Is it possible
tch...@my-deja.com
job. My manager came asked me to research about putting our existing
programs written in Visual Basic and Visual FoxPro in Unix (SC0)
environment. They’re thinking about using browser as front end and have
end users access them through internet/intranet. My first reaction was
that it is impossible to put applications that are object base in to
Unix environment. I don’t believe there is Unix version of VB and VFP
or possibly there are tools out there that can convert these apps. If
there are tools to convert them, what are the names? How much work is
there for conversion? Would it be easier to rewrite them? I’m welcome
any comments and suggestions.
Thanks.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Jan Hyde
Feb 2001 16:52:40 GMT bearing the following fruit:
Are you sure he means run the applications on a unix machine
and not put a database on a unix machine?
J
CurtC125
If you are shifting to a Web Interface how about an NT/2000 Web Server
hosting ASP (VBScript) pages... The move from Vb to VBScript is pretty
smooth at least.
--
Curt
Soft...@NOSPAM.Darkfalz.Com
(Remove NOSPAM for E-Mail Replies)
http://www.Darkfalz.com
---------------------------------------------------------------
** And The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth
---------------------------------------------------------------
<tch...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:95uisj$vh0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
AJ
You'll be able to maintain one set of source code which can be compiled for
Windows with Delphi, or for Linux with Kylix (Delphi for Linux).
AJ
James R. Sullivan
You might want to look at Tarantella. You could have a NT TSE system running
the VB/VF applications and then publish them through a web interface to
your users. Or, if you can find a UNIX based VB, run the VB programs on
the UNIX server and then use Tarantella for the web browser delivery.
Probably there's no need to rewrite if you're using Tarantella.
--
Jim Sullivan
Director, North American System Engineers
Tarantella! http://www.tarantella.com
831 427 7108 - j...@tarantella.com
tch...@my-deja.com
In article <#0PhPGfkAHA.1920@tkmsftngp02>,
tch...@my-deja.com
In article <3a82d266.33734317@pc1>,
coreDump
peet
dsavitsk
1st, to run win32 stuff on UNIX, check out the wine project (www.wine.org).
chances are that this is not far along enough, but it might be worth looking
into. (wine is WINdows Emulator)
2nd, you can run ASPs (active server pages) on a UNIX/Apache server via iASP
from Halcyon software (www.halcyonsoft.com). they also have software to
convert VB to Java which might be an option.
I think none of these solutions would take advantage of the UNIX environment
and will ultimately be a let-down. Maybe the easiest solution (mentioned
earlier) is a UNIX database and a vb front end (with a browser embedded in
it?)
doug
<tch...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:95uisj$vh0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
rs
drawbacks. It will not be portable, and pretty much you will be limited to
IE users. Making it work with Netscape is a pain. If I were to use a browser
front end, I would use simple cgi scripts with Apache. ASP tends to get
complicated in a hurry and maintenance becomes a nightmare.
<tch...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:95uisj$vh0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Terry Austin
"rs" <rs...@onlineplus.net> wrote in message
news:LgCi6.48$bV1....@nnrp1.sbc.net...
> I would carefully do my homework in using ASP, as it has some major
> drawbacks. It will not be portable, and pretty much you will be limited to
> IE users. Making it work with Netscape is a pain. If I were to use a
browser
> front end, I would use simple cgi scripts with Apache. ASP tends to get
> complicated in a hurry and maintenance becomes a nightmare.
I'm confused on several things here. ASP locks you into Windows
as a server, but being (mostly) a server side scripting, it works with
*any* browser. And "simple cgi scripts with Apache" is, IMO,
an oxymoron, especially if you're using Perl. The last bit, however,
is dead on for large scripts.
CurtC125
IE, and even then not some of the older versions.
As for the "simple cgi in Apache"....you are right. CGI, ASP,
whatever....they are all only as "simple" as the task you need them to
accomplish.
--
Curt
Soft...@NOSPAM.Darkfalz.Com
(Remove NOSPAM for E-Mail Replies)
http://www.Darkfalz.com
---------------------------------------------
** And The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth
---------------------------------------------
"Terry Austin" <tau...@hyperbooks.com> wrote in message
news:96et2...@enews4.newsguy.com...
