exist and the data-part containing fields that were never used. Some update later this thing crashed still more often than a whale learning to fly, so the supportguy was sent over. After a lot of feedback with someone who was supposed to be the programmer they had found the problem; An "if-then-else" where the if-condition never was true. I knew this a half hour before, but I didn't bother telling them. They had a brilliant solution, add an "And" to the original condition... And another gem I found in a shell script, not only was someone not afraid to use a hardcoded method, but also did "cls" never came to his mind: #include main() { FILE *fp; fp=fopen("/dev/tty45","w"); fprintf(fp,"%c[2J",27); fclose(fp); } [1] By one of our vendors, not by anyone who knew what he was doing. [2] I refuse to call it a database. Met groeten, | Jan van den Broek | balglaas@xs4all.nl | ----------------------------------------+--------------------------------------- | make it so | Make: don't know how to make it. Stop. | ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: engebret@sg1.cr.usgs.gov (Chris Engebretson) Subject: Re: Why horrible code? X-Nntp-Posting-Host: sg1.cr.usgs.gov Message-ID: Sender: news@igsrsparc2.er.usgs.gov (Janet Walz (GD) x6739) Reply-To: engebret@sg1.cr.usgs.gov Organization: Raytheon STX Corporation References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 22:16:11 GMT Lines: 38 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.onenet.net!news.oru.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!ptdnetP!newsgate.ptd.net!news1.radix.net!news.er.usgs.gov!sg1.cr.usgs.gov!engebret In article <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net>, genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) writes: |> I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it |> awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not a |> flame, I'd really like to know. Others have already mentioned its enormous availability across all *IX platforms, which removes the need to familiarize yourself with more than one editor. While this is indeed an important factor in its popularity, I'd also point out that once you're familiar with it, you can accomplish routine editing tasks with blinding speed. GUI users appreciate the ability to highlight a few words with the mouse and then select Edit | Cut (or just hit DELETE) to get rid of them, but the effort one spends to type "d3w" takes only a fraction of the time in vi. Of course, all of this is not without some cost, especially to users of more "contemporary" editors. The commands are naturally awkward at first, but quickly become second nature. (And of course, vi is not the only editor that provides lots of keyboard "shortcuts" .. I just happen to prefer the rather wide and powerful selection that it gives you to work with.) That aside, vi is very C-friendly; I don't know what I'd do without the percent key (which, given that you have the cursor positioned on a brace/paren/bracket takes you to the matching one, i.e., you can move from the bottom of a function to the top with a keystroke.) A couple of my coworkers tried to convert me to XEmacs a few years ago, but it's hard to teach an old dog GNU tricks. Regards, -- Chris Engebretson - Raytheon STX Corporation | Ph#: (605)594-6829 USGS EROS Data Center, Sioux Falls, SD 57198 | Fax: (605)594-6940 http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/ mailto:engebret@sg1.cr.usgs.gov Opinions are not those of Raytheon Systems Company or the USGS. ###### From: ftit@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 3 Feb 1998 23:43:22 GMT Organization: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Lines: 22 Message-ID: <6b8a2q$90g@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <6b6f4k$h96$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au> <01bd30ba$8af05b20$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: oof.engin.umich.edu Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.eecs.umich.edu!srvr1.engin.umich.edu!ftit In article <01bd30ba$8af05b20$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com>, Benz wrote: >Kin Hoong CHUNG wrote in article ><6b6f4k$h96$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au>... >> Gene Wirchenko (genew@vip.net) wrote: >> : I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it >> : awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not a >> : flame, I'd really like to know. >> >> It is no more awkward than any other editor. >Vi keystrokes do not come from my brain anymore - they are programmed into >my hands - I don't have to think about the keystrokes, I just think 'insert >this word here on this line' and my fingers do the walking. To retrain >*that* circuitry is a major effort - indeed, when typing a letter like this >into a DOS window, I often find myself starting off with 'i' as the first >character in the e-mail ('i' puts you in 'insert' mode in vi). > Not to mention the best thing about vi (well, one of 'em)---it uses the same movement keys as Moria/Nethack! -- Sergej Roytman ###### From: bayko@borealis.cs.uregina.ca (John Bayko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 3 Feb 1998 23:56:05 GMT Organization: University of Regina, Dept. of Computer Science Lines: 24 Message-ID: <6b8aql$st8$1@sue.cc.uregina.ca> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: borealis.cs.uregina.ca Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.172.150.11!news1.bellglobal.com!dragon.sk.sympatico.ca!mongol.sasknet.sk.ca!news.uregina.ca!not-for-mail In article <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net>, Gene Wirchenko wrote: [...] > I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it >awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not a >flame, I'd really like to know. It is a sort of simbiote. Initial exposure produces typical symptoms of infection - irritation, confusion, fever, occasionally nausia - but once the host survives that, then the vi memes are firmly wedged into the neurons so deeply that mere thoughts are translated without conscious realisation into reflexive keystrokes. This is possible only because the combinations are so small that they don't need much effort, yet they can be deciphered logically if needed. This symbiosis is what vi fans rave about, but are unable to express what it feels like to anyone who hasn't experienced it (like the symbiotic Trills in Star Trek). Basically, if you don't know already what makes vi so great, you can't understand. -- John Bayko (Tau). bayko@cs.uregina.ca http://www.cs.uregina.ca/~bayko ###### From: mattack@area.com (Matt Ackeret) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 4 Feb 1998 00:36:31 GMT Organization: Area Systems, Mountain View, California Lines: 30 Message-ID: <6b8d6f$kv8$1@nixon.area.com> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 165.90.20.19 X-Newsposter: Pnews 4.0-test46 (31 Oct 96) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsfeed.wli.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.he.net!nixon.area.com!not-for-mail In article <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net>, Gene Wirchenko wrote: > I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it >awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not a >flame, I'd really like to know. Nice, quick, and small. I admittedly don't do find/replace things often in vi, but for quick editing, it's great. Honestly, I don't use vi. I use vim. It's much better than vi, but is a superset. Among a *lot* of other things, it has what I consider the biggest thing missing from vi -- visual selection of text. Since terminals can do inverse text, why should I have to type 5yy ("copy 5 lines starting at the cursor")? While that's very few keystrokes, if it's actually much more than that that I *do* want to copy, I don't want to deal with manually counting the lines. I want to visually select what to copy. And I can do that in vim. Plus vim handles line-reformatting, including quoting characters (i.e. redoing >>so and so #1 said this very very long thing that was so long that it had to wrap a line > so and so #2 replied into >>so and so #1 said this very very long thing that was so long that it had to >>wrap a line > so and so #2 replied ..... and lots of other cool stuff like that.) -- mattack@area.com ###### From: daolath@news1.mnsinc.com (Mike Williams) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 4 Feb 1998 05:42:44 GMT Organization: Monumental Network Systems Lines: 24 Message-ID: References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <34d6b671.417499030@news.xmission.com> Reply-To: daolath@mnsinc.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.55.11.75 X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.2.1 BETA OS/2) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.55.3.16!news2.mnsinc.com!news1.mnsinc.com!daolath On Tue, 03 Feb 1998 06:27:02 GMT, Scott Brown wrote: >On Tue, 03 Feb 1998 03:34:59 GMT, genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) >wrote: > >> I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it >>awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not a >>flame, I'd really like to know. > >Standardization, I think. If you've got a Unix box, you've got vi, >and every vi works pretty much just like every other vi. > >What *I* want to know is the etymology of the name "vi", and why it is >pronounced like it is. > >-Scott Before I discovered the wonders of the One True Editor, a friend of mine (VMS hacker) tried to convince me that vi stood for Virtually Impossible I feel that is should be Vitally Important -- -Mike Williams http://www.mnsinc.com/daolath/index.html I can also be reached at work: mike.williams@swift.com ###### From: R!ch Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 07:31:05 +0000 Lines: 35 Message-ID: References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <6b8d6f$kv8$1@nixon.area.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: paddington.uk.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Sender: richardt@paddington To: Matt Ackeret In-Reply-To: <6b8d6f$kv8$1@nixon.area.com> Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!btnet-peer!btnet-feed2!btnet!carbon.eu.sun.com!uk-usenet.uk.sun.com!paddington!richardt On 4 Feb 1998, Matt Ackeret wrote: > can do inverse text, why should I have to type 5yy ("copy 5 lines starting > at the cursor")? While that's very few keystrokes, if it's actually much > more than that that I *do* want to copy, I don't want to deal with manually > counting the lines. I want to visually select what to copy. And I can do That's what markers are for. Go to the first line of the block you want to yank. Type "ma" (set marker a). Go to the bottom of the block, and type ":'a,.y". Much easier than counting! > >>so and so #1 said this very very long thing that was so long that it had to > >>wrap a line > > so and so #2 replied > .... and lots of other cool stuff like that.) That is pretty cool! -- R!ch (Email is flakey at present: use richardt@keaton.uk.sun.com) If it ain't analogue, it ain't music. #include \\|// - ? (o o) /==================================oOOo=(_)=oOOo========\ | Richard Teer richard.teer@uk.sun.com | | | | | | WWW: www.rkdltd.demon.co.uk | | .oooO | | ( ) Oooo. | \===================================\ (==( )==========/ \_) ) / (_/ ###### From: R!ch Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 07:33:55 +0000 Lines: 35 Message-ID: References: <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <34d6b671.417499030@news.xmission.com> <01bd30bb$066d83e0$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> <1978.338T202T7133759@sky.bus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: paddington.uk.sun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Sender: richardt@paddington To: Charlie Gibbs In-Reply-To: <1978.338T202T7133759@sky.bus.com> Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!diablo.theplanet.net!btnet-feed2!btnet!carbon.eu.sun.com!uk-usenet.uk.sun.com!paddington!richardt On 3 Feb 1998, Charlie Gibbs wrote: > I learned about vi's ex roots somewhat by accident myself. Someone I actually knew about vi's roots, but I glossed over them in m etymology. > who was around when I was learning vi would save files by typing > :x instead of :wq. It was short, so I picked it up, and still use > it to this day. But it always puzzled me that nobody else used > this command, and I knew I'd have no peace until I figured it out. > So I dug through the manuals until all became clear. > > I still use :x - I wear my idiosyncracies proudly. No-one's mentioned "ZZ" as a short hand for ":x" yet (shorter, cause there's no CR), which is what I use all the time (except for ":q"!). -- R!ch (Email is flakey at present: use richardt@keaton.uk.sun.com) If it ain't analogue, it ain't music. #include \\|// - ? (o o) /==================================oOOo=(_)=oOOo========\ | Richard Teer richard.teer@uk.sun.com | | | | | | WWW: www.rkdltd.demon.co.uk | | .oooO | | ( ) Oooo. | \===================================\ (==( )==========/ \_) ) / (_/ ###### From: shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 08:55:36 -0600 Organization: Shokwave Software, Inc Lines: 14 Message-ID: References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <6b6f4k$h96$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au> <01bd30ba$8af05b20$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.224.81.217 X-newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.2.2 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsxfer.visi.net!dca1-hub1.news.digex.net!digex!ais.net!nntp.texas.net!news.io.com!news.io.com!as5-dialup-33.wc-aus.io.com!user Well, about the only good thing I can say about vi is that, once you master it, you feel good about yourself. It's the same satisfaction you get from completing any dismal chore (such as changing the oil in your car): you feel smug and virtuous that you've finished something that wasn't easy, wasn't pleasant, but needed to be done anyway. For the record, I like BBEdit on the Mac these days. It does almost everything and does it pretty quickly and without an enourmous footprint. It doesn't give the satisfaction of mastery, however, that vi did, because you can learn it and use it with very little effort. The best feature in BBEdit (which may be common in editors these days, I don't know) is that it can load and save via FTP. This makes it very nice for editing web pages that live on a remote server. ###### Date: 04 Feb 98 11:10:57 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: Message-ID: <795.339T2876T6705797@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 17 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.skybus.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.123 In article engebret@sg1.cr.usgs.gov (Chris Engebretson) writes: >GUI users appreciate the ability to highlight a few words with the >mouse and then select Edit | Cut (or just hit DELETE) to get rid of >them, but the effort one spends to type "d3w" takes only a fraction >of the time in vi. Of course, all of this is not without some cost, >especially to users of more "contemporary" editors. The commands >are naturally awkward at first, but quickly become second nature. This highlights the difference between Unix tools and Windows tools: Windows tools are easy to learn, while Unix tools are easy to use. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not the same. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: J.Hendrickx@maw.kun.nl (J.Hendrickx) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 13:41:06 +0100 Organization: KUN Lines: 74 Message-ID: References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: mwpc87.daf.kun.nl X-Newsreader: Anawave Gravity v2.00 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed.internetmci.com!192.87.106.104!surfnet.nl!barba.uci.kun.nl!not-for-mail In article <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net>, genew@vip.net says... > I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it > awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not a > flame, I'd really like to know. > There's been considerable followup to this post, all incorrect. Here's Dmitry A.Kazakov definitive answer, for those who don't already know, but should. Hoping to have enlightened you at long last, John Hendrickx ----------------------------------------------------------------------- MORE AND MORE PEOPLE CHOOSE `VI'. CASE OF STUDY This article is just a part of a fundamental opus devoted to investi- gation of UNIX. Scientists of the future will read UNIX's manual pages with the same feel of a light perplexity that comes to us when we turn the pages of `Witch Hammer' (some people feel it right now). This work should help them in their heavy task. Let us consider a very obscure question - why people like `vi' and why it looks like `vi'. Certainly, there must be lots of convincing rea- sons in deleting a character by pressing three keys `ESC', `x', `i' in- stead of single `del'. We should immediately reject opinions like `peo- ple search for obstacles to overwhelm them' as unscientific ones. Con- sidering this issue more thoroughly we can find at least four approaches to it. (o) Astronomical point of view. As we know most of programmers work putting their legs on the system block. (If you have a `tower' just move it from your table to the floor, you'll feel the difference!). To achieve maximal comfort legs should be arranged along the magnetic lines. Well, let us take a look on the key- board laying over your mmmm... stomach. In this position a line connecting keys `x' and `ESC' points right to the North star. At the same time `x' - `i' axis indicates the equinoctial point. (o) Magical approach. After active usage of described above `ESC', `x', `i' key sequence everybody comes to the conclusion that SOMETHING'S WRONG and enters another sequence - `ESC', `:', `q', `!'. As we know `ESC' abbreviates the word `escutcheon'. If we consider keys `x', `i', `:', `q' and `!' we can notice that they organize a magic pentagram. It is clear that multiple drawing the pentagram protects us from the cruel daemons hidding in the CPU. (o) Medical reasons. Clinical researches show that using `vi' keeps tonus of your fingers at the level of a violonist, that prevents a gout. However, you should be careful working at home. Be shure that the door to the chield room is tightly closed unless you want to hear from your son the sentences you usually address to `vi'. (o) Psycho-analysis. Sexual instinct... ****** (for specialists only) In conclusion I would like to state that we are currently at the very beginning of understanding deep laws ruling over the world. Some impor- tant questions remain unexplored. For example, why are we using `ESC', `d', `d', `i' to delete a line rather than handy `ESC', `f', `d', `h', `s', `t', `h', `n', `v', `b', `i'? Never mind, `vi' should overcome some day! [__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__] [][__][ Dmitry A.Kazakov ][__][__][__ What is mind? - No matter. ][__][] [__][__ Parsytec Petersburg [__][_ What is matter? - Never mind. __][__] [][__][ _][__][__][__][ -- Bertrand Russell _][__][] [__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__][__] ###### From: tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 14:42:05 GMT Organization: none Lines: 34 Message-ID: <34dd7c40.303742128@news.cyberport.com> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 56k77-118.cyberport.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!206.102.31.251!news.cmc.net!feeder.swcp.com!news.cyberport.com!not-for-mail genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) wrote: > I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it >awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not a >flame, I'd really like to know. There are some things it really excels at, mainly in repeating certain things. Its modality makes it very easy to do something, hit ESC, and then hit '.' N times to repeat it. You can sort of get away with this in Emacs, but because it's non-modal, it's often hard to say what exactly it will repeat. Although I do use UNIX some (perhaps 5% of my computing time) and that's where I learned vi, I use vi mainly under NT because it's the only decent text-mode editor I've found. It seems that almost every editor for the Windows world (including the otherwise-excellent emacs port) are GUI programs. Now, I have no problem with GUIs, but for quick editing tasks, waiting 5 or 10 seconds for the editor to come up is a real pain. Also, "emacs" is harder to type than "vi". B-> Still, if it isn't vim (or at least elvis), vi can be a real pain. These two add things like visual selecting (better than emacs, because emacs' selections are invisible), column/row indicators, sensible cursor movements (autoindent under stock vi forces you to get out of edit mode to de-tab) and a number of other "essential" features. In short, I'm still a vi guy at heart. I don't mind emacs and generic Windows editors (anything above notepad, really), but I think I'll always want vi close at hand, no matter what I happen to be hacking on at the moment. (Famous last words, I know.) = Warren -- http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent = = Remove the SPAMCATCHER to email. -- Finger me! ###### From: stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu (Stewart Stremler) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 4 Feb 1998 17:17:25 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Lines: 134 Message-ID: <6ba7r5$b4b$3@gondor.sdsu.edu> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <34dd7c40.303742128@news.cyberport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: rohan.sdsu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!ais.net!