Bill Vermillion
dsavitsk <dsav...@e-coli.net> wrote:
>there is a real answer to this ...
>1st, to run win32 stuff on UNIX, check out the wine project
>(www.wine.org). chances are that this is not far along enough, but
>it might be worth looking into. (wine is WINdows Emulator)
>2nd, you can run ASPs (active server pages) on a UNIX/Apache server
>via iASP from Halcyon software (www.halcyonsoft.com). they also
>have software to convert VB to Java which might be an option.
I have a company on a machine I maintain running multiple web
servers, who needed to move an application from somewhere else to
this machine. Their developer converted their ASP stuff into
php3 under Apache accessing data through MySQL works quite well. They
are happy and now they are portable and are not locked to any OS.
--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
rs
How well does that php stuff work with different browsers? I have heard of
it, I would think that this would be the best solution.
"Bill Vermillion" <bi...@wjv.com> wrote in message news:G8szB...@wjv.com...
Tony Lawrence
>
> Bill,
> How well does that php stuff work with different browsers? I have heard of
> it, I would think that this would be the best solution.
PHP is server side, so the browsers don't matter. See
http://pcunix.com/Books/php.html
--
Tony Lawrence (to...@aplawrence.com)
SCO/Linux articles, help, book reviews, tests,
job listings and more : http://www.pcunix.com
Stuart J. Browne
> > > programs written in Visual Basic and Visual FoxPro in Unix (SC0)
> > > environment. They're thinking about using browser as front end and
have
> > > end users access them through internet/intranet.
> > >
> > drawbacks. It will not be portable, and pretty much you will be limited
to
> > IE users. Making it work with Netscape is a pain. If I were to use a
browser
> > front end, I would use simple cgi scripts with Apache. ASP tends to get
> > complicated in a hurry and maintenance becomes a nightmare.
>
> I'm confused on several things here. ASP locks you into Windows
> as a server, but being (mostly) a server side scripting, it works with
> *any* browser. And "simple cgi scripts with Apache" is, IMO,
> an oxymoron, especially if you're using Perl. The last bit, however,
> is dead on for large scripts.
ASP does not necessarily lock you into a Windows platform. There have been
a number of packages relesed recently that allows you to use ASP code on
Apache based servers (ChiliSoft I beleive is one company that has done
this). Whilst I have not tested it (as I know about 2 lines of ASP
coding!), I've been told by a friend that it works quite well (he runs an
ISP based on the Cobolt Rack servers which have this package installed by
default).
bkx
Bill Vermillion
>How well does that php stuff work with different browsers? I have
>heard of it, I would think that this would be the best solution.
It seems to work well. The owner of the site is happy. His
developer was using ASP and I don't know whether he wrote it or
converted it. I had not problems with Netscape 7.4 - Linux version
of a FreeBSD platform or the IE 5 on ME.
I first ran across this at Apachecon last year [I'm not a web
developer but the show was in town], and the Zend people were doing
some really serious stuff with it.
I'd at least check it out. Only cost to try it is your time -
since it works well with Apache and they are both free.
Alan Silver
<tau...@hyperbooks.com> writes
>> I would carefully do my homework in using ASP, as it has some major
>> drawbacks. It will not be portable, and pretty much you will be limited to
>> IE users. Making it work with Netscape is a pain. If I were to use a
>browser
>> front end, I would use simple cgi scripts with Apache. ASP tends to get
>> complicated in a hurry and maintenance becomes a nightmare.
>
>I'm confused on several things here. ASP locks you into Windows
>as a server, but being (mostly) a server side scripting,
No "mostly", ASP is *only* a server-side technology (that's the 'S' in
ASP)
> it works with
>*any* browser. And "simple cgi scripts with Apache" is, IMO,
>an oxymoron, especially if you're using Perl. The last bit, however,
>is dead on for large scripts.
Ever tried maintaining a large CGI script ? Far worse than any large ASP
scripts I've ever done (which is quite a lot).
--
Alan Silver
Please remove the "furryferret" if replying by e-mail
Alan Silver
misleading.
>I would carefully do my homework in using ASP, as it has some major
>drawbacks.
Maybe, but you didn't mention any of them. You obviously didn't do your
homework before posting.
> It will not be portable,
This is about the closest you got to truth in your whole post. ASP is
basically limited to IIS, which means you run it on a Windows platform.
This is no big issue as there are a huge (and growing) number of
Windows-based web servers in use.
You can actually run ASP on many other platforms, but I don't think the
support is as good as on Windows.
> and pretty much you will be limited to
>IE users.
Totally incorrect. ASP is a *server* side technology, it is independent
of any browser. By the time the ASP output leaves the server, it is pure
HTML (plus any CSS, Javascript, etc you add) and so should work on any
browser - assuming you write valid HTML.
I inhabit the ASP newsgroups a lot and see this sort of inaccurate
statement regularly. People launch into ASP without bothering to learn
how to write valid HTML. They see their pages work in IE (which has a
very sloppy HTML parsing engine) and assume that that means that their
HTML is OK. They then try to view it in Netscape, which has a very picky
parsing engine, and the pages don't display. They then claim that
Netscape doesn't display ASPs. Rubbish, Netscape just doesn't like
invalid HTML. I've never yet seen a single problem of this sort that
couldn't be fixed by correcting the HTML.
> Making it work with Netscape is a pain.
No. The problems with Netscape are purely HTML and CSS issues. ASP knows
nothing inherently about the browser. Any browser problems you have with
ASP are guaranteed to be due to invalid HTML or Netscape's bugs (which
will be the same whatever you use to generate the HTML, whether ASP, CGI
or plain old static files).
To the best of my knowledge (which is pretty thorough in this area)
there has only ever been one issue that specifically related problems
with Netscape to ASP. That is that if you run Netscape on the same
machine as the web server (as many developers do), you sometimes find
that Netscape's annoying habit of grabbing 100% of the CPU means that
the web server does not have chance to process long scripts and you
sometimes get time-outs. This is not such a common problem and is not
strictly ASP-related anyway. Apart from that one, there are *no* issues
with Netscape and ASP, only badly written HTML and CSS.
> If I were to use a browser
>front end, I would use simple cgi scripts with Apache.
I wouldn't. I grew up on CGI with Apache. I have since moved to ASP with
IIS and there's no comparison. I can write ASP scripts in about one
tenth of the time it takes to do an equivalent CGI. IIS has so much
built in that you would have to code by hand with CGI that your ASP
scripts are much shorter and much easier to write and debug.
> ASP tends to get
>complicated in a hurry and maintenance becomes a nightmare.
No more than any other scripting language. In fact it's an order of
magnitude less complicated than CGI and the maintenance is basically
down to how well you manage your project (like any programming project).
Please check your "facts" before posting. Your comments were very
inaccurate.
Alan Silver
rkfalz.Com> writes
>ASP as VBScript does not always translate properly to anything other then
>IE, and even then not some of the older versions.
Don't confuse VBScript in ASP, which is totally server-side and
therefore browser-independent, with client-side VBScript which only runs
on IE. Client-side script is *not* ASP. The 'S' in ASP means "server",
not client.
Alan Silver
<to...@pcunix.com> writes
>> How well does that php stuff work with different browsers? I have heard of
>> it, I would think that this would be the best solution.
>
>PHP is server side, so the browsers don't matter. See
>http://pcunix.com/Books/php.html
So is ASP.
Tony Lawrence
>
> Not wishing to be rude here, but this is totally wrong and very
> misleading.
>
> >I would carefully do my homework in using ASP, as it has some major
> >drawbacks.
>
> Maybe, but you didn't mention any of them. You obviously didn't do your
> homework before posting.
>
> > It will not be portable,
>
> This is about the closest you got to truth in your whole post. ASP is
> basically limited to IIS, which means you run it on a Windows platform.
> This is no big issue as there are a huge (and growing) number of
> Windows-based web servers in use.
Of course. There's no shortage of foolish people in the
world.
I like the way the O'Reilly Apache book puts it. They (the
Apache folk) explain that they provide an NT version of
Apache so that people can test it, but strongly warn that
nobody with any sense would actually run ANY web server on
NT. They explain why in detail, and conclude with:
--- quote ---
"In plain English, this means, once again, that Win32 is not
an adequate platform for running a webserver that has any
need for security."
--- end quote --
Microsoft. They never did understand anything about
networking and the internet, they still don't, and they
probably never will. Your opinion of course will vary.