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!204.156.128.20!news1.best.com!newshub.sdsu.edu!gondor!rohan!stremler There's an entire thread.... so I'll just digest 'em rather than following up to each. Louis RAPHAEL wrote: [snip] >Just for the record, I started using VI in the last year... so not >only do some people still use it, but there are even *new* people >learning to use it! Since then, I've met others. I doubt that it'll >ever become the dominant editor once again, but there *are* a good >number of us out there. In the cost/quality (i.e. size to >functionality) department, *nothing* beats VI. Introductory CS students at SDSU are taught vi. It's not _required_ that they demonstrate a proficiency, so many of them take up alternatives. Some learn emacs, but the rest are tempted by pico (pine's default editor). The problem with pico is that just about the time they feel they've mastered this whole edit-compile-run business, they'll start working on slightly more significant problems. Programs where the source files run to several hundred lines apiece... and getting the job *done* means they can't justify the time to learn Yet Another Editor. It's quite amusing to see the look on the fact of a student when you can perform some task in a dozen keystrokes, and they've spent hours and are only a tenth of the way done. Pico: Easy to learn, hard to use. Vi: Hard to learn, easy to use. "Charlie Gibbs" wrote: [snip] >When I first looked at vi, I thought that that hjkl nonsense was >just too screwy for words, but it was frightening how fast my fingers >learned (and retain) it. I have students ask if they should bother to try learning the hjkl stuff, since don't the arrows keys work? Yah, they work, unless you have a keyboard w/o arrow keys (possible), or are connected to the system in such a way that the arrow keys are garbled (bad telnet client, brain-dead terminal emulator, etc.). Of course, I don't know how many of them are touch-typists. THAT ability seems to encourage the use of hjkl, as it is a lazy breed, never wanting to move the fingers very far from the home row. :) And again... "Charlie Gibbs" wrote: [snip] >I know what you mean. I switch between several editors on various >machines, and sometimes when I go to KEDIT on an MS-DOS box after >an intensive vi session I'll put a string of Js into a document >before realizing it's not moving me down the screen. You can get a good vi program for a MSDOS box -- vim and vile spring to mind. I use the DOS box to run my Fido Software, and I can't choose my editor, and I often have to clean up a bunch of Js and Ks. >As for favourite editors, if I have any really heavy-duty editing >to do, I'll ship the file over to my Amiga and fire up CygnusEd. >Now THERE's an editor... Put vim on your Amiga! Actually, I never really was too impressed with CygnusEd. I tried one of the first few versions, and because I have friends who were very happy with CygnusEd, and kept on telling me to try the "new" version. I think the editor I liked the most on the Amiga was DME. ftit@engin.umich.edu (Sergej Roytman) wrote: [snip] >Not to mention the best thing about vi (well, one of 'em)---it uses the >same movement keys as Moria/Nethack! Rogue. All the others are derivative! R!ch wrote: [snip] No-one's mentioned "ZZ" as a short hand for ":x" yet (shorter, cause there's no CR), which is what I use all the time (except for ":q"!). That's the method my beginning students are told to save & quit. I also point them towards a vi book, if they're interested; they either start looking up neat tricks, or start watching me (or other vi users) for some tricks and tips. Speaking of which -- how do you get vi to NOT put tabs in when you have autoindent set? The only way I've figured out is to set the tabstop to something outrageous (>72), but that means that you can't really use the TAB key. The alternative seems to be to use "expand" after editing, but then you can't use TABs if you need to. Warren Young (tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com) wrote: [snip] > There are some things it really excels at, mainly in repeating certain > things. Its modality makes it very easy to do something, hit ESC, and > then hit '.' N times to repeat it. You can sort of get away with this > in Emacs, but because it's non-modal, it's often hard to say what > exactly it will repeat. The modality works because the kind of your you do in vi is text editing; you enter the text (presumably without too many errors), and then you spend most of your time going back and editing the file. The problem I have with emacs is that the editing involves control-this and control-that, and I don't touch-type well with my pinky stuck on the control-key all the bloody time. In fact, I disklike it so much, I'll often use "22j" to page thru a file rather than "control-f"! [snip] > that's where I learned vi, I use vi mainly under NT because it's the > only decent text-mode editor I've found. It seems that almost every > editor for the Windows world (including the otherwise-excellent emacs > port) are GUI programs. Now, I have no problem with GUIs, but for > quick editing tasks, waiting 5 or 10 seconds for the editor to come up > is a real pain. Also, "emacs" is harder to type than "vi". B-> MKS makes a really nice gui "vi" -- so you can use vim for the DOS-window tasks, and the MKS for drag-n-drop. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, | Stewart Stremler and I'm happy to say I finally won out." | stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu --Elwin P. Dowde (_Harvey_) | FidoNet: 1:202/726 ###### From: dg@ (David Given) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 18:48:04 GMT Organization: I'm organised? Wow! Message-ID: <886618084.10213.0.nnrp-08.9e9878e0@news.demon.co.uk> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <6b6f4k$h96$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au> <01bd30ba$8af05b20$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: taos.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: taos.demon.co.uk [158.152.120.224] Lines: 34 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!woodstock.news.demon.net!demon!bullseye.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!taos.demon.co.uk!!dg In article , Rob Hafernik wrote: >Well, about the only good thing I can say about vi is that, once you >master it, you feel good about yourself. It's the same satisfaction you >get from completing any dismal chore (such as changing the oil in your >car): you feel smug and virtuous that you've finished something that >wasn't easy, wasn't pleasant, but needed to be done anyway. > >For the record, I like BBEdit on the Mac these days. It does almost >everything and does it pretty quickly and without an enourmous footprint. >It doesn't give the satisfaction of mastery, however, that vi did, because >you can learn it and use it with very little effort. [...] My favourite CLI editor for code: vi. My favourite CLI editor for English text (like, say, news messages): pico. My favourite GUI editor: nedit (the new version has syntax colouring! Yay!) So, of course, at work we're forced to use Win95. PFE's quite good but nowhere near as good as nedit. .... I remember after using vi a lot, it was a little scary the way your hands appear to acquire a mind of their own. You think, "I need to stick `foo' on the end of that line five up from where I am now", and your hands do "5kAfoo" *all by themselves*. Very strange. David Given dg@freeyellow ###### From: lisard@zetnet.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 4 Feb 1998 19:57:02 GMT Message-ID: <6bah6e$26o$5@irk.zetnet.co.uk> References: <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-035.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Lines: 35 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!peer.news.zetnet.net!zetnet.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-02-03 genew@vip.net said: :I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it :awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not :a flame, I'd really like to know. what is great is that it exists for pretty much everything, it's not very big - you can learn to use it all, unlike emacs - you have regular expressions, always, the different modes are actually quite handy if you're prone to typos (we are), and... ...oh, it's just *cute*, okay??? :> logically, vi should have deceased years ago. we didn't learn it until university, by which point we had been conned into believing that editors should all work the dos way - no modes, you type a character and it goes into the file. in fact, we found very quickly that prevailing wisdom is just plain *wrong* - modes are (for us anyway) a better way to work. also, a lot of vi's ideas about how things should be done are rather more sensible than most other editors'. it's different; it has personality; it likes us. :> need more be said? :wq bugger -- Communa -- lisard AT zetnet DOT co DOT uk (no spam, we're allergic) wasted views - that's all they see blue hot blood guilt optic nerve Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? From: lars@cableinet.co.uk (Lars Duening) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 20:45:17 +0000 Message-ID: <1d3x0zh.1uujd2rnw717aN@usr193-edi.cableinet.co.uk> References: <69prv3$mm3$1@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <34d119d4.6332547@206.210.64.12> <6a4q7p$84h$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au> <1998Jan22.002924.5817@lorelei.approve.se> <6a76e8$lis@freenet-news.carleton.ca> <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> Organization: Federation of Independent Wizards X-Newsreader: MacSOUP 2.3 (unregistered) NNTP-Posting-Host: usr193-edi.cableinet.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: usr193-edi.cableinet.co.uk Lines: 12 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: 194.117.152.68 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!easynet-tele!cableinet-uk!news.cableinet.co.uk!ispc-news.cableinet.net!lars Gene Wirchenko wrote: > I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it > awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not a > flame, I'd really like to know. Despite the obvious (comes with virtually every Unix machine), I like to use vi for editing work over slow links (happens more often than I wish for). Furthermore, the non-reliance on special keys makes gives you a decent survival chance when you're bound to a PC with a broken telnet. It's like Morse Code: old, uncomfortable, but reliable and robust. -- Lars Duening; lars@cableinet.co.uk ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: csess@blaze.trentu.ca (Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal) Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Sender: news@news.trentu.ca (Ken Brown) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 21:34:17 GMT X-Nntp-Posting-Host: blaze.trentu.ca References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <6b8aql$st8$1@sue.cc.uregina.ca> Organization: Trent University, Peterborough Canada Lines: 42 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!torn!news.trentu.ca!csess In article <6b8aql$st8$1@sue.cc.uregina.ca>, John Bayko wrote: >In article <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net>, > Gene Wirchenko wrote: >[...] >> I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it >>awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? > It is a sort of simbiote. Initial exposure produces typical symptoms >of infection - irritation, confusion, fever, occasionally nausia - but >once the host survives that, then the vi memes are firmly wedged into >the neurons so deeply that mere thoughts are translated without >conscious realisation into reflexive keystrokes. Unfortunately, I lack the desire for self-abuse to teach myself something as complicated as vi. Even touch-typing is something that I had to pick up in high school -- I can't self-teach something that tedious. As a result, what editor is stuck in my fingers? Pico. It's handy for me because I can use it identically on the Unix and VMS machines to which I have access (not to mention my own Linux box), and it's the same editor as is used in Pine. The important commands are listed on the bottom two lines of the screen, so I was never required to remember anything. Navigation is pretty easy, the interface is mostly modeless, and nuking lines is a single keystroke: ^K. It even has a speller which I never use, and a handy paragraph filler that I always employ (^J to justify). ^L redraws the screen, which used to be handy when line-noise was worse in these parts. But it's got some deficiencies. It doesn't search and replace, for instance, and it breaks very long lines no matter what you do. As a result, I've used the learn utility on one of the Unix machines to teach myself ex. I use that for search and replace, though I haven't in a while and will need a refresher course, I fear. Also annoying is the fact that Pico scrolls half a screen at a time instead of a line at a time. This is annoying if you're trying to get a block of code on the screen to look at, or something similar. --Eric Smith ###### From: lisard@zetnet.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 4 Feb 1998 21:59:23 GMT Message-ID: <6baobr$2dk$7@irk.zetnet.co.uk> References: <6ba7r5$b4b$3@gondor.sdsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-158.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Lines: 177 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!peer.news.zetnet.net!zetnet.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-02-04 stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu(StewartStremler) said: :There's an entire thread.... so I'll just digest 'em rather than :following up to each. neat idea. we'll do the same... :Introductory CS students at SDSU are taught vi. It's not _required_ :that they demonstrate a proficiency, so many of them take up :alternatives. Some learn emacs, but the rest are tempted by pico :(pine's default editor). you know, whe we were a cs student, we saw people who used pico to do their assignments, and we had to ask how and why. it just wasn't up to the job; we tried using it, and pine, for email, but gave up in disgust very quickly and switched to elm/vi. which begs the question, if pico isn't even suitable for the most basic editing task under the sun, how the hell does anyone expect to use it for anything sophisticated...? (and we don't use vi to anything like its full capacity either - no time to set up sensible mappings - but it's just so much saner...) :Yah, they work, unless you have a keyboard w/o arrow keys :(possible), or are connected to the system in such a way that the :arrow keys are garbled (bad telnet client, brain-dead terminal :emulator, etc.). on the other hand, wordstar manages to pull off that particular trick without resorting to modes... not a complaint, just an observation - we're all too used to hjkl to change now :> :You can get a good vi program for a MSDOS box -- vim and vile spring :to mind. tried vile once. it was... elvis is still good, but for taste, we prefer xvi. on the other hand, if we're using a dos box, we tend to use david nye's little 6.5k editor, or terse (4k) if we want spaces left on the end of lines, or longer lines than 80 chars. :Speaking of which -- how do you get vi to NOT put tabs in when you :have autoindent set? :set noai ...? ;> :The modality works because the kind of your you do in vi is text :editing; you enter the text (presumably without too many errors), :and then you spend most of your time going back and editing the :file. as in... ?yourcwwork ;> anyhow. that facility - as well as the most sensible way to set the right margin that we've ever encountered - is what makes vi so great as an author's text editor as well as a programmer's text editor. you enter your story as fast as you can imagine it, and then you go over it with a critical editor's eye, and alter the order a paragraph at a time, in ways you just can't do with normal text editors. also, if you decide to give your main character a sex change, you can do it much more easily... ;> :MKS makes a really nice gui "vi" -- so you can use vim for the :DOS-window tasks, and the MKS for drag-n-drop. how much, which guis... etc On 1998-02-04 mattack@area.com(MattAckeret) said: :Nice, quick, and small. I admittedly don't do find/replace things :often in vi, but for quick editing, it's great. damn shame - find/replace is the best thing about it. it's the smallest screen editor we know with a full and sensible regexp replace function. we don't even consider anything without this a real programmers' editor, though we must only have used it about a dozen times. like multiple inheritance, you don't need it often, but when you do, you *need* it... :Honestly, I don't use vi. I use vim. It's much better than vi, :but is a superset. Among a *lot* of other things, it has what I :consider the biggest thing missing from vi -- visual selection of :text. Since terminals can do inverse text, why should I have to :type 5yy ("copy 5 lines starting at the cursor")? While that's :very few keystrokes, if it's actually much more than that that I :*do* want to copy, I don't want to deal with manually counting the :lines. I want to visually select what to copy. And I can do that :in vim. fair enough, but when it comes to "select everything between the first BEGIN and the last END in the function called 'dieRealFast()'" we'd rather do it vi's way... most of those keystrokes are actually shortcuts anyway, or ways to do things on a character-by-character basis that the ex commands would let you do line-by-line. :Plus vim handles line-reformatting, including quoting characters (i. :>>e. redoing so and so #1 said this very very long thing that was :so long that it had to wrap a line :> so and so #2 replied :into :>>so and so #1 said this very very long thing that was so long that :>>it had to wrap a line :> so and so #2 replied :..... and lots of other cool stuff like that.) (left as nettamer rendered it) ah, if only... *sigh* On 1998-02-04 tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com(WarrenYoung) said: :Still, if it isn't vim (or at least elvis), vi can be a real pain. :These two add things like visual selecting (better than emacs, :because emacs' selections are invisible), column/row indicators, :sensible cursor movements (autoindent under stock vi forces you to :get out of edit mode to de-tab) and a number of other "essential" :features. ^D works under just about every vi we've ever used... On 1998-02-04 1978.338T202T7133759@sky.bus.com said: :No-one's mentioned "ZZ" as a short hand for ":x" yet (shorter, cause :there's no CR), which is what I use all the time (except for ":q"!). or ":q!", which we have cause to use rather too frequently for our tastes... usual unix sequence: login open 'vi' on file realise line at base of term window is blank try to cursor down (we're used to them, ok...?) get 'B' on line on its own above text curse type ':q!' type ':q!' type 'TERM=vt100' type 'setenv TERM vt100' type 'stty rows 80 cols 25' go back to vi realise mistake, type ':q' type 'stty rows 25 cols 80' back to vi *finally* get some work done... it's a shared account, otherwise we'd customise to taste; but unfortunately, we are stuck with using csh, vt220 emulation, etc. grr. On 1998-02-03 cgibbs@sky.bus.com said: :"Orientate" is an example of the trend toward :polysyllabificationizing. :-) no it's not, ya daft ha'porth, it's standard british english. you guys dropped the "ate", in the same way you dropped the hue from color. :I learned about vi's ex roots somewhat by accident myself. Someone we learned about it by digging through manuals in some effort to learn the keystrokes (gak) and eventually finding sections entitled "EX COMMANDS". hmm, we thought... actually, most unix manpages (well, the ones we've seen) tell you the genesis fairly near the top. have there been other editors that have worked in quite the same way as vi...? we know of others which have command lines and command modes, but we don't know of any that have been quite so complete in their segregation of inputting text and playing with it as vi... [if you're still reading - thank you; you've been wonderful.] -- Communa -- lisard AT zetnet DOT co DOT uk (no spam, we're allergic) wasted views - that's all they see blue hot blood guilt optic nerve Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ###### From: mattack@area.com (Matt Ackeret) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 5 Feb 1998 00:04:15 GMT Organization: Area Systems, Mountain View, California Lines: 16 Message-ID: <6bavlv$ijt$1@nixon.area.com> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <34dd7c40.303742128@news.cyberport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 165.90.20.19 X-Newsposter: Pnews 4.0-test46 (31 Oct 96) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.onenet.net!news.oru.edu!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.idt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.he.net!nixon.area.com!not-for-mail In article <34dd7c40.303742128@news.cyberport.com>, Warren Young wrote: >genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) wrote: > >> I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it >>awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not a >>flame, I'd really like to know. > >There are some things it really excels at, mainly in repeating certain >things. Its modality makes it very easy to do something, hit ESC, and >then hit '.' N times to repeat it. You can sort of get away with this Do you mean N times *in different place*? If not, just type N. and it will do it all in one step. (N representing the actual number.) -- mattack@area.com ###### From: mattack@area.com (Matt Ackeret) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 5 Feb 1998 00:29:42 GMT Organization: Area Systems, Mountain View, California Lines: 58 Message-ID: <6bb15m$kqv$1@nixon.area.com> References: <6ba7r5$b4b$3@gondor.sdsu.edu> <6baobr$2dk$7@irk.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 165.90.20.19 X-Newsposter: Pnews 4.0-test46 (31 Oct 96) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.he.net!nixon.area.com!not-for-mail In article <6baobr$2dk$7@irk.zetnet.co.uk>, wrote: >you know, whe we were a cs student, we saw people who used pico to do >their assignments, and we had to ask how and why. it just wasn't up to >the job; we tried using it, and pine, for email, but gave up in disgust >very quickly and switched to elm/vi. You can tell pine to use a different editor. I use it and have it use vim, as you'd guess. I think pine's ok, I used to like mush a lot better, but it wasn't available on the site I've been using for a few years now (and it just plain wouldn't compile).. so I got used to pine.... I've gotten to kind of like it, and the address book is useful for replying to spam (I don't even *use* an address book for people I know as I don't mail anyone _directly_ regularly).. Unfortunately I can't have scripts that run and such, like I could in mush but it's still pretty good.. If I couldn't have it jump to vim, I would dislike it very much. >On 1998-02-04 mattack@area.com(MattAckeret) said: > :Nice, quick, and small. I admittedly don't do find/replace things > :often in vi, but for quick editing, it's great. > >damn shame - find/replace is the best thing about it. it's the smallest >screen editor we know with a full and sensible regexp replace function. Well, I do know regular expressions to some degree (they're not automatic out of my fingers, but I can figure out most things I need).. But I have _enough_ of a foot in the "nice program" world that I wish there were also a "modal dialog" form, for vim at least. For example, I _wish_ I could type control-F (you know, FIND? That's one thing that most _UNIX_ text programs don't seem to get.. mnemonics.. except for Quit, Write, and Save), an it brings up Find: Replace With: ( ) All ( ) This one [ ] Case Sensitive Something like that.. It's not a really a "GUI" thing, as this exists in text-based editors (such as the one in ProTERM, or AppleWorks, etc).. But if I'm doing a VERY simple find/replace, this is often easier than /this/that/g or *something* like that. (Replace "this" with "that" globally???) >fair enough, but when it comes to "select everything between the first >BEGIN and the last END in the function called 'dieRealFast()'" we'd >rather do it vi's way... most of those keystrokes are actually shortcuts But I can do that in visual mode too, I think. Go to the first begin, type "v", then type /END and the text between will be selected... (because you were in visual selection mode.) So it's sort of halfway between your and my original schemes. -- mattack@area.com ###### From: connorbd@bc.edu (Coach) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 10:37:41 -0500 Organization: Duchesne Brick and Block Lines: 34 Message-ID: References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <6b6f4k$h96$4@mirv.unsw.edu.au> <01bd30ba$8af05b20$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: shiv2p40.bc.edu X-Newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.3.5 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news.igateway.net!news.pagesat.net!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!136.167.2.7!delphi.bc.edu!connorbd In article , shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) wrote: >Well, about the only good thing I can say about vi is that, once you >master it, you feel good about yourself. It's the same satisfaction you >get from completing any dismal chore (such as changing the oil in your >car): you feel smug and virtuous that you've finished something that >wasn't easy, wasn't pleasant, but needed to be done anyway. > >For the record, I like BBEdit on the Mac these days. It does almost >everything and does it pretty quickly and without an enourmous footprint. >It doesn't give the satisfaction of mastery, however, that vi did, because >you can learn it and use it with very little effort. > >The best feature in BBEdit (which may be common in editors these days, I >don't know) is that it can load and save via FTP. This makes it very nice >for editing web pages that live on a remote server. Ditto here. BBEdit is a thing of beauty. I've been doing some work on Inform (used for writing text games) and BBEdit Lite is what I've been doing it with. Hell, I spend more time in BBEdit than ClarisWorks (my favorite word processor, among other things), to the point where I had a hard drive crash at the end of November and didn't get around to reinstalling ClarisWorks until mid-January, and then only because my sister needed to use my computer for something... /Coach -- Brian "Coach" Connors connorbd@bc.edu Cinnte, ta fhios agam labhairt Gaeilge. Cad chuige? ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: hoh@approve.se.NO_JUNK_EMAIL (Goran Larsson) Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Message-ID: <1998Feb5.124732.663@lorelei.approve.se> Originator: hoh@approve.se.NO_JUNK_EMAIL (Goran Larsson) Sender: hoh@lorelei.approve.se.NO_JUNK_EMAIL (Goran Larsson) Organization: [1] + 5934 done /bin/rm -rf ~/ & X-No-Archive: yes X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test60 (5 October 1997) References: <6ba7r5$b4b$3@gondor.sdsu.edu> <6baobr$2dk$7@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <6bb15m$kqv$1@nixon.area.com> Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 12:47:32 GMT Lines: 33 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!fci-se!fci!newsfeed.sunet.se!news99.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!192.71.180.34.MISMATCH!mn6.swip.net!seunet!mn4.swip.net!lorelei!not-for-mail In article <6bb15m$kqv$1@nixon.area.com>, Matt Ackeret wrote: > For example, I _wish_ I could type control-F (you know, FIND? That's one > thing that most _UNIX_ text programs don't seem to get.. mnemonics.. except control-S is SEARCH control-R is REVERSE search control-F is FORWARD character, not FIND control-B is BACK character control-N is NEXT line control-P is PREVIOUS line control-E is END of line control-K is KILL line control-D is DELETE character control-O is OPEN line control-T is TWIDDLE > for Quit, Write, and Save), an it brings up > Find: > Replace With: > ( ) All ( ) This one [ ] Case Sensitive > I hate to fill in dialogues like this every time I want to search for something. This is EASY TO LEARN, but HARD TO USE. I want EASU TO USE programs and I don't care if they are HARD TO LEARN or not. -- Goran Larsson hoh AT approve DOT se I was an atheist, http://home1 DOT swipnet DOT se/%7Ew-12153/ until I found out I was God. ###### From: lisard@zetnet.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 5 Feb 1998 22:48:09 GMT Lines: 61 Message-ID: <6bdfj9$5ta$6@irk.zetnet.co.uk> References: <6bb15m$kqv$1@nixon.area.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-026.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news.igateway.net!news.pagesat.net!howland.erols.net!news-peer.gip.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!btnet-peer!btnet-feed1!btnet!peer.news.zetnet.net!zetnet.co.uk!not-for-mail is this developing into a religious thread? should we all start posting stories of our conversions...? should we organise witnessing groups? mauybe start publishing a newsletter and hawking it door to door...? ;> On 1998-02-05 mattack@area.com(MattAckeret) said: :In article <6baobr$2dk$7@irk.zetnet.co.uk>, :>you know, whe we were a cs student, we saw people who used :>pico to do their assignments, and we had to ask how and why. it :>just wasn't up to the job; we tried using it, and pine, for email, :>but gave up in disgust very quickly and switched to elm/vi. :You can tell pine to use a different editor. I use it and have it :use vim, as you'd guess. you can indeed, but we much preferred elm anyway. also, we preferred our news threaded (we still miss that :< ) so we used tin for news, and once they added nntp to pine it just looked too cumbersome. [find dialogs] :Something like that.. It's not a really a "GUI" thing, as this :exists in text-based editors (such as the one in ProTERM, or :AppleWorks, etc).. eurgh. we dislike such things intensely (with the single exception that it will use the marked area to search on in most editors, but that's something that could be added trivially anyway) - they get in the way of the text you're editing, particularly if you happen to have expanded your editor to full-screen. :But if I'm doing a VERY simple find/replace, this is often easier :than /this/that/g :or *something* like that. (Replace "this" with "that" globally???) :%s/this/that/g and no, that's really very easy to do. much easier than fiddling with a dialog. especially when trimming dos files for unix: :%s/^V^M// :>fair enough, but when it comes to "select everything between the :>first BEGIN and the last END in the function called :>'dieRealFast()'" we'd rather do it vi's way... most of those :>keystrokes are actually shortcuts :But I can do that in visual mode too, I think. :Go to the first begin, type "v", then type /END :and the text between will be selected... (because you were in :visual selection mode.) So it's sort of halfway between your and :my original schemes. we said *last* end. won't that only take you to the first...? -- Communa -- lisard AT zetnet DOT co DOT uk (no spam, we're allergic) wasted views - that's all they see blue hot blood guilt optic nerve Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ###### From: genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 22:52:24 GMT Organization: All USENET -- http://www.Supernews.com Lines: 23 Message-ID: <34da0e14.11290443@news.vip.net> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34ea6229.352581801@206.210.64.12> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@US.ORACLE.COM> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <34dae2ec.90177908@news.cyberport.com> Reply-To: genew@vip.net NNTP-Posting-Host: 5279@204.209.212.39 X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/32.230 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!Supernews60!supernews.com!Supernews69!not-for-mail tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) wrote: >engebret@sg1.cr.usgs.gov (Chris Engebretson) wrote: > >>In article <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net>, genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) writes: >> >>That aside, vi is very C-friendly; I don't know what I'd do without >>the percent key (which, given that you have the cursor positioned >>on a brace/paren/bracket takes you to the matching one, i.e., you >>can move from the bottom of a function to the top with a keystroke.) Incorrect attribution! I did not write the above! I was asking why the fanaticism / extreme preference about vi. [snip] Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko C Pronunciation Guide: y=x++; "wye equals ex plus plus semicolon" x=x++; "ex equals ex doublecross semicolon" ###### From: dg@ (David Given) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 06 Feb 1998 17:08:10 GMT Organization: I'm organised? Wow! Message-ID: <886784890.12557.0.nnrp-05.9e9878e0@news.demon.co.uk> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <6aqjb2$tar$1@home.edu.stockholm.se> <6b2434$don$1@news.ox.ac.uk> <6bel3u$d6q$1@usenet76.supernews.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: taos.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: taos.demon.co.uk [158.152.120.224] Lines: 54 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed2.uk.ibm.net!ibm.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!taos.demon.co.uk!!dg In article <6bel3u$d6q$1@usenet76.supernews.com>, The Dragon De Monsyne wrote: > I'd be amazed if you could do usefull work in Word without >tripping over it's annoying automatic 'features'. You have to futz with >things too much in Word just to get them to look right. With a real >layout language it's laid out automatically, you dont concern youself >with what it looks like, not exactly anyway, thus you can concentrate on >content. WYSIWYG word proccessors force people to concentrate on the >minutiae of a documents appearance, and distract you from the content, >which is more important. Plus Word is waaaay overpowered for >what most people use it for anyway. For most stuff most folk barely need >more than a text editor. And for the bigger stuff Word is far too awkward >to use, and they'd be better off with a typsetting language (mebbe with a >front end, like LyX ) Urr. We have to use Word here. AFAICT, in order to change paragraph styles, you have to do: You can abbreviate this to: It *is* possible to use the keyboard throughout. There's a keyboard shortcut for the first four items above. This is... wait for it... CTRL+SHIFT+S (I think; it's certainly CTRL+SHIFT+something). This is *impossible* to type quickly. I have to take my hands completely off the keyboard, press CTRL+SHIFT with my left thumb, and press S with my right hand. Takes forever. Gimme: \header ....any day. David Given dg@freeyellow.com ###### From: "T.W. Seddon" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 6 Feb 1998 17:26:56 GMT Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne Lines: 25 Message-ID: <6bfh50$5dm$2@ucsnew1.ncl.ac.uk> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <6bel3u$d6q$1@usenet76.supernews.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mere1.ncl.ac.uk X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsxfer.visi.net!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!server6.netnews.ja.net!news.ncl.ac.uk!mere1.ncl.ac.uk!n5013784 The Dragon De Monsyne (dragondm@integral.org) wrote: > I'd be amazed if you could do usefull work in Word without > tripping over it's annoying automatic 'features'. You have to futz with Watch out for Word 97's auto-hyperlink feature. It will turn any internet address of the form "x@y" into an e-mail address, and "http://x/y" into a www link. Once it's done this, it underlines them and puts them in blue. (The underline appears on the printout of course.) Once it has done this, you cannot turn the links back into text. Nor can you edit single characters of them. The only solution is to delete the offending section, which I seem to remember was incredibly difficult for some reason, turn off the auto- link feature, and retype. What's worse is that there doesn't seem to be a way to turn text in the appropriate format into a hyperlink. You have to reenable the auto hyperlinks, type in an address, then turn the feature off. Of course if you forget to turn the feature off and accidentally type something in another textual link, the textual link turns in to a real link and you are forced to retype... again... This little escapade really made me sick of Word, so sick in fact that these days I just use Protext :-) -- --Tom ###### From: "Thomas Womack" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 17:36:05 -0000 Organization: Oxford University Lines: 36 Message-ID: <6bfho5$d4p$1@news.ox.ac.uk> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <6bel3u$d6q$1@usenet76.supernews.com> <6bfh50$5dm$2@ucsnew1.ncl.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: mc64.merton.ox.ac.uk X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.71.1712.3 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.71.1712.3 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!news.algonet.se!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!baron.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!server3.netnews.ja.net!news.ox.ac.uk!not-for-mail T.W. Seddon wrote in message <6bfh50$5dm$2@ucsnew1.ncl.ac.uk>... >The Dragon De Monsyne (dragondm@integral.org) wrote: >> I'd be amazed if you could do usefull work in Word without >> tripping over it's annoying automatic 'features'. You have to futz with > >Watch out for Word 97's auto-hyperlink feature. It will turn any internet >address of the form "x@y" into an e-mail address, and "http://x/y" into a >www link. Once it's done this, it underlines them and puts them in blue. >(The underline appears on the printout of course.) A stylistic solution : modify the style 'Hyperlink' to be non-underlined and not in blue. This doesn't make the text safe to click on, but at least it won't print out sillily. >Once it has done this, >you cannot turn the links back into text. Nor can you edit single characters >of them. Yes you can - but you have to use the cursor keys to get there, since clicking just follows the hyperlink. >What's worse is that there doesn't seem to be a way to turn text in the >appropriate format into a hyperlink. Select text. Press CTRL-K. People seem to get sick of Word for lesser (or at least more easily correctable) faults than caused me to get sick of emacs; I *don't want* to learn arcane key combinations, I've enough of a problem learning the Win32 API or mathematics (depending on whether I'm typing C or TeX). Tom ###### From: cpierce1@cp500.fsic.ford.com (Clinton Pierce) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 6 Feb 1998 20:03:00 GMT Organization: Ford Motor Company Lines: 43 Message-ID: <6bfq9k$i769@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> References: <6ba7r5$b4b$3@gondor.sdsu.edu> <6baobr$2dk$7@irk.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: cp500.fsic.ford.com X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.3 In-Reply-To: <6baobr$2dk$7@irk.zetnet.co.uk> To: lisard@zetnet.co.uk Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!ais.net!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!141.211.144.13!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!jobone!dailyplanet.srl.ford.com!eccws1.dearborn.ford.com!news In article <6baobr$2dk$7@irk.zetnet.co.uk>, lisard@zetnet.co.uk writes: >On 1998-02-04 stremler@rohan.sdsu.edu(StewartStremler) said: > :Introductory CS students at SDSU are taught vi. It's not _required_ > :that they demonstrate a proficiency, so many of them take up > :alternatives. Some learn emacs, but the rest are tempted by pico > :(pine's default editor). > > [...] >which begs the question, if pico isn't even suitable for the most basic >editing task under the sun, how the hell does anyone expect to use it >for anything sophisticated...? When teaching UNIX Essentials, I ususally give about 4 hours to teaching "vi", and describe it as a "Crash Course". The students have to be able to survive in vi to pass the basic UNIX course. These are people with _very_ diverse backgrounds in computing. But in later UNIX courses (with UE as a prerequisite), when I teach shell scripting I let the students use whatever editor they can find by themselves on the system (they get to recall "man -k" if they want to switch editors). Ususally, they either stick with "vi" (sucking up to the instructor), or migrate to pico. At that point though, I'd rather not have them getting frustrated with the editor when they're frustrated enough with shell syntax. Of course, once we're heavy into shell-scripting, and I say something like "oh yeah, to run the script while still in the editor type :!%" there's ususally a mass-migration back to vi... >[if you're still reading - thank you; you've been wonderful.] Aww shucks. T'wernt nuthin. -- +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Clinton A. Pierce | "If you rush a Miracle Man, | http://www. | | cpierce1@ford.com | you get rotten miracles" | dcicorp.com/ | | fubar@ameritech.net |--Miracle Max, The Princess Bride| ~clintp | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ GCSd-s+:+a-C++UALIS++++P+++L++E---t++X+b+++DI++++G++e+>++h----r+++y+++>y* ###### From: tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sat, 07 Feb 1998 01:13:40 GMT Organization: none Lines: 37 Message-ID: <34deb3f4.209228354@news.cyberport.com> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <34dd7c40.303742128@news.cyberport.com> <6bavlv$ijt$1@nixon.area.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 56k86-118.cyberport.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!206.102.31.251!news.cmc.net!feeder.swcp.com!news.cyberport.com!not-for-mail mattack@area.com (Matt Ackeret) wrote: >In article <34dd7c40.303742128@news.cyberport.com>, >Warren Young wrote: >>genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) wrote: >> >>> I've used it a bit, but I don't see what the fuss is. I found it >>>awkward to use. What is it about vi that is so great? This is not a >>>flame, I'd really like to know. >> >>There are some things it really excels at, mainly in repeating certain >>things. Its modality makes it very easy to do something, hit ESC, and >>then hit '.' N times to repeat it. You can sort of get away with this > >Do you mean N times *in different place*? If not, just type N. and it >will do it all in one step. (N representing the actual number.) Usually in several different places. For example, to prefix the following defines with FOOBIE_ (perhaps there's been a name clash, so you need to prepend something unique onto each identifier), you would type "iFOOBIE_", then move to the beginning of the next identifier and hit '.'. Repeat. #define A 1 #define B 2 #define C 3 You can do this sort of thing in other editors with cut and paste, but this simple example is only the beginning. And even given that it's possible in other editors, it's still easier in vi, because you don't have to go to the trouble of cutting in the first place -- vi remembers perfectly well what you just did, and is happy to do it again, as many times as you require. = Warren -- http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent = = Remove the SPAMCATCHER to email. -- Finger me! ###### From: Louis RAPHAEL Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 17:44:57 -0500 Organization: Societe pour la promotion du petoncle rouge Lines: 39 Message-ID: References: <199802082159.SAA07145@plato.ucs.mun.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: willy.cs.mcgill.ca Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In-Reply-To: <199802082159.SAA07145@plato.ucs.mun.ca> Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.mcgill.ca!willy.cs.mcgill.ca!raphael On Sun, 8 Feb 1998, Andrew Vardy wrote: > How can nothing beat it!? I'm not saying that it's true for *everyone*, but for me, it's the best and most convenient (from the POV of being available on all platforms I use) that I've found - and I've looked at just about every editor available on UNIX before deciding that. I was one of those people who never managed to "marry" himself to an editor until quite late in my adventures with computers... didn't like any of them - until I tried VI. > It can't even delete anything. You are stuck with what yuo type. If you > make an error, TOUGH! Sure it can! Before you exit insert mode, just use backspace. For a whole word, C-T. After you exit insert mode, you'll have to use commands like x, X, dw, and so on. It certainly takes getting used to, but it's very fast after that. > It is good for Gods maybe. I'm *very* far from a god. I can't program for s**t in any programming language, don't know what most files on my computer are for (maybe I'm exaggerating a wee bit) and am quite inept as compared to the standard set by other readers of this group. Still, I managed it. > But for mortals, the quality is it is crap. I'm a mortal. Really. To give you an idea, I had cold sweats while trying to change two hard-drives around yesterday, on an old computer... couldn't figure out how to do it on my own... If you're happy with what you've got [as an editor], great. But if you're not, force yourself to use VI for a week or two, after having invested in a book like _Learning VI_ by O'Reilly (I think that's the title). It grows on you. I used to think like you. Louis ###### From: lisard@zetnet.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 9 Feb 1998 00:47:23 GMT Message-ID: <6bljmr$j9h$2@irk.zetnet.co.uk> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: man-076.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Lines: 29 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!woodstock.news.demon.net!demon!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!peer.news.zetnet.net!zetnet.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-02-08 199802082159.SAA07145@plato.ucs.mun.ca said: :If you're happy with what you've got [as an editor], great. But if :you're not, force yourself to use VI for a week or two, after having :invested in a book like _Learning VI_ by O'Reilly (I think that's :the title). It grows on you. I used to think like you. isn't o'reilly the publisher of the book, rather than the author? of course, he may have written it, too... for anything remotely unixish, the o'reilly series deserve great big plugs all over the place. perhaps they are the last publisher left of "real" computer books... but really, vi isn't all that hard to learn - download lemmy, read the on-line help, then throw lemmy away and get a free version. :> it's really not all that hard, once you get used to the idea that inserting text is a different thing from doing something else with it - which is probably how it should be, and certainly it helps you to think of it as a single atomic action. and as for deleting a word, ^U (^W?) usually does it. for deleting what you've just written, u. for anything more complicated, remember what you did wrong and go back to it later... ;> -- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her... Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ###### From: cpierce1@cp500.fsic.ford.com (Clinton Pierce) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 9 Feb 1998 14:37:31 GMT Organization: Ford Motor Company Lines: 33 Message-ID: <6bn4bb$sve5@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <6atgn9$q94$1@xs2.xs4all.nl> <34D344F5.41C6@us.oracle.com> <34D65585.2F1CF0FB@cisco.com> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <34d6b671.417499030@news.xmission.com> <01bd30bb$066d83e0$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> <1978.338T202T7133759@sky.bus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: cp500.fsic.ford.com X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.3 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news1.chicago.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!jobone!dailyplanet.srl.ford.com!eccws1.dearborn.ford.com!news In article <1978.338T202T7133759@sky.bus.com>, "Charlie Gibbs" writes: > >When I first looked at vi, I thought that that hjkl nonsense was >just too screwy for words, but it was frightening how fast my fingers >learned (and retain) it. I worked out some mnemonics while getting >used to it, though. Control-h is a backspace, so H moves left. >Control-J is a line feed, so J moves down. The other two keys >took a bit longer, although with L being the rightmost key it >sort of makes sense that it moves right - so by a process of >elimination K moves up. Someone else told me he remembered >J and K by thinking that J stood for Jump (down), while K stood >for Klimb (climb, arrgh). In the lecture I do, the notes read: "h" 'cause it's over there <----- "l" 'cause it's over there -----> "j" 'cause it's a descender (goes below the line) "k" 'cause it's leftover. Then I just have students wandering around going "where the HELL were those movement keys again? "jkl;"? "fghj?" I know the "j" key goes down..." -- +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Clinton A. Pierce | "If you rush a Miracle Man, | http://www. | | cpierce1@ford.com | you get rotten miracles" | dcicorp.com/ | | fubar@ameritech.net |--Miracle Max, The Princess Bride| ~clintp | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ GCSd-s+:+a-C++UALIS++++P+++L++E---t++X+b+++DI++++G++e+>++h----r+++y+++>y* ###### From: nickb@primenet.com (Nick S Bensema) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 9 Feb 1998 16:06:00 -0700 Organization: PrImE NuT (602)864-1005 <--- <--- <--- Lines: 23 Message-ID: <6bo24o$li0@nntp02.primenet.com> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <01bd30bb$066d83e0$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> <1978.338T202T7133759@sky.bus.com> <6bn4bb$sve5@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> X-Posted-By: nickb@206.165.6.207 (nickb) X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 2349 croutons, 58 futons, SIX HECTARES! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test58 (13 May 97) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!xfer.kren.nm.kr!www.nntp.primenet.com!globalcenter1!news.primenet.com!not-for-mail In article <6bn4bb$sve5@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com>, Clinton Pierce wrote: >In the lecture I do, the notes read: > > "h" 'cause it's over there <----- > "l" 'cause it's over there -----> > "j" 'cause it's a descender (goes below the line) > "k" 'cause it's leftover. > >Then I just have students wandering around going "where the HELL were >those movement keys again? "jkl;"? "fghj?" I know the "j" key goes >down..." Not only is it convenient that h and j correspond with ASCII control characters, but also that l corresponds with "letter" the same way w corresponds with "word" and stuff like that... so that commands like "dl" mean "delete letter"... -- Nick Bensema 98-KUPD Red Card #710563 UIN: 2135445 ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Prepare ship for ludicruos speed! http://www.climatefacts.org/ - Everyone but the bad boys have to behave. ###### From: dski@cameonet.cameo.com.twx (Dan Strychalski) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 10 Feb 1998 12:28:22 GMT Organization: Cameo Communications, Inc. Lines: 91 Message-ID: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.72.104.4 Originator: dski@ Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.wli.net!news-peer-west.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!spring.edu.tw!feeder.seed.net.tw!news.seed.net.tw!!dski Richard Teer (richard.teer at uk.sun.com) wrote -- > Absolutely: the key to the left of "A" should always be Control > in my book. The person who put CapsLock there should burn in > hell! Luckily, all the keyboards I use are proper ones. Whodunit? Control was next to A on the 1984 IBM PC AT, Apple's first ADB keyboards, the 1983 IBM PC XT, the 1981 IBM PC, the Apple II, every CP/M machine and data terminal I ever saw, and, no doubt, 99.99% of all digital keyboards going back to the dawn of ASCII, and probably even further (OK, DEC put Caps Lock between Control and A, but DEC was... strange in many ways). What happened? You could say it started with the original Macintosh: no Control key, no way to present control codes to applications, no way to work entirely through the keyboard. The first Macs had only an Option key for high-range character codes and a non-ASCII Command key... in the bottom left corner. The rest is not history and may never be written down -- except in this poorly written semi-allegory.... Deep in his northern fastness, the Red Emperor examined the Mac and shook with excitement. A new idea! The ideas of others were his lifeblood, and he had been waiting for an idea like this for many years.... Long had he wondered what to do about the Control key. Every computer had it. Directly or indirectly, it produced the same codes on all systems, letting programs use the same command keystrokes on any platform -- and programs that used it well were greatly loved by many people, for those programs let them work comfortably and efficiently. This must stop! He had not just wondered; he had taken what few steps his feeble imagination could devise. Together with the Blue King, he had assigned printing characters to the codes in the control range; he had ordered his scribes to expunge from his user manuals all mention of ^@/NUL, ^A/SOH, ^B/STX, etc., as well as all clues to the meaning of the hex notation found in those manuals and his system utilities' output; and he had made sure those utilities would not respond to any ASCII Control-key combinations but the few understood by the CP/M command-line interpreter. He sent word to those crafting his new windowing system: let no bundled application use any ASCII control keystroke. Use Alt; use F1 through F10; use the arrow, editing, and paging keys; use Control with these keys if you must -- but DO NOT use Control plus A through Z or [, \, ], ^, and _. These he would allow to be used only for changing drives in the system shell. Three drives, three ASCII command keystrokes. Two drives, two such keystrokes. It was a way of thumbing his nose at his subjects -- like the emblem he would one day use, the one suggesting a fiery fall to earth.... He queried the empire's merchants and border guards. Yes, ignorant people were streaming in, and would soon become a flood. The time was right. He must speak to the Blue King. The Blue King was skeptical, but the Red Emperor persisted. Finally, the Blue King agreed to carry out an experiment. His artisans were crafting the RT PC. It was an experiment in its own right, and therefore a suitable platform for an additional small experiment. It would have a mouse and be able to run a windowing system. Would people object if the keyboard was... strange? Hmmm, the mouse had languished for twenty years because of the Control key; yes, perhaps this would change that.... The RT PC went out. Few, if any, complained about the keyboard. The idea would work. Thus it was that in April 1986 the Blue King introduced a powerful new machine and an "enhanced" keyboard with Control keys in the bottom corners. Previously, the Blue King had allowed all machines and keyboards in this series to work together, but the new system was different. Old keyboards would not work with the new box. The lords of the industry had decided: the home-row Control key and the threat it represented -- enjoyable, efficient operation using keystrokes recognized by every computer from an Apple II to a Cray -- must DIE. The growing horde of imitators imitated well, and soon the new design was ubiquitous. Ever-increasing numbers of new users knew no other way; they knew only that to use the keyboard meant to twist and turn and hunt and peck until one's wrists and arms gave out. Besides, the high priests told them ignorance is beautiful and mousing is the modern way.... The emperor sent out agents to find nobles who would do his bidding. The Lord of Lotus and the Prince of Perfect agreed never to use more than a handful of main-block Control-key combinations in any program. The Red Emperor rewarded them well -- for a time. The rest IS history. Dan Strychalski dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw ###### From: nickb@primenet.com (Nick S Bensema) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 10 Feb 1998 13:37:00 -0700 Organization: PrImE NuT (602)864-1005 <--- <--- <--- Lines: 37 Message-ID: <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> X-Posted-By: nickb@206.165.6.204 (nickb) X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 2349 croutons, 58 futons, SIX HECTARES! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test58 (13 May 97) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.165.113.230!www.nntp.primenet.com!globalcenter0!news.primenet.com!not-for-mail Everyone seems upset at the placement of the Control keys. I press them with the palm of my hand, and in turn they keep me from unhealthily resting my wrists on the desk in front of the keyboard while typing. I appreciate the ability to type them with either hand. I also find that in the same way that I always seem to hit the Shift keys with my pinky fingers, I also seem to use my thumbs exclusively for the Alt keys. For bad Control key placements, I'd have to say the worst is the Commodore 64, because after using an Atari 8-bit or a Vt100, you keep hitting Run/Stop. I suspect this happens after using a PC, because when the space-bar-row Ctrl keys aren't present, my brain might override to where Run/Stop is. I still have some peeves about the PC keyboard, such as the erratic placing of the backslash key, but I'm used to it. On the other hand, the way the space-bar-row is getting littered with W95 and paragraph keys, it'll make the Alt keys harder to find... especially with the keyboards at school where the space bar is divided into space and backspace. Since this can be overridden easily at the hardware level and I use my right thumb to space most of the time makes the new Backspace's effect a non-issue, but the issue remains that I'm used to finding the Alt keys on either side of the space bar, and the presence of yet another extra key makes it that much harder to find. It's beginning to look like an Apple IIe keyboard down there. Me, I'm sticking with this... what do I need a W95 or Paragraph key for anyway? -- Nick Bensema 98-KUPD Red Card #710563 UIN: 2135445 ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Prepare ship for ludicruos speed! http://www.climatefacts.org/ - Everyone but the bad boys have to behave. ###### From: nobody@mudshark.micro.ti.com (David A Thomas) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 10 Feb 1998 18:49:10 GMT Organization: Texas Instruments, Houston Lines: 17 Message-ID: <6bq7f6$oqi$1@spock.asic.sc.ti.com> References: <6bljmr$j9h$2@irk.zetnet.co.uk> Reply-To: david NNTP-Posting-Host: mudshark.micro.ti.com X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!4.1.16.34!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!atl-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.ti.com!news.asic.sc.ti.com!mudshark.micro.ti.com!nobody lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: > On 1998-02-08 199802082159.SAA07145@plato.ucs.mun.ca said: > :If you're happy with what you've got [as an editor], great. But if > :you're not, force yourself to use VI for a week or two, after having > :invested in a book like _Learning VI_ by O'Reilly (I think that's > :the title). It grows on you. I used to think like you. > isn't o'reilly the publisher of the book, rather than the author? Learning the vi Editor by Linda Lamb (4th edition) 1988, O'Reilly & Associates ISBN 0-937175-17-X -- David Thomas (david-at-micro-dot-ti-dot-com) Texas Instruments, Houston (281)-274-2347 ###### From: Robert Billing Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 11 Feb 98 08:11:34 GMT Message-ID: <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> Reply-To: unclebob@tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-User: unclebob@tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: post-10.mail.demon.net!post.mail.demon.net!tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 887187125 21945 unclebob tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.29 Lines: 16 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!woodstock.news.demon.net!demon!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!tnglwood.demon.co.uk!unclebob In article <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> nickb@primenet.com "Nick S Bensema" writes: > Me, I'm sticking with this... what do I need a W95 or Paragraph key for > anyway? If I get time I shall hack fvwm so that I can use them to get the popups when I'm running emacs at the screen size. -- I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/ "Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump, Piglet, meet me in transporter room three" ###### From: Karthik Sheka Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 16:15:21 -0500 Organization: Physicians Online (via bigfoot.com) Lines: 29 Message-ID: <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> Reply-To: K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.68.126.123 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!ais.net!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.229.87.25!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!newsadm Robert Billing wrote: > In article <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> > nickb@primenet.com "Nick S Bensema" writes: > > > Me, I'm sticking with this... what do I need a W95 or Paragraph key for > > anyway? > > If I get time I shall hack fvwm so that I can use them to get the > popups when I'm running emacs at the screen size. > While we're on the subject of keyboards, is there anyone out there that uses the Win95 specific keys that Microsoft pushed on us a couple years ago? Not only do I find them useless, but they get in the way in DOS-based games, since hitting them brings me back to windows. Yes, I know there's a kernel toy or something that's supposed to disable the keys in DOS games, but it doesn't work on my system. I've got it installed, but pressing the keys will still bring me back to Win95. :-( What keys would people *want* to see on the keyboards? I miss the and keys that I used all the time on SUN sparcstations. I would have multiple windows open and overlap a bit, and use the back key to rotate through them. :-) Karthik P. Sheka K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com ###### From: dski@cameonet.cameo.com.twx (Dan Strychalski) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 12 Feb 1998 00:51:10 GMT Organization: Cameo Communications, Inc. Lines: 24 Message-ID: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.72.104.4 Originator: dski@ Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!news.uoregon.edu!spring.edu.tw!feeder.seed.net.tw!news.seed.net.tw!!dski Karthik Sheka wrote -- > What keys would people *want* to see on the keyboards? > I miss the and keys that I used all the time on SUN > sparcstations. I would have multiple windows open and overlap a bit, and > use the back key to rotate through them. :-) > > Karthik P. Sheka > K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com MORE KEYS?!? Don't you realize that it's all in the software? All a keyboard does these days is generate numeric codes that have NO standard interpretations. Software can make any key or key combination do anything. ANYTHING AT ALL. It is ALL IN THE SOFTWARE. You can do everything -- EVERYTHING -- comfortably and efficiently with about sixty keys. My term for the rest of the keys we have nowadays is not very polite. Sure, keep 'em if you like 'em or think you need 'em -- but in the name of all that is and isn't holy, let us NOT have any more keys. Dan Strychalski dski at cameonet, cameo, com, tw Apologies for the non-threading newsreader and anti-spam devices. ###### From: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 12 Feb 1998 02:08:20 GMT Organization: The National Capital FreeNet Lines: 11 Message-ID: <6btlik$dte@freenet-news.carleton.ca> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> Reply-To: ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) NNTP-Posting-Host: freenet3.carleton.ca X-Given-Sender: ab528@freenet3.carleton.ca (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!howland.erols.net!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!gumby!newspump.wustl.edu!biko.cc.rochester.edu!news.acsu.buffalo.edu!srv1.drenet.dnd.ca!crc-news.doc.ca!nott!cunews!freenet-news.carleton.ca!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!ab528 Dan Strychalski (dski@cameonet.cameo.com.twx) writes: > > MORE KEYS?!? Don't you realize that it's all in the software? All a [snip] (Emphatic statements purged.) Think sewing machines, Dan. Remember 'treadles'? How many times have I seen the UL tech support item about the 'mouse as a foot- pedal'? Us old hunt-and-peckers need two foot activated things that are programmable in text and graphics mode. ###### From: skb@xmission.removethis.com (Scott Brown) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 05:01:25 GMT Organization: XMission Internet (801 539 0900) Lines: 15 Message-ID: <34e2814e.275864365@news.xmission.com> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6btlik$dte@freenet-news.carleton.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: slc325.modem.xmission.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/16.230 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsfeed.wli.net!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!198.60.22.3!xmission!not-for-mail On 12 Feb 1998 02:08:20 GMT, ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) wrote: > Think sewing machines, Dan. Remember 'treadles'? How many times > have I seen the UL tech support item about the 'mouse as a foot- > pedal'? Us old hunt-and-peckers need two foot activated things > that are programmable in text and graphics mode. This may be actual folklore, but I once heard of somebody using a heavy-duty trackball as a foot-operated input device, leaving the hands free to run the keyboard. I wish *I* could do that... -Scott ###### From: khchung@maths.unsw.EDU.AU (Kin Hoong CHUNG) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 12 Feb 1998 07:25:45 GMT Organization: University of New South Wales Lines: 12 Message-ID: <6bu85p$ejv$3@mirv.unsw.edu.au> References: <199802082159.SAA07145@plato.ucs.mun.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: alpha.maths.unsw.edu.au X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.uow.edu.au!metro!metro!unsw.edu.au!khchung Ingvar Mattsson (ingvar@sunserv.idasys.se) wrote: : I will continue to be bieditorial. With emacs and vi, I have the : editing power I need... ;) May the carrier be with you :-). Sorry, I couldn't resist. Cheers, Kin Hoong ###### From: cpierce1@cp500.fsic.ford.com (Clinton Pierce) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 12 Feb 1998 14:44:27 GMT Organization: Ford Motor Company Lines: 29 Message-ID: <6bv1sb$t052@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6btlik$dte@freenet-news.carleton.ca> <34e2814e.275864365@news.xmission.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: cp500.fsic.ford.com X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.3 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!ais.net!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!141.211.144.13!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!jobone!dailyplanet.srl.ford.com!eccws1.dearborn.ford.com!news In article <34e2814e.275864365@news.xmission.com>, skb@xmission.removethis.com (Scott Brown) writes: >On 12 Feb 1998 02:08:20 GMT, ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. >Wiggeshoff) wrote: > >> Think sewing machines, Dan. Remember 'treadles'? How many times >> have I seen the UL tech support item about the 'mouse as a foot- >> pedal'? Us old hunt-and-peckers need two foot activated things >> that are programmable in text and graphics mode. > >This may be actual folklore, but I once heard of somebody using a >heavy-duty trackball as a foot-operated input device, leaving the >hands free to run the keyboard. Yeah, but being the Field Engineer could be a nightmare: "Lemme just clean the rollers on this trackball.... My GOD, buddy! Get some foot powder for that condition..." Nah...I actually like my FE, so I'm keeping my shoes on. -- +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Clinton A. Pierce | "If you rush a Miracle Man, | http://www. | | cpierce1@ford.com | you get rotten miracles" | dcicorp.com/ | | fubar@ameritech.net |--Miracle Max, The Princess Bride| ~clintp | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ GCSd-s+:+a-C++UALIS++++P+++L++E---t++X+b+++DI++++G++e+>++h----r+++y+++>y* ###### From: tph@longhorn.uucp (Tom Harrington) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 12 Feb 1998 16:19:44 GMT Organization: Mechanist Industries Lines: 18 Message-ID: <6bv7f0$t053@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> Reply-To: tph@rmi.net NNTP-Posting-Host: cs0053.eld.ford.com X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news2.chicago.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!jobone!dailyplanet.srl.ford.com!eccws1.dearborn.ford.com!longhorn!tph Karthik Sheka (kpsheka1537@pol.net) wrote: : I miss the and keys that I used all the time on SUN : sparcstations. I would have multiple windows open and overlap a bit, and use : the back key to rotate through them. :-) I'm severely addicted to some of the special X-related keys on my Sun at work. Mine has a "Front" key but no "Back", but that's OK because if you hit "Front" in the front window, it gets cycled to the back. The "Open" key is pretty addictive too. Many's the time when I've been sitting at my Mac at home, and automatically reached my pinky over to the left to hit a key that's not actually there. -- Tom Harrington --------- tph@rmii.com -------- http://rainbow.rmii.com/~tph "Spot the troll in this post and win a Pez". -Kibo Cookie's Revenge: ftp://ftp.rmi.net/pub2/tph/cookie/cookies-revenge.sit.hqx ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: dp@world.std.com (Jeff DelPapa) Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Message-ID: Organization: Chaos and Confusion References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6btlik$dte@freenet-news.carleton.ca> <34e2814e.275864365@news.xmission.com> Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 16:34:40 GMT Lines: 36 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!ais.net!uunet!in2.uu.net!world!dp In article <34e2814e.275864365@news.xmission.com>, Scott Brown wrote: >On 12 Feb 1998 02:08:20 GMT, ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. >Wiggeshoff) wrote: > >> Think sewing machines, Dan. Remember 'treadles'? How many times >> have I seen the UL tech support item about the 'mouse as a foot- >> pedal'? Us old hunt-and-peckers need two foot activated things >> that are programmable in text and graphics mode. > >This may be actual folklore, but I once heard of somebody using a >heavy-duty trackball as a foot-operated input device, leaving the >hands free to run the keyboard. > >I wish *I* could do that... > You can get add on foot pedals for a PC. A company called Bilbo Innovations makes a box that you insert into the keyboard cable. It gives you 3 pedals (or anything else that can close a switch, and be wired to a modular connector, like a sip tube), that can generate your choice of keycode, or keycode modifier. The default setting is to provide a third set of control, alt and shift keys. You get some 120 bytes of storage, with a regular key using 2? or 3? and modifiers using 7, buttons can send whatever you care to. With suitable use of the access software, this will include clicking the mouse buttons. As to foot operated trackballs, the "kids trackball" (from MS I think) is used that way by some that have lost the use of their hands. Another company makes a two pedal gadget that will push your pointer around. (haven't tried it). The Typing Injury page should have pointers and reviews. ###### From: lisard@zetnet.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 12 Feb 1998 21:49:17 GMT Lines: 28 Message-ID: <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-136.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news1.chicago.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!btnet-peer!btnet-feed1!btnet!peer.news.zetnet.net!zetnet.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-02-12 dski@cameonet.cameo.com.twx(DanStrychalski) said: :You can do everything -- EVERYTHING -- comfortably and efficiently :with about sixty keys. My term for the rest of the keys we have :nowadays is not very polite. Sure, keep 'em if you like 'em or :think you need 'em -- but in the name of all that is and isn't holy, :let us NOT have any more keys. hallelujah! amen, brother! praise the lord, for someone hath seen the light... in other words, we agree. :> what really pisses us off about modern keyboards is that they aren't balanced. you can't put one square with your monitor and type comfortably on it, because you're off to one side of the monitor. ugh. the original mac had it right - dead centred, no crap anywhere, they missed off the ctrl key but you can't have everything and they did have those cute little apple symbol things... :> we're thinking of rejuvenating our sinclair ql's keyboard to act as a keyboard for modern use. it's still the best we've ever seen, felt or used. -- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her... Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ###### From: lisard@zetnet.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 12 Feb 1998 21:49:41 GMT Lines: 21 Message-ID: <6bvqpl$vss$9@irk.zetnet.co.uk> References: <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-136.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!News.Vancouver.iSTAR.net!news.istar.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!btnet-peer!btnet-feed1!btnet!peer.news.zetnet.net!zetnet.