Or, as a salesman from Hostpro said to me recently : "You
really want our new virtual hosting service- it's incredibly
powerful, versatile and reliable- the only drawback is that
it has to be Unix". He was delighted to hear that I
considered that a plus rather than a "drawback".
Tony Lawrence
Oh, and BTW, since the typical response from the MSOFT crowd
is "you must not know anything about IIS" : IIS was one of
my electives for my MCSE cert. It's a giant clumsy piece of
junk, IMHO.
Alan Silver
<to...@pcunix.com> writes
>I like the way the O'Reilly Apache book puts it. They (the
>Apache folk) explain that they provide an NT version of
>Apache so that people can test it, but strongly warn that
>nobody with any sense would actually run ANY web server on
>NT. They explain why in detail, and conclude with:
>
>--- quote ---
>"In plain English, this means, once again, that Win32 is not
>an adequate platform for running a webserver that has any
>need for security."
>--- end quote --
>
>Microsoft. They never did understand anything about
>networking and the internet, they still don't, and they
>probably never will. Your opinion of course will vary.
The UNIX vs Microsoft holy war will never be settled, just like all the
other such arguments (my compiler's better than yours, my programming
language is better than yours, etc). I for one have no intention of
knocking UNIX, it's a very stable and powerful platform. I was only
objecting to the totally inaccurate criticism of IIS as a web server and
ASP as a gateway.
The Apache folk are, let's face it, just a teeny weeny bit biased.
Quoting their opinion of Windows is about as balanced as quoting Bill
Gates' opinion of Linux as the future of the web. Both have vested
interests in knocking the other. Furthermore, the quote you mention is
quite old. Windows has moved on in leaps and bounds since then and the
quote is no longer true (if it ever was).
Alan Silver
<to...@pcunix.com> writes
>Oh, and BTW, since the typical response from the MSOFT crowd
>is "you must not know anything about IIS" : IIS was one of
>my electives for my MCSE cert. It's a giant clumsy piece of
>junk, IMHO.
1) I was not arguing with your knowledge of IIS (unless you are rs in
disguise). I wasn't actually arguing about IIS specifically, more about
ASP. IIS only came into it as that's where ASP normally runs.
2) As far as your opinion of IIS - you are entitled to your opinion, I
disagree. I think it's every bit as good as Apache (which I used for
many years) and has many features that se it above. I'm not knocking
Apache, it's a good server, I just think it's getting long in the tooth.
Microsoft has developed IIS far beyond the capabilities of Apache. You
will presumably disagree with this and that's fine. I don't have a
problem with other people expressing their opinions, as long as they are
based on fact, not on the very tedious Microsoft bashing that motivates
most of these comments (and I have no idea if that includes you, so
don't take that personally).
3) I am not one of the "MSOFT crowd", I am an independent developer who
uses whichever technology seems best for the job. I have no problem with
UNIX, CGI, etc. I spent many happy years using them. I was objecting to
the totally inaccurate criticism of IIS and ASP.
Tony Lawrence
> >Microsoft. They never did understand anything about
> >networking and the internet, they still don't, and they
> >probably never will. Your opinion of course will vary.
>
> The UNIX vs Microsoft holy war will never be settled, just like all the
> other such arguments (my compiler's better than yours, my programming
> language is better than yours, etc). I for one have no intention of
> knocking UNIX, it's a very stable and powerful platform. I was only
> objecting to the totally inaccurate criticism of IIS as a web server and
> ASP as a gateway.
>
> The Apache folk are, let's face it, just a teeny weeny bit biased.
> Quoting their opinion of Windows is about as balanced as quoting Bill
> Gates' opinion of Linux as the future of the web. Both have vested
> interests in knocking the other. Furthermore, the quote you mention is
> quite old. Windows has moved on in leaps and bounds since then and the
> quote is no longer true (if it ever was).
But Microsoft STILL doesn't understand the Internet, or
basic networking. Or perhaps they do, and deliberately
pervert things for their own purposes- I'm not sure which
is worse. I don't think a month goes by where something
dump (or perverse) that MSoft has done doesn't annoy me or
cause extra work.
I don't know if I'm truly a Microsoft basher. I don't like
the company's politics, morals, and business practices, but
I still own their stock. In general, I don't like Windows
because, well, because it's DUMB. Every where I go, I see
folks doing dumb things with Microsoft products. By dumb, I
mean horribly inefficient, clumsy, and just plain silly.