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-02-11 K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com said: :While we're on the subject of keyboards, is there anyone out there :that uses the Win95 specific keys that Microsoft pushed on us a :couple years ago? nope. we have the keys at home, but don't use them (we run dos and they're a little pointless here...); we don't have them at work, and get along just fine without them. :What keys would people *want* to see on the keyboards? the alphanumerics, ctrl, alt, tab, return, two shifts, escape, maybe cursor keys, backspace. nothing more. and all in the one rectangle. -- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her... Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ###### From: Pete Fenelon Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 12 Feb 1998 22:00:43 GMT Organization: home Message-ID: <6bvreb$5p1$1@roch.zetnet.co.uk> References: <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6bvqpl$vss$9@irk.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-171.dialup.zetnet.co.uk User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980105 (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.30 (i486)) Lines: 25 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!woodstock.news.demon.net!demon!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!peer.news.zetnet.net!zetnet.co.uk!fenelon.zetnet.co.uk!pete lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: > On 1998-02-11 K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com said: > :While we're on the subject of keyboards, is there anyone out there > :that uses the Win95 specific keys that Microsoft pushed on us a > :couple years ago? > nope. we have the keys at home, but don't use them (we run dos and > they're a little pointless here...); we don't have them at work, and get > along just fine without them. Several Win95 keys are sellotaped to anglepoise lamps at my current place of employment. Best thing for 'em. > the alphanumerics, ctrl, alt, tab, return, two shifts, escape, maybe > cursor keys, backspace. nothing more. and all in the one rectangle. All in one rectangle? Sure you don't want a Pet 2001? :) pete -- Pete Fenelon ("There's no room for enigmas in built-up areas") pete@fenelon.zetnet.co.uk http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/petef/ 3 Beckside Gardens, Melrosegate, York, Y01 3TX +44 1904 438472 ###### From: Pete Fenelon Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 12 Feb 1998 22:02:16 GMT Organization: home Lines: 15 Message-ID: <6bvrh8$5p1$2@roch.zetnet.co.uk> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-171.dialup.zetnet.co.uk User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-980105 (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.30 (i486)) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!rill.news.pipex.net!pipex!btnet-peer!btnet-feed1!btnet!peer.news.zetnet.net!zetnet.co.uk!fenelon.zetnet.co.uk!pete lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: > we're thinking of rejuvenating our sinclair ql's keyboard to act as a > keyboard for modern use. it's still the best we've ever seen, felt or > used. Always felt like tapping springy scrabble letters to me -- give me the vt220 I'm writing this on any day :) (and yes, I know ESC on F11 is annoying, but an annoyance I'm more than willing to cope with!) pete -- Pete Fenelon ("There's no room for enigmas in built-up areas") pete@fenelon.zetnet.co.uk http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/petef/ 3 Beckside Gardens, Melrosegate, York, Y01 3TX +44 1904 438472 ###### From: jk@langley.softwright.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 05:09:40 -0600 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Lines: 23 Message-ID: <6c19ll$1vl$1@nnrp2.dejanews.com> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6btlik$dte@freenet-news.carleton.ca> <34e2814e.275864365@news.xmission.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: iw8.dejanews.com X-Article-Creation-Date: Fri Feb 13 11:09:40 1998 GMT X-Originating-IP-Addr: 194.129.107.143 X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.0; Windows NT) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.dejanews.com!nnrp2.dejanews.com!not-for-mail In article <34e2814e.275864365@news.xmission.com>, skb@xmission.removethis.com (Scott Brown) wrote: > > On 12 Feb 1998 02:08:20 GMT, ab528@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. > Wiggeshoff) wrote: > > > Us old hunt-and-peckers need two foot activated things > > that are programmable in text and graphics mode. > > This may be actual folklore, but I once heard of somebody using a > heavy-duty trackball as a foot-operated input device, leaving the > hands free to run the keyboard. > > I wish *I* could do that... You wouldn't believe it, but... take a peek at www.footmouse.com. -- James Kew -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading ###### Date: 13 Feb 98 10:55:48 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <6bvrh8$5p1$2@roch.zetnet.co.uk> Message-ID: <2193.348T2407T6555800@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 47 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.244.247.7 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.118 In article <6bvrh8$5p1$2@roch.zetnet.co.uk> pete@fenelon.zetnet.co.uk (Pete Fenelon) writes: >lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: > >> we're thinking of rejuvenating our sinclair ql's keyboard to act as a >> keyboard for modern use. it's still the best we've ever seen, felt or >> used. > >Always felt like tapping springy scrabble letters to me I remember working with an early Key Tronic keyboard and thinking of how much its squishy touch felt as if the keytops were mounted on a pad of foam rubber. Imagine my horror when I took it apart to clean it one day and discovered that I was absolutely right! At the other end of each key's stem was a circular pad of foam rubber, to which was attached a piece of aluminum foil. Pressing a key mashed the foil against the circuit board underneath, which would short traces together. > -- give me the >vt220 I'm writing this on any day :) (and yes, I know ESC on F11 is >annoying, but an annoyance I'm more than willing to cope with!) Arrgh! DEC had a nice keyboard layout on the VT-100, but after the IBM PC came out they figured that they could screw up a keyboard at least as badly as IBM did. The VT-2xx keyboard is proof that they were right. For a while there must have been a competition for who could make the most horrible keyboard layout. I was working with Sperry->Unisys gear at the time, and I declared them the winner. In addition to the extra key between Z and shift, and the tiny, remotely-placed key, they had the gall to swap the slash and hyphen keys. It was sheer hell, especially if you were working with JCL a lot. At one time I was working with up to 4 different keyboard layouts in a day - it got to the point where I could barely type at all. These shenanigans set keyboard design back more than 10 years. Fortunately we've just about recovered. Now if only we could get the Control key back to where God intended it. (I'm typing this on my Amiga, whose sharing of the spot to the left of the A by both Control and CAPS LOCK is at least a workable compromise.) -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### Date: 13 Feb 98 12:40:12 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6bvqpl$vss$9@irk.zetnet.co.uk> Message-ID: <1987.348T649T7604242@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 45 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: 204.244.247.7 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.118 In article <6bvqpl$vss$9@irk.zetnet.co.uk> lisard@zetnet.co.uk (lisard) writes: >On 1998-02-11 K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com said: > > :While we're on the subject of keyboards, is there anyone out there > :that uses the Win95 specific keys that Microsoft pushed on us a > :couple years ago? > >nope. we have the keys at home, but don't use them (we run dos and >they're a little pointless here...); we don't have them at work, >and get along just fine without them. True to form, Microsoft takes great pride in having recently invented these keys, even though the Mac and Amiga introduced equivalents in 1984 and 1985 respectively. You could go back even farther with meta, super, hyper, or whatever keys, but what I like about these newer keys is that you can generate combinations which are completely outside the computer's character set. The most obvious use for them is to provide command keystrokes for terminal emulators and modeless editors, but they have all sorts of other uses, such as screen flipping (although I suppose Alt-key combinations can do this too). > :What keys would people *want* to see on the keyboards? > >the alphanumerics, ctrl, alt, tab, return, two shifts, escape, maybe >cursor keys, backspace. nothing more. and all in the one rectangle. No numeric pad? Well, on second thought I hardly use mine anyway. I'm of the old school, having learned to touch-type the numerics on the top row of the keyboard, so I keep my num lock off and use the keypad for cursor keys. (To digress a bit here, if I had a time machine I'd go back and find the person responsible before he invented the upside-down numeric keypad that now afflicts every telephone, and persuade him to take up some other line of work.) As for function keys, they're nasty things, horribly overused. Suitable Alt-key combinations could replace them, although they do serve nicely as macro keys. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 23:44:10 +0100 Message-ID: From: peterk@combo.ganesha.com (Dr. Peter Kittel) Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Reply-To: peterk @ combo.ganesha.com References: <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6bvqpl$vss$9@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <1987.348T649T7604242@sky.bus.com> X-Newsreader: rn7.bas Lines: 12 Organization: Private Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.wli.net!news-peer-west.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed.nacamar.de!blackbush.xlink.net!ganesha.ganesha.com!shorter!combo.ganesha.com!peterk In article <1987.348T649T7604242@sky.bus.com> "Charlie Gibbs" writes: > >As for function keys, they're nasty things, horribly overused. Indeed. But back in the XT days, when the function keys lived on the left side of the main keyboard, in two vertical rows, it was fun to use them with the left small finger. I would love to return to that arrangement. -- Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // http://www.pios.de of PIOS Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ office: peterk @ pios.de ###### From: Karthik Sheka Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 10:53:47 -0500 Organization: Physicians Online (via bigfoot.com) Lines: 14 Message-ID: <6c9o2h$4jf@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <35101bd8.870824802@206.210.64.12> <6c6q2m$555$3@decius.ultra.net> <6c83hn$6eq$1@nixon.area.com> <6c9jm1$3df$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> Reply-To: K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.68.128.181 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!worldnet.att.net!newsadm > Of course, you could also do what I did, and remap CAPSLOCK to whatever > you want, but map SHIFT-CAPSLOCK to the function of the usual CAPSLOCK. > Best of both worlds. Oh, and just to add fuel to the debate --- my > CAPSLOCK key is mapped to TAB, because during C programming in emacs, > I often hit it accidentally when really I meant to hit TAB ;-) Can someone please tell me how to remap keys under Win95? It should be siple enough, right? Also, how to totally disable keys. (I *really* don't like those @%^#$ Windows keys. :-) Karthik P. Sheka K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com ###### Date: 16 Feb 98 11:22:35 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <34e2814e.275864365@news.xmission.com> <35101bd8.870824802@206.210.64.12> <6c6q2m$555$3@decius.ultra.net> <6c9glp$l7p$3@decius.ultra.net> Message-ID: <2991.351T1776T6825289@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 70 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.skybus.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!news.algonet.se!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news-in-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.109 In article <6c9glp$l7p$3@decius.ultra.net> jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com (jmfbahxx) writes: >In article , >shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) wrote: > >>Perhaps you never thought of it, but it's REALLY NOT THAT HARD to just >>hold down the shift key with your pinky (I always use my left, I don't >>know why) and keep typing. > > >Maybe that's why people are prone to sore hands. Trying to keep one >key held down with one finger and touch-type with the others slows down >my typing speed, increases my error rate and causes unnecessary stress >on the joints of my wrist and fingers. Sort of like the way it feels to reach for the Control key when it's been moved down by the space bar. :-) > It's just easier to use the >caps-lock key and I've been doing it for 30 years. If I'm typing just one word in all caps I'll often hold the shift key with whatever pinky is convenient while typing the word. But for longer passages I'll use caps lock. I don't do this often enough to justify displacing the Control key, though. BTW I didn't think that the caps lock key even was 30 years old. But whenever it was invented, it was a wonderful replacement for the shift lock key that preceded it. Up until five years ago I was working on Sperry->Unisys terminals (UTS-20 and SVT-1120) that had shift lock instead of caps lock - a dreadful anachronism indeed. > Note that on >keypunches using the equivalent of the num-lock or caps-lock key >was very useful when one had two programs encoded on the card that >wrapped around the drum. Ah, good old numeric shift. Remember how you had to hold down the alpha shift key to dup a field containing blanks? (Unless you had punched the alpha shift code in your drum card, of course.) >There were also instances where upper and lower case were very >important and didn't mean the same thing to a piece of software. >I really did work with software that didn't recognize lower >case (they were eventually modified to convert lower to upper >case) and produced an error if lower case was entered. In your typical mainframe environment, lower case didn't exist for all practical purposes. That tradition lives on to this day - I see many people who still can't bring themselves to use lower case in data entry. > There >did exist terminals that transmitted upper and lower case but >only displayed upper case. I encountered the opposite. It was fun to at least make the screen headings look pretty. >I'm beginning to get the feeling that I'm talking with people >who cut their eye teeth on UNIX (I used caps-lock here) type >systems. You mean that OS with the case-sensitive file names? :-) (And not being hung up on upper case, I spell it Unix.) -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: "Rob Lion" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 13:49:10 -0800 Organization: Netcom Lines: 41 Message-ID: <6caciv$1ao@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: pax-ca8-07.ix.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Mon Feb 16 3:54:39 PM CST 1998 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!news.idt.net!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!ix.netcom.com!news Karthik Sheka wrote in message <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>... >Robert Billing wrote: > >> In article <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> >> nickb@primenet.com "Nick S Bensema" writes: >> >> > Me, I'm sticking with this... what do I need a W95 or Paragraph key for >> > anyway? >> >> If I get time I shall hack fvwm so that I can use them to get the >> popups when I'm running emacs at the screen size. >> > > While we're on the subject of keyboards, is there anyone out there that >uses the Win95 specific keys that Microsoft pushed on us a couple years ago? >Not only do I find them useless, but they get in the way in DOS-based games, >since hitting them brings me back to windows. Yes, I know there's a kernel >toy or something that's supposed to disable the keys in DOS games, but it >doesn't work on my system. I've got it installed, but pressing the keys will >still bring me back to Win95. :-( There's really absolutely no reason to have the special keys there, except for Windows logo placement. Ctrl-Esc opens the start menu, Shift-F10 does the context menu. Basically the special keys just mimic the codes produced by these combinations. >Karthik P. Sheka >K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com Rob Lion bnrnl@ix.netcom.com M-A's Dez III ###### From: "Rob Lion" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 13:52:47 -0800 Organization: Netcom Lines: 32 Message-ID: <6cacj1$1ao@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: pax-ca8-07.ix.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Mon Feb 16 3:54:41 PM CST 1998 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!feed2.news.erols.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!ix.netcom.com!news Nick S Bensema wrote in message <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com>... >Everyone seems upset at the placement of the Control keys. [snip] >On the other hand, the way the space-bar-row is getting littered >with W95 and paragraph keys, it'll make the Alt keys harder to >find... especially with the keyboards at school where the space >bar is divided into space and backspace. Since this can be overridden >easily at the hardware level and I use my right thumb to space most of >the time makes the new Backspace's effect a non-issue, but the issue >remains that I'm used to finding the Alt keys on either side of the >space bar, and the presence of yet another extra key makes it that >much harder to find. It's beginning to look like an Apple IIe keyboard >down there. I had some problems with the spacebar on my keyboard sticking, so I popped it off, put the right control key in its place, moved the NumLock key to replace that control key, and replaced the numlock key with a drywall screw and a clothespin. It was intended as a temporary hack, but I've been using it for almost four months now. I've become quite used to it, but it gives my mom horrible problems whenever she has to use my computer. Rob Lion bnrnl@ix.netcom.com M-A's Dez III ###### From: "Rob Lion" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 14:03:42 -0800 Organization: Netcom Lines: 25 Message-ID: <6cad4h$1pe@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <35101bd8.870824802@206.210.64.12> <6c6q2m$555$3@decius.ultra.net> <6c83hn$6eq$1@nixon.area.com> <6c9jm1$3df$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> <6c9o2h$4jf@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: pax-ca8-07.ix.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Mon Feb 16 4:04:01 PM CST 1998 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!newsfeed.wli.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!netnews.com!ix.netcom.com!news Karthik Sheka wrote in message <6c9o2h$4jf@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>... >> Of course, you could also do what I did, and remap CAPSLOCK to whatever >> you want, but map SHIFT-CAPSLOCK to the function of the usual CAPSLOCK. >> Best of both worlds. Oh, and just to add fuel to the debate --- my >> CAPSLOCK key is mapped to TAB, because during C programming in emacs, >> I often hit it accidentally when really I meant to hit TAB ;-) > >Can someone please tell me how to remap keys under Win95? It should be siple >enough, right? Also, how to totally disable keys. (I *really* don't like those >@%^#$ Windows keys. :-) Go to Microsoft's web site, and look for the Kernel Toys (closely related to the Power Toys). One of the included features allows you to remap many of the special keys on your keyboard. Rob Lion bnrnl@ix.netcom.com M-A's Dez III ###### From: jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 16 Feb 98 14:22:35 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 40 Message-ID: <6c9glp$l7p$3@decius.ultra.net> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6btlik$dte@freenet-news.carleton.ca> <34e2814e.275864365@news.xmission.com> <35101bd8.870824802@206.210.64.12> <6c6q2m$555$3@decius.ultra.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: d6.dial-16.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 16 Feb 1998 13:58:17 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!209.6.107.173!tuco.xcom.net!news.ultranet.com!d6 In article , shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) wrote: >In article <6c6q2m$555$3@decius.ultra.net>, jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com wrote: > > >> >> Phooey. I use the Caps Lock key very, very often. Why do 2N keystrokes >> when N+2 will suffice? You certainly don't know how to type efficiently >> if you think that the caps lock key is useless in this day of cybercrud. > >Perhaps you never thought of it, but it's REALLY NOT THAT HARD to just >hold down the shift key with your pinky (I always use my left, I don't >know why) and keep typing. Maybe that's why people are prone to sore hands. Trying to keep one key held down with one finger and touch-type with the others slows down my typing speed, increases my error rate and causes unnecessary stress on the joints of my wrist and fingers. It's just easier to use the caps-lock key and I've been doing it for 30 years. Note that on keypunches using the equivalent of the num-lock or caps-lock key was very useful when one had two programs encoded on the card that wrapped around the drum. There were also instances where upper and lower case were very important and didn't mean the same thing to a piece of software. I really did work with software that didn't recognize lower case (they were eventually modified to convert lower to upper case) and produced an error if lower case was entered. There did exist terminals that transmitted upper and lower case but only displayed upper case. I'm beginning to get the feeling that I'm talking with people who cut their eye teeth on UNIX (I used caps-lock here) type systems. /BAH ###### From: Lars Duning Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 15:04:27 +0000 Organization: MDi Systems Lines: 19 Message-ID: <34E8557B.8D93C5DA@mdisystems.com> References: <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6btlik$dte@freenet-news.carleton.ca> <34e2814e.275864365@news.xmission.com> <35101bd8.870824802@206.210.64.12> <6c6q2m$555$3@decius.ultra.net> <1d4igwa.1feke5f1cugu3aN@usr102-edi.cableinet.co.uk> <6c9fud$l7p$1@decius.ultra.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: host5-99-54-66.btinternet.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!feeder.qis.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!btnet-peer!btnet!neptunium.btinternet.com!not-for-mail jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com wrote: > > In article <1d4igwa.1feke5f1cugu3aN@usr102-edi.cableinet.co.uk>, > lars@cableinet.co.uk (Lars Duening) wrote: > > wrote: > > > >> Phooey. I use the Caps Lock key very, very often. > > > >For what, shouting? > > No. Spelling correctly. There are a lot of things (pre-newsgroup days) > that were spelled with all caps, especially in my line of work. > I also use the caps lock key everytime I sign a post :-). Argl! I don't know if I should feel more horrified or more sympathetic now. ;-) -- Lars Duening; lars@cableinet.co.uk (Home) ###### From: nickb@primenet.com (Nick S Bensema) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 16 Feb 1998 15:17:03 -0700 Organization: PrImE NuT (602)864-1005 <--- <--- <--- Lines: 33 Message-ID: <6cadsv$15a@nntp02.primenet.com> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6c83hn$6eq$1@nixon.area.com> <6c9jm1$3df$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> <6c9o2h$4jf@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> X-Posted-By: nickb@206.165.6.209 (nickb) X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 2349 croutons, 58 futons, SIX HECTARES! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test58 (13 May 97) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!www.nntp.primenet.com!globalcenter1!news.primenet.com!not-for-mail In article <6c9o2h$4jf@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>, Karthik Sheka wrote: >> Of course, you could also do what I did, and remap CAPSLOCK to whatever >> you want, but map SHIFT-CAPSLOCK to the function of the usual CAPSLOCK. >> Best of both worlds. Oh, and just to add fuel to the debate --- my >> CAPSLOCK key is mapped to TAB, because during C programming in emacs, >> I often hit it accidentally when really I meant to hit TAB ;-) > >Can someone please tell me how to remap keys under Win95? It should be siple >enough, right? Also, how to totally disable keys. (I *really* don't like those >@%^#$ Windows keys. :-) Go to a thrift store and buy an AT keyboard. There are still plenty out there. They have no Win95 keys. If you're lucky, you can find one without an F11 or F12. I hate those friggin' things. And I'm surprised nobody in this thread has asked or answered the question that we've all forgotten about... WHAT THE HELL DOES SCROLL LOCK DO?! There. I just turned on Scroll Lock. I wonder what's going to happen for the rest of the day. I think the purpose of Scroll Lock is to prevent you from accidentally hitting Print Screen... or was, back when that's what it did. -- Nick Bensema 98-KUPD Red Card #710563 UIN: 2135445 ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ###### From: nickb@primenet.com (Nick S Bensema) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 16 Feb 1998 15:23:01 -0700 Organization: PrImE NuT (602)864-1005 <--- <--- <--- Lines: 41 Message-ID: <6cae85$3fi@nntp02.primenet.com> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk> X-Posted-By: nickb@206.165.6.209 (nickb) X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 2349 croutons, 58 futons, SIX HECTARES! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test58 (13 May 97) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!europa.clark.net!208.134.240.140!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.165.111.230!www.nntp.primenet.com!globalcenter1!news.primenet.com!not-for-mail In article <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk>, wrote: > > >On 1998-02-12 dski@cameonet.cameo.com.twx(DanStrychalski) said: > :You can do everything -- EVERYTHING -- comfortably and efficiently > :with about sixty keys. My term for the rest of the keys we have > :nowadays is not very polite. Sure, keep 'em if you like 'em or > :think you need 'em -- but in the name of all that is and isn't holy, > :let us NOT have any more keys. > >hallelujah! amen, brother! praise the lord, for someone hath seen the >light... > >in other words, we agree. :> what really pisses us off about modern >keyboards is that they aren't balanced. you can't put one square with >your monitor and type comfortably on it, because you're off to one side >of the monitor. ugh. the original mac had it right - dead centred, no >crap anywhere, they missed off the ctrl key but you can't have >everything and they did have those cute little apple symbol things... :> Um, excuse me... Why can't you have everything? I wouldn't mind if the cursor key column was moved over to the left side of the keyboard. >we're thinking of rejuvenating our sinclair ql's keyboard to act as a >keyboard for modern use. it's still the best we've ever seen, felt or >used. The Atari 800's keyboard was pretty responsive, though I have never seen a Sinclair machine with a good keyboard. Perhaps we just didn't get past the 1000 or ZX-81's, which had no space bar, but a space key that's about where a shift key ought to be. -- Nick Bensema 98-KUPD Red Card #710563 UIN: 2135445 ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ###### From: nickb@primenet.com (Nick S Bensema) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 16 Feb 1998 15:39:00 -0700 Organization: PrImE NuT (602)864-1005 <--- <--- <--- Lines: 21 Message-ID: <6caf64$a0u@nntp02.primenet.com> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <6bvrh8$5p1$2@roch.zetnet.co.uk> <2193.348T2407T6555800@sky.bus.com> X-Posted-By: nickb@206.165.6.209 (nickb) X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 2349 croutons, 58 futons, SIX HECTARES! X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test58 (13 May 97) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!www.nntp.primenet.com!globalcenter0!news.primenet.com!not-for-mail In article <2193.348T2407T6555800@sky.bus.com>, Charlie Gibbs wrote: > >For a while there must have been a competition for who could make >the most horrible keyboard layout. I was working with Sperry->Unisys >gear at the time, and I declared them the winner. In addition to >the extra key between Z and shift, and the tiny, remotely-placed > key, they had the gall to swap the slash and hyphen keys. >It was sheer hell, especially if you were working with JCL a lot. >At one time I was working with up to 4 different keyboard layouts >in a day - it got to the point where I could barely type at all. I can't top that, though the PC had some keyboards with extra bozosity. A friend of mine found an AT keyboard whose slash key was not where it should be. I forget where it turned up, but can you really imagine a better place for it than where it is on every typewriter and computer keyboard I had ever seen until then? -- Nick Bensema 98-KUPD Red Card #710563 UIN: 2135445 ~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ###### From: Karthik Sheka Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 18:44:53 -0500 Organization: Physicians Online (via bigfoot.com) Lines: 28 Message-ID: <6cajlv$m6f@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6c83hn$6eq$1@nixon.area.com> <6c9jm1$3df$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> <6c9o2h$4jf@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6cadsv$15a@nntp02.primenet.com> Reply-To: K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.68.128.159 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news2.chicago.iagnet.net!qual.net!iagnet.net!208.134.241.18!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.229.87.25!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!newsadm Nick S Bensema wrote: > And I'm surprised nobody in this thread has asked or answered the > question that we've all forgotten about... > > WHAT THE HELL DOES SCROLL LOCK DO?! > > There. I just turned on Scroll Lock. I wonder what's going to happen > for the rest of the day. > > I think the purpose of Scroll Lock is to prevent you from accidentally > hitting Print Screen... or was, back when that's what it did. I remember usig an editor not too long ago, in which scroll lock actually did something: After hitting it, when I used the up and down arrow keys, the cursor didn't change which row it was on. Instead, the screen scrolled up or down. It was actually quite useful for when I was near the bottom of the screen and wanted to reference the next few lines before I typed some more. Wish more products used it. Whie we're on it, what does the SystemRequest key do? (You know, the key shared with PrintScreen) I would think it would be useful to be bound to Control-Esc on Windows based PCs, especially since PrintScreen isn't normally bound in Windows. (I just hit the key under Win95, and nothing happened. :-) Karthik P. Sheka K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6c6q2m$555$3@decius.ultra.net> <6c9glp$l7p$3@decius.ultra.net> Organization: Plethora Internet X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test60 (5 October 1997) From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) Lines: 38 Message-ID: <0E0G.16$bx.68776@ptah.visi.com> Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 19:41:48 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: herd.plethora.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 13:41:48 CST Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!darla.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail In article <6c9glp$l7p$3@decius.ultra.net>, wrote: >Maybe that's why people are prone to sore hands. Trying to keep one key >held down with one finger and touch-type with the others slows down my >typing speed, increases my error rate and causes unnecessary stress on >the joints of my wrist and fingers. Well, get a real keyboard! (Kinesis, in my case.) Suddenly, it's no trouble at all. >It's just easier to use the >caps-lock key and I've been doing it for 30 years. Note that on >keypunches using the equivalent of the num-lock or caps-lock key >was very useful when one had two programs encoded on the card that >wrapped around the drum. Sure, but I've never found a need; I simply don't use that much all-caps, and the key bothers me mor ethan it helps. >I'm beginning to get the feeling that I'm talking with people >who cut their eye teeth on UNIX (I used caps-lock here) type >systems. Hmm. I think my first box was a Wang 2200, after that some Heath/Zenith boxes, and yes, some Unix. Me, I use *constantly* - because I'm generally doing several things in screen, and ^A is a very important key to me. -s -- seebs@plethora.net -- I am not speaking for my employer. Copyright '97 All rights reserved. Boycott Spamazon! End Spam. C and Unix wizard - send mail for help, or send money for a consultation. Visit my new ISP --- More Net, Less Spam! Plethora . Net ###### From: dski@cameonet.cameo.com.twx (Dan Strychalski) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 16 Feb 1998 21:04:05 GMT Organization: Cameo Communications, Inc. Lines: 12 Message-ID: <6ca9k5$gi4@news.seed.net.tw> NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.72.104.4 Originator: dski@ Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!spring.edu.tw!feeder.seed.net.tw!news.seed.net.tw!!dski > Not when I'm typing in posts to newsgroups which, for the time being, > is the extent that I use a keyboard. You are missing out on one of life's greatest pleasures. I am 100% serious. Keyboarding CAN be a joy. Some folks seem to think others are saying we shouldn't HAVE a Caps Lock or Shift Lock key. I simply maintain that such a key doesn't belong in the home row. Control does. Dan Strychalski dski at cameonet, cameo, com, tw ###### From: "Rob Lion" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 21:56:17 -0800 Organization: Netcom Lines: 53 Message-ID: <6cb8qj$3t1@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6caciv$1ao@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com> <6caga0$tdb$4@news3.tufts.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: pax-ca27-16.ix.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Mon Feb 16 11:56:35 PM CST 1998 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.onenet.net!news.oru.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.idt.net!netnews.com!ix.netcom.com!news I agree that Alt-Tab is one of the most useful combos in Windows. I use it all the time, since I tend to have 3-5 programs running on my taskbar at any one time. Also, I seldom use the Start Menu anymore, since I have IE 4 and its Quick Launch toolbar on the taskbar. (One of the most useful features, that.) About the only thing I use the Ctrl-Esc (Start Menu) shortcut for is: Ctrl-Esc, U, Enter. That shuts down the computer before it even has time to display anything on the screen. Rob Lion bnrnl@ix.netcom.com M-A's Dez III Kirk Is wrote in message <6caga0$tdb$4@news3.tufts.edu>... >: > >: > While we're on the subject of keyboards, is there anyone out there that >: >uses the Win95 specific keys that Microsoft pushed on us a couple years >: ago? >: >Not only do I find them useless, but they get in the way in DOS-based >: games, >: >since hitting them brings me back to windows. Yes, I know there's a kernel >: >toy or something that's supposed to disable the keys in DOS games, but it >: >doesn't work on my system. I've got it installed, but pressing the keys >: will >: >still bring me back to Win95. :-( > > >: There's really absolutely no reason to have the special keys there, except >: for Windows logo placement. Ctrl-Esc opens the start menu, Shift-F10 does >: the context menu. Basically the special keys just mimic the codes produced >: by these combinations. > >And does everyone go back to the start menu that often? >Before I had a Microsoft Flag keyboard and was using Windows95, >Ctrl-Esc opened start and alt-Tab switched between Apps. If I had >to choose one to have its own single key (and I probably wouldn't) >it would *definately* be alt-tab, which I use about 20 times more often. > >But the context menu key is even more useless, since 90% of the time I >use the mouse to select an object, and can more easily right click then >hunt the little f***er key down. > >-- >Kirk Israel - kisrael@cs.tufts.edu - http://www.alienbill.com >"If you haven't been rejected three times this week then your not trying." > --www.emtex.com/toptips ###### From: "Rob Lion" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 22:00:03 -0800 Organization: Netcom Lines: 48 Message-ID: <6cb91e$43j@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6c83hn$6eq$1@nixon.area.com> <6c9jm1$3df$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> <6c9o2h$4jf@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6cadsv$15a@nntp02.primenet.com> <6cajlv$m6f@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: pax-ca27-16.ix.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Tue Feb 17 12:00:14 AM CST 1998 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.2106.4 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.onenet.net!news.oru.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.idt.net!ix.netcom.com!news Karthik Sheka wrote in message <6cajlv$m6f@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>... >Nick S Bensema wrote: > >> And I'm surprised nobody in this thread has asked or answered the >> question that we've all forgotten about... >> >> WHAT THE HELL DOES SCROLL LOCK DO?! >> >> There. I just turned on Scroll Lock. I wonder what's going to happen >> for the rest of the day. >> >> I think the purpose of Scroll Lock is to prevent you from accidentally >> hitting Print Screen... or was, back when that's what it did. > > I remember usig an editor not too long ago, in which scroll lock actually did >something: After hitting it, when I used the up and down arrow keys, the cursor >didn't change which row it was on. Instead, the screen scrolled up or down. > It was actually quite useful for when I was near the bottom of the screen and >wanted to reference the next few lines before I typed some more. Wish more products >used it. > Whie we're on it, what does the SystemRequest key do? (You know, the key shared >with PrintScreen) I would think it would be useful to be bound to Control-Esc on >Windows based PCs, especially since PrintScreen isn't normally bound in Windows. (I >just hit the key under Win95, and nothing happened. :-) > >Karthik P. Sheka >K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com Or so you think... :-) The PrintScreen key in Win95 and Win3.1 is actually pretty useful. It captures the entire screen to the clipboard, where you can paste it into any graphics program. Also, Alt-PrintScreen captures only the active window. Rob Lion bnrnl@ix.netcom.com M-A's Dez III ###### From: kisrael@allegro.cs.tufts.edu (Kirk Is) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 16 Feb 1998 22:29:26 GMT Organization: Tufts University Lines: 15 Message-ID: <6caek6$tdb$3@news3.tufts.edu> References: <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6bvqpl$vss$9@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <1987.348T649T7604242@sky.bus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: allegro.eecs.tufts.edu X-Trace: news3.tufts.edu 887668166 30123 (None) 192.138.177.97 X-Complaints-To: news@news.tufts.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-feed5.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.tufts.edu!allegro!kisrael Numberpads can become very useful in Windows systems with the "MouseKeys" (I think) in the "accessibility options" turned on. Very handy to mouse around on the numberpad without reaching for the mouse *all* the time. A little klutzy for repetitive movements, but more useful than the number-pad-as-a-number-pad. I suppose the over abundance of keys ties into the "More Is More" attitude consumers have-- forget simplicity, minimalism, elegance-- the more nooks and crannies the better. Bleh. (Not that Unix is *that* much better in that respect.) -- Kirk Israel - kisrael@cs.tufts.edu - http://www.alienbill.com "If you haven't been rejected three times this week then your not trying." --www.emtex.com/toptips ###### From: kisrael@allegro.cs.tufts.edu (Kirk Is) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 16 Feb 1998 22:58:08 GMT Organization: Tufts University Lines: 33 Message-ID: <6caga0$tdb$4@news3.tufts.edu> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6caciv$1ao@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: allegro.eecs.tufts.edu X-Trace: news3.tufts.edu 887669888 30123 (None) 192.138.177.97 X-Complaints-To: news@news.tufts.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-feed5.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news.tufts.edu!allegro!kisrael : > : > While we're on the subject of keyboards, is there anyone out there that : >uses the Win95 specific keys that Microsoft pushed on us a couple years : ago? : >Not only do I find them useless, but they get in the way in DOS-based : games, : >since hitting them brings me back to windows. Yes, I know there's a kernel : >toy or something that's supposed to disable the keys in DOS games, but it : >doesn't work on my system. I've got it installed, but pressing the keys : will : >still bring me back to Win95. :-( : There's really absolutely no reason to have the special keys there, except : for Windows logo placement. Ctrl-Esc opens the start menu, Shift-F10 does : the context menu. Basically the special keys just mimic the codes produced : by these combinations. And does everyone go back to the start menu that often? Before I had a Microsoft Flag keyboard and was using Windows95, Ctrl-Esc opened start and alt-Tab switched between Apps. If I had to choose one to have its own single key (and I probably wouldn't) it would *definately* be alt-tab, which I use about 20 times more often. But the context menu key is even more useless, since 90% of the time I use the mouse to select an object, and can more easily right click then hunt the little f***er key down. -- Kirk Israel - kisrael@cs.tufts.edu - http://www.alienbill.com "If you haven't been rejected three times this week then your not trying." --www.emtex.com/toptips ###### From: bmeyer@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 17 Feb 1998 01:49:37 +1100 Organization: This is innd taking over... Lines: 24 Message-ID: <6c9jm1$3df$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <35101bd8.870824802@206.210.64.12> <6c6q2m$555$3@decius.ultra.net> <6c83hn$6eq$1@nixon.area.com> Reply-To: bmeyer@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au NNTP-Posting-Host: modem17.cs.monash.edu.au X-NNTP-Posting-User: root Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.onenet.net!news.oru.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!Supernews60!supernews.com!uunet!in2.uu.net!ozemail!news.mel.aone.net.au!newsfeed-in.aone.net.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!towncrier.cc.monash.edu.au!wombat.cs.monash.edu.au!not-for-mail mattack@area.com (Matt Ackeret) writes: >Even on a Mac, where the general consensus seems to be that the control >key is useless(*), it is comparatively much more useful than the Caps Lock >key. Hell, the only time I *ever* use the caps lock key is when it has >been used in the past in developmental versions of system software to >determine something important at boot time (like boot into "really new secret >crash prone stuff" when caps lock is on, boot into normal stuff when caps lock >is off).. The few times I ever actually WANT TO TYPE A WHOLE BUNCH OF >CHARACTERS IN CAPITAL LETTERS, I can hold down the SHIFT key with my right >pinky, like I just did for both of those runs of capital letters. Of course, you could also do what I did, and remap CAPSLOCK to whatever you want, but map SHIFT-CAPSLOCK to the function of the usual CAPSLOCK. Best of both worlds. Oh, and just to add fuel to the debate --- my CAPSLOCK key is mapped to TAB, because during C programming in emacs, I often hit it accidentally when really I meant to hit TAB ;-) Bernie -- ============================================================================ "It's a magical world, Hobbes ol' buddy... ...let's go exploring" Calvin's final words, on December 31st, 1995 ###### From: khchung@maths.unsw.EDU.AU (Kin Hoong CHUNG) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 17 Feb 1998 06:14:54 GMT Organization: University of New South Wales Lines: 20 Message-ID: <6cb9su$r8r$1@mirv.unsw.edu.au> References: <1987.348T649T7604242@sky.bus.com> <6c42ls$5qa$2@irk.zetnet.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: alpha.maths.unsw.edu.au X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.uow.edu.au!metro!metro!unsw.edu.au!khchung lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: : On 1998-02-13 cgibbs@sky.bus.com said: : :True to form, Microsoft takes great pride in having recently : :invented these keys, even though the Mac and Amiga introduced : :equivalents in 1984 and 1985 respectively. You could go back even : :farther with meta, super, hyper, or whatever keys, but what I like : :about these newer keys is that you can generate combinations which : :are completely outside the computer's character set. : yes, but you could do that with even the most basic of keys. : alt-combinations, even keychords, could be used for that. (but then, : ctrl-alt-shift is beginning to look a little microsoftish...) The "double-bucky" pre-dates Micro$oft. Cheers, Kin Hoong ###### From: skb@xmission.removethis.com (Scott Brown) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 18:52:51 GMT Organization: XMission Internet (801 539 0900) Lines: 20 Message-ID: <34e9da7e.45495323@news.xmission.com> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6c83hn$6eq$1@nixon.area.com> <6c9jm1$3df$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> <6c9o2h$4jf@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6cadsv$15a@nntp02.primenet.com> <6cajlv$m6f@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: slc81.modem.xmission.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/16.230 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!news.comcity.de!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!europa.clark.net!208.134.240.140!newsfeed.internetmci.com!198.60.22.3!xmission!not-for-mail On Mon, 16 Feb 1998 18:44:53 -0500, Karthik Sheka wrote: > Whie we're on it, what does the SystemRequest key do? (You know, the key shared >with PrintScreen) I would think it would be useful to be bound to Control-Esc on I think SysReq is a hand-me-down from IBM. I've noticed that there's a SysReq key on our AS/400, and that the AS/400 guy uses it quite a lot. I'm still not sure what it does, but on a PC with the correct terminal emulation software it might be quite handy. >Windows based PCs, especially since PrintScreen isn't normally bound in Windows. (I >just hit the key under Win95, and nothing happened. :-) Nothing that's immediately apparent, anyway. In Windows, Print Screen captures the current screen display to the clipboard as a bitmap. Alt-PrintScreen captures just the active window. Try either, then run Paint and hit Edit/Paste straight away. Kinda cool. -Scott ###### From: lisard@zetnet.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 17 Feb 1998 19:34:18 GMT Message-ID: <6cconq$ml8$9@irk.zetnet.co.uk> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: man-190.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Lines: 13 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed2.uk.ibm.net!ibm.net!news-lond.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!peer.news.zetnet.net!zetnet.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-02-15 mgritter@pup16.Stanford.EDU said: :Forgot the space bar, didn't you? :) Not to mention punctuation, :which I would call "alphanumeric"... both of those we would call alphanumeric. -- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her... Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ###### From: genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 00:43:21 GMT Organization: All USENET -- http://www.Supernews.com Lines: 23 Message-ID: <34e9f924.2991487@news.vip.net> References: <6cconq$ml8$9@irk.zetnet.co.uk> Reply-To: genew@vip.net NNTP-Posting-Host: 16062@204.209.212.37 X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/32.230 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news.vt.edu!solaris.cc.vt.edu!news.us.hsanet.net!netnews.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!Supernews60!supernews.com!Supernews73!supernews.com!Supernews69!not-for-mail lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: > > >On 1998-02-15 mgritter@pup16.Stanford.EDU said: > :Forgot the space bar, didn't you? :) Not to mention punctuation, > :which I would call "alphanumeric"... > >both of those we would call alphanumeric. Let's see: you've got the alphabet, numeric characters, punctuation, and space all in that category. So what wouldn't you consider alphanumeric? Maybe control characters? "%" isn't alphabetic and it isn't numeric. I don't think calling it alphanumeric is going to fly. I use the term "displayable" myself. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko C Pronunciation Guide: y=x++; "wye equals ex plus plus semicolon" x=x++; "ex equals ex doublecross semicolon" ###### From: daolath@news1.mnsinc.com (Mike Williams) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 18 Feb 1998 04:35:38 GMT Organization: Monumental Network Systems Lines: 27 Message-ID: <6cdoeq$ke8$1@news1.mnsinc.com> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6cbp50$o6b$1@nntp4.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: daolath@mnsinc.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.55.11.75 X-Newsreader: slrn (0.9.2.1 BETA OS/2) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.55.3.16!news2.mnsinc.com!news1.mnsinc.com!daolath On 17 Feb 1998 10:35:12 GMT, D. Peschel wrote: >In article <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>, >Karthik Sheka wrote: > >> What keys would people *want* to see on the keyboards? > >God, I could start a new thread on keyboard design. (I've seen or used lots >of layouts, and can spot bad design quickly. But I realize that it's hard to >create a good design -- and that it gets harder if I think about it more.) > >My ideal general-purpose keyboard would be a refined 101-key PC layout. >Split the space bar; put a backspace key there. Argh! This, I can see, is the stuff of holy wars. I was forced to use one of those split space-bar keyboards at work and I finally had to pry the damn back-space key off because I kept hitting it by accident (I guess not having any formal typing training is what does it). Does anybody know why that split space-bar/backspace keyboard was implemented? Was there some great ergonomic study to back it up? -- -Mike Williams http://www.mnsinc.com/daolath/index.html I can also be reached at work: mike.williams@swift.com ###### From: Robert Billing Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 18 Feb 98 08:19:33 GMT Message-ID: <887789973snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> References: <6cconq$ml8$9@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <34e9f924.2991487@news.vip.net> Reply-To: unclebob@tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-User: unclebob@tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Mail2News-Path: post-10.mail.demon.net!post.mail.demon.net!tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Trace: mail2news.demon.co.uk 887812618 2457 unclebob tnglwood.demon.co.uk X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.29 Lines: 14 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!woodstock.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!mail2news.demon.co.uk!tnglwood.demon.co.uk!unclebob In article <34e9f924.2991487@news.vip.net> genew@vip.net "Gene Wirchenko" writes: > alphanumeric is going to fly. I use the term "displayable" myself. Well, I've always called anything that I could print a "Printable" character. -- I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/ "Bother," said Pooh, "Eeyore, ready two photon torpedoes and lock phasers on the Heffalump, Piglet, meet me in transporter room three" ###### Date: 18 Feb 98 10:44:17 -0800 From: "Charlie Gibbs" Subject: Re: Why horrible code? References: <6cconq$ml8$9@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <34e9f924.2991487@news.vip.net> <887789973snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: <549.353T890T6443851@sky.bus.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Lines: 20 X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) NNTP-Posting-Host: news.skybus.com Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!204.244.4.2!news.westel.com!news.skybus.com!204.244.247.116 In article <887789973snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> unclebob@tnglwood.demon.co.uk (Robert Billing) writes: >In article <34e9f924.2991487@news.vip.net> genew@vip.net >"Gene Wirchenko" writes: > >> alphanumeric is going to fly. I use the term "displayable" myself. > > Well, I've always called anything that I could print a "Printable" >character. So does the C run-time library. And, to get back on topic, isprint ('%') != isalnum ('%') So there. :-) -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 18 Feb 98 14:45:09 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 21 Message-ID: <6ceqoo$iup$5@decius.ultra.net> References: <6ca9k5$gi4@news.seed.net.tw> NNTP-Posting-Host: d3.dial-17.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 18 Feb 1998 14:21:12 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!tuco.xcom.net!news.ultranet.com!d3 In article <6ca9k5$gi4@news.seed.net.tw>, dski@cameonet.cameo.com.twx (Dan Strychalski) wrote: >> Not when I'm typing in posts to newsgroups which, for the time being, >> is the extent that I use a keyboard. > >You are missing out on one of life's greatest pleasures. >I am 100% serious. Keyboarding CAN be a joy. I am an old fart. I would much rather type than click :-). I simply meant that newsgroups is the extent that I use my computer these days; I misspoke myself. > >Some folks seem to think others are saying we shouldn't >HAVE a Caps Lock or Shift Lock key. I simply maintain that >such a key doesn't belong in the home row. Control does. The caps-lock key belongs above the shift key. The control key belongs on the home row waaaaayyyyy off to the left such that a mis-depression of said key cannot happen. /BAH ###### From: jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 18 Feb 98 15:03:49 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 108 Message-ID: <6cerrp$iup$6@decius.ultra.net> References: <34e2814e.275864365@news.xmission.com> <35101bd8.870824802@206.210.64.12> <6c6q2m$555$3@decius.ultra.net> <6c9glp$l7p$3@decius.ultra.net> <2991.351T1776T6825289@sky.bus.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: d3.dial-17.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 18 Feb 1998 14:39:53 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.wli.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!newsfeed.internetmci.com!209.6.107.173!tuco.xcom.net!news.ultranet.com!d3 In article <2991.351T1776T6825289@sky.bus.com>, "Charlie Gibbs" wrote: >In article <6c9glp$l7p$3@decius.ultra.net> jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com >(jmfbahxx) writes: > >>In article , >>shokwave@well.com (Rob Hafernik) wrote: >> >>>Perhaps you never thought of it, but it's REALLY NOT THAT HARD to just >>>hold down the shift key with your pinky (I always use my left, I don't >>>know why) and keep typing. >> >> >>Maybe that's why people are prone to sore hands. Trying to keep one >>key held down with one finger and touch-type with the others slows down >>my typing speed, increases my error rate and causes unnecessary stress >>on the joints of my wrist and fingers. > >Sort of like the way it feels to reach for the Control key when it's >been moved down by the space bar. :-) Or the ALT on either side of the space bar--what in the world were those people thinking? Actually, in my line of work the ALT and the ESC were the same thing and the most efficient editor in those days used the key that is at the tippy top most left corner of the keyboard as a command terminator. > >> It's just easier to use the >>caps-lock key and I've been doing it for 30 years. > >If I'm typing just one word in all caps I'll often hold the shift >key with whatever pinky is convenient while typing the word. But >for longer passages I'll use caps lock. I don't do this often >enough to justify displacing the Control key, though. > >BTW I didn't think that the caps lock key even was 30 years old. >But whenever it was invented, it was a wonderful replacement for >the shift lock key that preceded it. Up until five years ago I >was working on Sperry->Unisys terminals (UTS-20 and SVT-1120) that >had shift lock instead of caps lock - a dreadful anachronism indeed. Sorry, that was my mistake. I am talking about the shift lock--getting used to this capslock was challenging [wry emoticon here]. > >> Note that on >>keypunches using the equivalent of the num-lock or caps-lock key >>was very useful when one had two programs encoded on the card that >>wrapped around the drum. > >Ah, good old numeric shift. Remember how you had to hold down the >alpha shift key to dup a field containing blanks? (Unless you had >punched the alpha shift code in your drum card, of course.) Right. When I designed my drum cards, it was usually based on the nature of the data that had to be keypunched. I used both program levels (I found the numkey very, very useful and slightly amusing when watching the kiddies try to make sense of it). It was not unusual for me to program the drum card to allow me to make initial datum types, and then use the other (the default) to duplicate the data of the first card. I used have the keypunch just a-humming with the least amount of keystrokes. It was a fun game. An extra hour or day spent on the drum card design usually could cut the data entry time 50%. > >>There were also instances where upper and lower case were very >>important and didn't mean the same thing to a piece of software. >>I really did work with software that didn't recognize lower >>case (they were eventually modified to convert lower to upper >>case) and produced an error if lower case was entered. > >In your typical mainframe environment, lower case didn't exist >for all practical purposes. That tradition lives on to this >day - I see many people who still can't bring themselves to >use lower case in data entry. > >> There >>did exist terminals that transmitted upper and lower case but >>only displayed upper case. > >I encountered the opposite. It was fun to at least make the >screen headings look pretty. > >>I'm beginning to get the feeling that I'm talking with people >>who cut their eye teeth on UNIX (I used caps-lock here) type >>systems. > >You mean that OS with the case-sensitive file names? :-) >(And not being hung up on upper case, I spell it Unix.) > In the olden days, my job was to produce technical documentation. It was legally important to spell the cybercrud correctly. I just recently found out that it's now going to be official that FORTRAN will now be spelled Fortran. For instance, one of our programs was called SOUP. If it was spelled with all lowercase letters, some of the sentences documentating its use would probably be very misunderstood. We also had a program called MACRO. Now within this program one could write macroes. Using capitals or not was very important for clarity. When all caps were used, the program was the subject. When lower case was used, the technique was the subject. /BAH ###### From: jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 18 Feb 98 15:08:10 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 42 Message-ID: <6ces3s$iup$7@decius.ultra.net> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6c6q2m$555$3@decius.ultra.net> <6c9glp$l7p$3@decius.ultra.net> <0E0G.16$bx.68776@ptah.visi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: d3.dial-17.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 18 Feb 1998 14:44:12 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!feed2.news.erols.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!tuco.xcom.net!news.ultranet.com!d3 In article <0E0G.16$bx.68776@ptah.visi.com>, seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach) wrote: >In article <6c9glp$l7p$3@decius.ultra.net>, wrote: >>Maybe that's why people are prone to sore hands. Trying to keep one key >>held down with one finger and touch-type with the others slows down my >>typing speed, increases my error rate and causes unnecessary stress on >>the joints of my wrist and fingers. > >Well, get a real keyboard! (Kinesis, in my case.) Suddenly, it's no trouble >at all. > >>It's just easier to use the >>caps-lock key and I've been doing it for 30 years. Note that on >>keypunches using the equivalent of the num-lock or caps-lock key >>was very useful when one had two programs encoded on the card that >>wrapped around the drum. > >Sure, but I've never found a need; I simply don't use that much >all-caps, and the key bothers me mor ethan it helps. > >>I'm beginning to get the feeling that I'm talking with people >>who cut their eye teeth on UNIX (I used caps-lock here) type >>systems. > >Hmm. I think my first box was a Wang 2200, after that some Heath/Zenith >boxes, and yes, some Unix. Me, I use *constantly* - because I'm >generally doing several things in screen, and ^A is a very important key >to me. Please don't take offense....you are a "youngster" [smiling emoticon here]. I'm not saying that the key isn't important. We used all of them many times during a timesharing session. Just as an aside, the key that you all look at as underscore used to be the backarrow (which is currently displayed on this keyboard as rubout). Talk about culture shock! :-) /BAH /BAH ###### From: jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 18 Feb 98 15:10:32 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 21 Message-ID: <6ces8a$iup$8@decius.ultra.net> References: <6c6q2m$555$3@decius.ultra.net> <6c9glp$l7p$3@decius.ultra.net> <6ca5os$bgn$1@nntp2.uunet.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: d3.dial-17.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 18 Feb 1998 14:46:34 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!209.6.107.173!tuco.xcom.net!news.ultranet.com!d3 In article <6ca5os$bgn$1@nntp2.uunet.ca>, atbowler@thinkage.on.ca (Alan Bowler) wrote: >In article <6c9glp$l7p$3@decius.ultra.net> jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com writes: >> >>Maybe that's why people are prone to sore hands. Trying to keep one key >>held down with one finger and touch-type with the others slows down my >>typing speed, increases my error rate and causes unnecessary stress on >>the joints of my wrist and fingers. It's just easier to use the >>caps-lock key and I've been doing it for 30 years. > >That must have been a neat trick. I don'r recall seeing CAPS LOCK >anywhere 30 years ago. There used to be the more useful SHIFT LOCK, >that shifted all the keys not just the letters. Yes. I made a mistook. I meant the shift-lock key, not the caps-lock. You have to forgive us old farts; we have a habit of dropping bits on the fly [grinning emoticon here]. /BAH ###### From: jmfbahxx@ma.ultranet.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 18 Feb 98 15:14:47 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 24 Message-ID: <6cesga$iup$9@decius.ultra.net> References: <6cconq$ml8$9@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <34e9f924.2991487@news.vip.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: d3.dial-17.mbo.ma.ultra.net X-Complaints-To: abuse@ultra.net X-Ultra-Time: 18 Feb 1998 14:50:50 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!news.vt.edu!solaris.cc.vt.edu!news.cc.ukans.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!209.6.107.173!tuco.xcom.net!news.ultranet.com!d3 In article <34e9f924.2991487@news.vip.net>, genew@vip.net (Gene Wirchenko) wrote: >lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: > >> >> >>On 1998-02-15 mgritter@pup16.Stanford.EDU said: >> :Forgot the space bar, didn't you? :) Not to mention punctuation, >> :which I would call "alphanumeric"... >> >>both of those we would call alphanumeric. > > Let's see: you've got the alphabet, numeric characters, >punctuation, and space all in that category. So what wouldn't you >consider alphanumeric? Maybe control characters? "%" isn't >alphabetic and it isn't numeric. I don't think calling it >alphanumeric is going to fly. I use the term "displayable" myself. I don't remember punctuation being considered part of the alphanumeric set of characters. The only reason space was in that gray area was because (IIRC) it was interpreted as zero which was different from null but not always. /BAH ###### From: cpc@mediaone.net (Chris Cebelenski) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 15:31:46 GMT Organization: Children's Hospital Lines: 20 Message-ID: <34eafe66.4140207183@oitnews.harvard.edu> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6c83hn$6eq$1@nixon.area.com> <6c9jm1$3df$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> <6c9o2h$4jf@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6cadsv$15a@nntp02.primenet.com> <6cajlv$m6f@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> Reply-To: cpc@mediaone.net NNTP-Posting-Host: nova.tch.harvard.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!news.algonet.se!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!portc02.blue.aol.com!pitt.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!honeysuckle.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!oitnews.harvard.edu!news Karthik Sheka wrote: >Nick S Bensema wrote: > >> And I'm surprised nobody in this thread has asked or answered the >> question that we've all forgotten about... >> >> WHAT THE HELL DOES SCROLL LOCK DO?! >> > I remember usig an editor not too long ago, in which scroll lock actually did >something: After hitting it, when I used the up and down arrow keys, the cursor >didn't change which row it was on. Instead, the screen scrolled up or down. Wow, I just tried that in Agent when I was reading your message, and... It worked! Great, ANOTHER key to remember. Of course, all those years of editing on a VTxxx terminal in VI or EDT/EVE has made "scrolling with the cursor leading" almost secondhand. Chris ###### From: lisard@zetnet.co.uk Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 18 Feb 1998 20:57:57 GMT Lines: 28 Message-ID: <6cfi0l$q9o$8@irk.zetnet.co.uk> References: <34e9f924.2991487@news.vip.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: man-171.dialup.zetnet.co.uk X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!btnet-peer!btnet-feed1!btnet!peer.news.zetnet.net!zetnet.co.uk!not-for-mail On 1998-02-18 genew@vip.net said: :lisard@zetnet.co.uk wrote: :>On 1998-02-15 mgritter@pup16.Stanford.EDU said: :> :Forgot the space bar, didn't you? :) Not to mention :> :punctuation, which I would call "alphanumeric"... :>both of those we would call alphanumeric. :Let's see: you've got the alphabet, numeric characters, :punctuation, and space all in that category. So what wouldn't you :consider alphanumeric? Maybe control characters? "%" isn't :alphabetic and it isn't numeric. I don't think calling it :alphanumeric is going to fly. I use the term "displayable" myself. you don't have to share our word usage. :P two points here: one, we were referring to keyboard design at the time, and two, our preferred language is forth and space is the only delimiter there. however, displayable does fine. if we want to be understood by anyone else, that's what we'll use. ;> -- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her... Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ###### From: Karthik Sheka Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 21:25:25 -0500 Organization: Physicians Online (via bigfoot.com) Lines: 36 Message-ID: <6cg5r8$e4i@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6cbp50$o6b$1@nntp4.u.washington.edu> <6cdoeq$ke8$1@news1.mnsinc.com> Reply-To: K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.68.131.129 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!newsadm > On 17 Feb 1998 10:35:12 GMT, D. Peschel wrote: > >In article <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>, > >Karthik Sheka wrote: > > > >> What keys would people *want* to see on the keyboards? > > > >God, I could start a new thread on keyboard design. (I've seen or used lots > >of layouts, and can spot bad design quickly. But I realize that it's hard to > >create a good design -- and that it gets harder if I think about it more.) > > > >My ideal general-purpose keyboard would be a refined 101-key PC layout. > >Split the space bar; put a backspace key there. Not sure about the split space bar bit. My dream keyboard would be the standard size & shape as the standard 104 key keyboard, but each key would have a active matrix display on it, so that when keys were remapped it would be immediately obvious. Of course, each little screen will have a scratch-resistant plasting coating with a rough surface so the displays won't be damaged and still have the right feel. For that matter, since the thing would cost more than the average keyboard, I would make sure it was resistant to spilling coffee/jolt on it. The active matrix keys would also cut down on the amount of light I needed in the room, since the keyboard would pretty much glow in the dark :-) Right above the function keys there would be a single line display of the last 80 characters typed. That way I would never have to look at the screen in the middle of a sentence to see if I mis-keyed something. (I hunt-and-peck at 45 words per minute :-) A bonus would be one of those trackpoint devices found on most IBM thinkpads. This level of a programable keyboard could have interesting ramifications, including having your keyboard crash and have to be rebooted, and keyboard viruses. ;-) Karthik P. Sheka K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com ###### From: tangent@SPAMCATCHER.cyberport.com (Warren Young) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 22:53:59 GMT Organization: none Message-ID: <34ec659c.290357401@news.cyberport.com> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6c83hn$6eq$1@nixon.area.com> <6c9jm1$3df$1@wombat.cs.monash.edu.au> <6c9o2h$4jf@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6cadsv$15a@nntp02.primenet.com> <6cajlv$m6f@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 56k31-118.cyberport.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 Lines: 31 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!news.onenet.net!news.oru.edu!woodstock.news.demon.net!demon!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!137.192.241.248!mr.net!news-out.microserve.net!news-in.microserve.net!news.supernet.net!news.cyberport.com!not-for-mail Karthik Sheka wrote: >> WHAT THE HELL DOES SCROLL LOCK DO?! >> >> There. I just turned on Scroll Lock. I wonder what's going to happen >> for the rest of the day. >> >> I think the purpose of Scroll Lock is to prevent you from accidentally >> hitting Print Screen... or was, back when that's what it did. > > I remember usig an editor not too long ago, in which scroll lock actually did >something: After hitting it, when I used the up and down arrow keys, the cursor >didn't change which row it was on. Instead, the screen scrolled up or down. NCSA Telnet (a wonderful little DOS telnet/ftp package) did this, too. Nice feature. > Whie we're on it, what does the SystemRequest key do? (You know, the key shared UnixWare uses it to switch between the GUI console and the text consoles. Alt-SysReq-h sends you (?) to the text console, and Alt-SysReq-F1 goes back into GUI mode. Yeah, I know, let's all look to AT&T/Univel/Novell/SCO/Whoever as the kings of UI design. Hell, if you ever have the misfortune of using anything UNIXy designed by AT&T, watch how much they use the F-keys -- F3 is essentially "OK", F7 is "cancel", F2 is "get choices" --- super ick. The same goes for their bletcherous terminals. = Warren -- http://www.cyberport.com/~tangent = = Remove the SPAMCATCHER to email. -- Finger me! ###### From: nv90-btu@nada.kth.se (Björn Turesson) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 20 Feb 1998 08:00:04 GMT Lines: 16 Message-ID: <6cjd64$f6f$1@news.kth.se> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <6bvrh8$5p1$2@roch.zetnet.co.uk> <2193.348T2407T6555800@sky.bus.com> <6caf64$a0u@nntp02.primenet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mumrik.nada.kth.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.229.87.25!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!193.10.88.112!newsfeed.sunet.se!news99.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!130.237.72.211.MISMATCH!news.kth.se!not-for-mail In peterk@combo.ganesha.com (Dr. Peter Kittel) writes: >You never had to use a German one, didn't you? :-) And I'll never >understand why on earth the apostrophe on German Amiga keyboards >needs the weird key combination of Alt-Ae (Alt-A-umlaut)... >Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // http://www.pios.de of PIOS >Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ office: peterk @ pios.de While we are at it. Have none of you (obviously mostly americans) used a french keyboard, where the a-z is not where you're used to. (All vocals are on the top row, rest is roughly the same). Cheers / Bjorn Thuresson bjorn@neuro.ks.se ###### From: nv90-btu@nada.kth.se (Björn Turesson) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 20 Feb 1998 08:00:04 GMT Lines: 16 Message-ID: <6cjd64$f6f$1@news.kth.se> References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <6bvrh8$5p1$2@roch.zetnet.co.uk> <2193.348T2407T6555800@sky.bus.com> <6caf64$a0u@nntp02.primenet.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mumrik.nada.kth.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.229.87.25!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-west.sprintlink.net!news-in-west.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!193.10.88.112!newsfeed.sunet.se!news99.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!130.237.72.211.MISMATCH!news.kth.se!not-for-mail In peterk@combo.ganesha.com (Dr. Peter Kittel) writes: >You never had to use a German one, didn't you? :-) And I'll never >understand why on earth the apostrophe on German Amiga keyboards >needs the weird key combination of Alt-Ae (Alt-A-umlaut)... >Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // http://www.pios.de of PIOS >Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ office: peterk @ pios.de While we are at it. Have none of you (obviously mostly americans) used a french keyboard, where the a-z is not where you're used to. (All vocals are on the top row, rest is roughly the same). Cheers / Bjorn Thuresson bjorn@neuro.ks.se ###### From: Ingvar Mattsson Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 20 Feb 1998 09:48:43 +0100 Organization: Foreningen Lejonet, Linkoping, Sweden Lines: 34 Message-ID: References: <6c6e91$p5p@news.seed.net.tw> <6cinom$17l$1@news.iastate.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ns.idasys.se X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!feeder.qis.net!fci-se!fci!masternews.telia.net!newspost.telia.com!news.lejonet.se!not-for-mail rhawkins@iastate.edu (Rick Hawkins) writes: > > In article , > Ingvar Mattsson wrote: > > >I find that the placement of CTRL is very *very* much a question of > >what you're used to. > > Partly, maybe. I have rather large, but not huge, hands. To use the > control-key-in-exile, I have to twist my left hand; I can't reach it > with the other fingers of my left hand still in place. It is also a > noticable physical strain. Heh. As I said, most of the time I have to use shift, control or alt, my left hand walks down to the lower-left corner, all by itself. Since my fingers tend to walk all over the place anyhow (think hunt&peck combined with touch-typing (if you dare)), it's not really a problem. > But now I"ve got an AT keyboard, and found out how to use xmodmap! hah, > take that, wnadering key thieves. But the capslock in the lower right > is useful as an extra alt key :) On one (soon both) of my home machines, the CapsLock works as a mode shift, switching three keys between "å", "ä" and "ö" (a-ring, a-diae.. and o-diae..) and "}", "{", "|" (what we used back in 7-bit days). It's also fairly handy when writing C. //Ingvar (it still is just to the left of A, the caps lock) -- Sysadmin, disgruntled, unpolite. I don't speak for my employer nor do they speak for me. Accept this and life will be easier. ingvar@idasys.se ###### From: radman@nospam.acid.org (RaD Man [ACiD Founder]) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 21:13:49 GMT Organization: ACiD Productions (http://www.acid.org) Lines: 54 Message-ID: <34edeef8.591663095@205.158.0.30> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6cbp50$o6b$1@nntp4.u.washington.edu> <6cdoeq$ke8$1@news1.mnsinc.com> <6cg5r8$e4i@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> Reply-To: radman@nospam.acid.org NNTP-Posting-Host: 139.87.181.82 X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/32.230 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!nntp.texas.net!korova.insync.net!pingflood.geo.net!newshub.internex.net!masters0.news.internex.net!usenet On Wed, 18 Feb 1998 21:25:25 -0500, Karthik Sheka wrote: % Not sure about the split space bar bit. % My dream keyboard would be the standard size & shape as the standard 104 key %keyboard, but each key would have a active matrix display on it, so that when keys %were remapped it would be immediately obvious. Of course, each little screen will %have a scratch-resistant plasting coating with a rough surface so the displays %won't be damaged and still have the right feel. For that matter, since the thing %would cost more than the average keyboard, I would make sure it was resistant to %spilling coffee/jolt on it. The active matrix keys would also cut down on the %amount of light I needed in the room, since the keyboard would pretty much glow in %the dark :-) Right above the function keys there would be a single line display %of the last 80 characters typed. That way I would never have to look at the %screen in the middle of a sentence to see if I mis-keyed something. (I %hunt-and-peck at 45 words per minute :-) A bonus would be one of those trackpoint %devices found on most IBM thinkpads. % %This level of a programable keyboard could have interesting ramifications, %including having your keyboard crash and have to be rebooted, and keyboard %viruses. ;-) % %Karthik P. Sheka %K.P.Sheka@bigfoot.com Water and weatherproof would definitely benefit those who always need a drink nearby or have children... How many people remap their keyboards enough to outweigh the cost of 104 tiny little active matrix LCD displays? 8-) For $4,000.00 you could go out and buy a keyboard for every language in existence with change to spare. The backlit idea could be done in a more cost effective manner by placing LED lights behind each of the keys. You could even have a dimmer switch. Also it would be cheaper to use that display you already have, your monitor, to see the last 80 characters typed :) Unless you were navigating through menus or something. -- enqzna@npvq.bet RaD Man % ACiD Productions Founder % Artpacks Archive Founder Words to live by: " It's better to be controversial for the right reasons, than to be popular for the wrong reasons. " ###### Path: ccw.ch!usenet From: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 20 Feb 1998 21:37:37 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 38 Message-ID: References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <6bvrh8$5p1$2@roch.zetnet.co.uk> <2193.348T2407T6555800@sky.bus.com> <6caf64$a0u@nntp02.primenet.com> <6cjd64$f6f$1@news.kth.se> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 peterk@combo.ganesha.com (Dr. Peter Kittel) writes: >You never had to use a German one, didn't you? :-) And I'll never >understand why on earth the apostrophe on German Amiga keyboards >needs the weird key combination of Alt-Ae (Alt-A-umlaut)... Perhaps because they run out of shift-key combinations? This is also so on the "SG" (Swiss German) PC keyboard I have here, actually 11 times. This 3rd character is got at with the right Alt key (labeled Alt Gr). nv90-btu@nada.kth.se (Björn Turesson) added: >While we are at it. Have none of you (obviously mostly americans) >used a french keyboard, where the a-z is not where you're used to. >(All vocals are on the top row, rest is roughly the same). The German and Swiss German also have Y - Z reversed. For the benefit of our american friends, here is how a SG looks (always written normal, then shifted, then alt-gr-ed (if any)) §° 1+¦ 2"@ 3*# 4ç 5% 6&¬ 7/| 8(¢ 9) 0= '? ^`~ <-del-> Q W E R T Z U I O P üè[ "!] A S D F G H J K L öé äà{ $£} <>\ Y X C V B N M ,; .: -_ <---sh--> <----------space--------> Now I just hope that the ISO-8859-1 survives all them News servers (not to mention your font selections) :-) -- private: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch, http://www.ccw.ch/Neil.Franklin/ for Geek Code, Papernet, Voicenet, PGP public key see http: office: franklin.remove.this@arch.ethz.ch I don't like it Microsoft, I like it Megahard If I go missing, its once again my newsfeed that has craped ###### From: jaimie@firepile.demon.co.uk (Jaimie Vandenbergh) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 10:28:13 GMT Message-ID: <34f0aafd.3625796@news.demon.co.uk> References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6cbp50$o6b$1@nntp4.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: jaimie@firepile.demon.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Host: firepile.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: firepile.demon.co.uk [158.152.188.236] X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 X-No-Archive: yes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 19 Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!nntp.news.xara.net!xara.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!firepile.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail On 17 Feb 1998 10:35:12 GMT, dpeschel@u.washington.edu (D. Peschel) wrote: >It would be fun to add gimmicks that redefine the idea of a keyboard (e.g., >keys that push in to two depths, or push forward as well as down, or light >up with their current definitions). New Scientist's regular Patent Watch column tells me this week that IBM have a patent for speed sensitive computer keyboards. So thumping return could insert a page break, while just tapping it a soft return and normal type a normal return, f'rinstance. It would be evil to learn. J -- It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 'Epistles' (88,45) ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 02:12:57 +0100 Message-ID: From: peterk@combo.ganesha.com (Dr. Peter Kittel) Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Reply-To: peterk @ combo.ganesha.com References: <6bph56$eet@news.seed.net.tw> <6bqdpc$fna@nntp02.primenet.com> <887184694snz@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> <6bt50e$8gs@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6cbp50$o6b$1@nntp4.u.washington.edu> <6cdoeq$ke8$1@news1.mnsinc.com> <6cg5r8$e4i@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> <6ci7de$uk@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> X-Newsreader: rn7.bas Lines: 16 Organization: Private Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed.nacamar.de!blackbush.xlink.net!ganesha.ganesha.com!shorter!combo.ganesha.com!peterk In article <6ci7de$uk@p850ug1.demon.co.uk> ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes: > >Not quite as versatile, but the Evans and Sutherland PS 390 graphics >system keyboard has 12 function keys across the top. Above each key >there's an 8 character 14 segment alphanumeric display that you can use >to label the key. Only the function keys? We had once a keyboard, which had a LCD in *every* keytop, so you really hit those LCDs with your fingers. Speak about configurability :-). Cyrillic or different languages is no problem with such a beast, but it's expensive. Sorry, forgot who made it. -- Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // http://www.pios.de of PIOS Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ office: peterk @ pios.de ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 02:14:25 +0100 Message-ID: From: peterk@combo.ganesha.com (Dr. Peter Kittel) Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Reply-To: peterk @ combo.ganesha.com References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <6bvrh8$5p1$2@roch.zetnet.co.uk> <2193.348T2407T6555800@sky.bus.com> <6caf64$a0u@nntp02.primenet.com> <6cjd64$f6f$1@news.kth.se> X-Newsreader: rn7.bas Lines: 13 Organization: Private Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!news.algonet.se!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.nacamar.de!blackbush.xlink.net!ganesha.ganesha.com!shorter!combo.ganesha.com!peterk In article <6cjd64$f6f$1@news.kth.se> nv90-btu@nada.kth.se (Björn Turesson) writes: > >While we are at it. Have none of you (obviously mostly americans) >used a french keyboard, where the a-z is not where you're used to. >(All vocals are on the top row, rest is roughly the same). That's normal. In each national keyboard you will find some variations and permutations, else you wouldn't need an own keyboard :-). Ever saw a Swiss one with its quad characters for several keys? -- Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // http://www.pios.de of PIOS Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ office: peterk @ pios.de ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 18:39:51 +0100 Message-ID: From: peterk@combo.ganesha.com (Dr. Peter Kittel) Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Reply-To: peterk @ combo.ganesha.com References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <6bvrh8$5p1$2@roch.zetnet.co.uk> <2193.348T2407T6555800@sky.bus.com> <6caf64$a0u@nntp02.primenet.com> <6cjd64$f6f$1@news.kth.se> X-Newsreader: rn7.bas Lines: 19 Organization: Private Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!fci-se!fci!howland.erols.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.nacamar.de!blackbush.xlink.net!ganesha.ganesha.com!shorter!combo.ganesha.com!peterk In article Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch writes: >peterk@combo.ganesha.com (Dr. Peter Kittel) writes: >> >>You never had to use a German one, didn't you? :-) And I'll never >>understand why on earth the apostrophe on German Amiga keyboards >>needs the weird key combination of Alt-Ae (Alt-A-umlaut)... > >Perhaps because they run out of shift-key combinations? No, we have the much more rarely used backtick char on a normal, unshifted key, where the key even gives the same backtick together with ALT. Programmers said it had to do with some compatibility problems regarding control codes, i.e. getting all ASCII codes between 128 and 159 with Ctrl/Alt-something. (We don't have the Alt+numeric_keypad mechanism in AmigaOS.) -- Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // http://www.pios.de of PIOS Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ office: peterk @ pios.de ###### Path: ccw.ch!usenet From: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 22 Feb 1998 21:34:45 +0100 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 35 Message-ID: References: <6bth1u$not@news.seed.net.tw> <6bvqot$vss$3@irk.zetnet.co.uk> <6bvrh8$5p1$2@roch.zetnet.co.uk> <2193.348T2407T6555800@sky.bus.com> <6caf64$a0u@nntp02.primenet.com> <6cjd64$f6f$1@news.kth.se> peterk @ combo.ganesha.com X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 In article <6cjd64$f6f$1@news.kth.se> nv90-btu@nada.kth.se (Björn Turesson) writes: >While we are at it. Have none of you (obviously mostly americans) >used a french keyboard, where the a-z is not where you're used to. >(All vocals are on the top row, rest is roughly the same). peterk@combo.ganesha.com (Dr. Peter Kittel) noted: >That's normal. In each national keyboard you will find some variations >and permutations, else you wouldn't need an own keyboard :-). Ever saw >a Swiss one with its quad characters for several keys? Actually the Swiss ones have 4 glyphs on some 3 keycaps but they don't generate 4 characters. The keycaps here look like this: O P èü ! üè " L éö àä £ öé äà $ As you see (if you can display ISO-8859-1) they contain 2 pairs of characters. They are intended as üè, öé, äà with the SG keytable and as èü, éö, àä with the SF keytable. The ü, ö, ä are used in German, the è, é, à in French, the Swiss use both these languages (and Italien and Rumansch (only ASCII)). I am writing on one of these, using SG (xxx@xxx.ch is Switzerland). -- private: Neil.Franklin.remove.this@ccw.ch, http://www.ccw.ch/Neil.Franklin/ for Geek Code, Papernet, Voicenet, PGP public key see http: office: franklin.remove.this@arch.ethz.ch I don't like it Microsoft, I like it Megahard If I go missing, its once again my newsfeed that has craped ###### From: felix@mamba.pond.sub.org (Felix Schroeter) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 23 Feb 1998 19:22:55 +0100 Organization: Chaos Lines: 14 Message-ID: <6csepv$ai9$1@mamba.pond.sub.org> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <34d6b671.417499030@news.xmission.com> <34d6c178.308061380@news.mindspring.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mamba.pond.sub.org Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.wli.net!news-out.internetmci.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!194.162.162.196!newsfeed.nacamar.de!blackbush.xlink.net!ILK.DE!mamba.pond.sub.org!mamba.pond.sub.org!not-for-mail Hello! In article <34d6c178.308061380@news.mindspring.com>, Justin Stodola wrote: >[...] >>What *I* want to know is the etymology of the name "vi", and why it >is >>pronounced like it is. >IIRC, try Visual Interface to ed. ^^ Don't you mean ex instead? Regards, Felix. ###### From: felix@mamba.pond.sub.org (Felix Schroeter) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 23 Feb 1998 19:27:51 +0100 Organization: Chaos Lines: 19 Message-ID: <6csf37$aos$1@mamba.pond.sub.org> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <01bd30ba$8af05b20$6bfa03cf@benz2.danet.com> <886618084.10213.0.nnrp-08.9e9878e0@news.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: mamba.pond.sub.org Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!fci-se!fci!fu-berlin.de!newsfeed.nacamar.de!blackbush.xlink.net!ILK.DE!mamba.pond.sub.org!mamba.pond.sub.org!not-for-mail Hello! In article <886618084.10213.0.nnrp-08.9e9878e0@news.demon.co.uk>, David Given wrote: >[...] >My favourite GUI editor: nedit (the new version has syntax colouring! >Yay!) Old feature, at least if you have used the OTE. Just put something like this in your .emacs and you are done -- and probably for many more language than nedit :-) : (if window-system (progn (global-font-lock-mode t) (setq font-lock-maximum-decoration t))) Regards, Felix. ###### From: felix@mamba.pond.sub.org (Felix Schroeter) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 23 Feb 1998 19:30:49 +0100 Organization: Chaos Lines: 14 Message-ID: <6csf8p$aqv$1@mamba.pond.sub.org> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <6b8d6f$kv8$1@nixon.area.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mamba.pond.sub.org Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!newsfeed.usit.net!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!fu-berlin.de!newsfeed.nacamar.de!blackbush.xlink.net!ILK.DE!mamba.pond.sub.org!mamba.pond.sub.org!not-for-mail Hello! In article , R!ch wrote: >[...] >That's what markers are for. Go to the first line of the block you want to >yank. Type "ma" (set marker a). Go to the bottom of the block, and type >":'a,.y". Much easier than counting! ma is okay. Then y'a yanks the block (it's just a much shorter form for :'a,.y ). (or y`a if you need the block in character granularity.) Regards, Felix. ###### From: felix@mamba.pond.sub.org (Felix Schroeter) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why horrible code? Date: 23 Feb 1998 19:37:20 +0100 Organization: Chaos Lines: 60 Message-ID: <6csfl0$b2l$1@mamba.pond.sub.org> References: <6a7d5a$kft@news.seed.net.tw> <6b5nug$fgl@sifon.cc.mcgill.ca> <34d67761.2271732@news.vip.net> <34dd7c40.303742128@news.cyberport.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: mamba.pond.sub.org Path: ccw.ch!aetna.dolphins.ch!news.planetc.com!leto.ou.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!fci-se!fci!masternews.telia.net!fu-berlin.de!newsfeed.nacamar.de!blackbush.xlink.net!ILK.DE!mamba.pond.sub.org!mamba.pond.sub.org!not-for-mail Hello! In article <34dd7c40.303742128@news.cyberport.com>, Warren Young wrote: >[...] >Still, if it isn't vim (or at least elvis), vi can be a real pain. >These two add things like visual selecting (better than emacs, because >emacs' selections are invisible), column/row indicators, sensible >cursor movements (autoindent under stock vi forces you to get out of >edit mode to de-tab) and a number of other "essential" features. visual selecting in Emacs is simple: (from the Emacs info file) Emacs can highlight the current region, using X Windows. But normally it does not. Why not? Highlighting the region doesn't work well ordinarily in Emacs, because once you have set a mark, there is *always* a region (in that buffer). And highlighting the region all the time would be a nuisance. You can turn on region highlighting by enabling Transient Mark mode. This is a more rigid mode of operation in which the region "lasts" only temporarily, so you must set up a region for each command that uses one. In Transient Mark mode, most of the time there is no region; therefore, highlighting the region when it exists is convenient. To enable Transient Mark mode, type `M-x transient-mark-mode'. This command toggles the mode, so you can repeat the command to turn off the mode. [...] If the variable `mark-even-if-inactive' is non-`nil' in Transient Mark mode, then commands can use the mark and the region even when it is inactive. Region highlighting appears and disappears just as it normally does in Transient Mark mode, but the mark doesn't really go away when the highlighting disappears. and re sensible cursor movements in vi variants: To de-indent in autoindent mode, type ^D (unindents by one shiftwidth) in input mode. No need to leave input mode... >In short, I'm still a vi guy at heart. I don't mind emacs and generic >Windows editors (anything above notepad, really), but I think I'll >always want vi close at hand, no matter what I happen to be hacking on >at the moment. (Famous last words, I know.) :-) For me it's vi for not too big editing tasks and when an editor is started from another program (e.g. the newsreader), both times because of quick startup time. For bigger tasks, the preference tends to be Emacs. (As well as for mail reading. Show me a PGP integration remotely comparable to mailcrypt :-) ) Regards, Felix.