Things that could be done much better with just a teeny bit
of intelligent scripting or programming. Spreadsheets used
as databases, manual distribution of data, manual
conversions, and on and on and on..
That doesn't mean they need Unix. Almost always, whatever
they are doing COULD be done on Windows, but two things
conspire against it: Windows scripting until WSH was, well,
awful, and WSH is unfortunately obscure, and (probably the
most important part), THEY FIND A WAY TO DO IT with Windows.
On the one hand, that's a good thing. The users get their
job done, albeit it painfully, manually, with greater chance
of error, lack of validation and control of data, etc. On
the other hand, they waste untold hours of time regularly,
often daily or even hourly, and don't have any protection
from errors in their own ad hoc procedure that a script or
program designed for the task might give them.
I think you could make a real case that while computers may
have increased worker productivity, the dumbed down "ease of
use" features of Microsoft's products have retarded that: in
other words, we could have MORE if people weren't wasting so
much time every single day do dumb things.
There are other things I don't particularly like about
Windows, but they are mostly minor gripes or application
specific. The big thing is the general stupidity of it, the
insipid "even a moron can use this" design- because when
morons can use it, it's guaranteed that they will..
Alan Silver
<to...@pcunix.com> writes
>But Microsoft STILL doesn't understand the Internet, or
>basic networking. Or perhaps they do, and deliberately
>pervert things for their own purposes- I'm not sure which
>is worse.
On the contrary, the more I read, the more I am convinced that Microsoft
have a more far reaching vision of what the Internet could be than
anyone else around. One reason that other people don't like it is
because their vision is so radical that it challenges a lot of people's
ideas. It also requires a lot of change. The Microsoft bashers don't
like it because all of the major leads are being taken by Microsoft, who
have an obvious interest in developing tomorrow's tools for Microsoft
platforms.
> I don't think a month goes by where something
>dump (or perverse) that MSoft has done doesn't annoy me or
>cause extra work.
That's a different story entirely. You could easily change the word
"Microsoft" there for any other major software company, Microsoft just
get more criticism because
a) there are more of their products in use than anyone else's, so
statistically speaking there is more chance that the problem you have
has its root in a Microsoft product. This does not necessarily mean that
their products are any worse than anyone else's, just that you use
theirs more, so you hits their bugs more.
b) People like to criticise Microsoft. UNIX people especially. They have
some justification, but most of it is inaccurate and childish. To a
certain extent, I think the criticism is caused by a backlash against
their fear that Microsoft's vision is going to leave them way out in the
cold.
>
>I don't know if I'm truly a Microsoft basher. I don't like
>the company's politics, morals, and business practices, but
>I still own their stock.
I wasn't talking about their morals or practices. I was carefully
sticking to a discussion of their products. One of the main problems is
that people who don't like the way Microsoft behave often lash out
against the products, when they really mean to criticise the company.
You have to separate the two.
> In general, I don't like Windows
>because, well, because it's DUMB. Every where I go, I see
>folks doing dumb things with Microsoft products. By dumb, I
>mean horribly inefficient, clumsy, and just plain silly.
>Things that could be done much better with just a teeny bit
>of intelligent scripting or programming. Spreadsheets used
>as databases, manual distribution of data, manual
>conversions, and on and on and on..
You're now blaming Microsoft for making things easy. I agree that
Windows often is frustrating to a power user because you want to do
things faster, but you have to remember that 99.99% of Windows users
spend their days using things like Office and just see computers as a
tool to get a job done. They are not computer literate to any great
degree, which is why you see spreadsheets used as databases, etc.
>
>That doesn't mean they need Unix. Almost always, whatever
>they are doing COULD be done on Windows, but two things
>conspire against it: Windows scripting until WSH was, well,
>awful, and WSH is unfortunately obscure, and (probably the
>most important part), THEY FIND A WAY TO DO IT with Windows.
>
>On the one hand, that's a good thing. The users get their
>job done, albeit it painfully, manually, with greater chance
>of error, lack of validation and control of data, etc. On
>the other hand, they waste untold hours of time regularly,
>often daily or even hourly, and don't have any protection
>from errors in their own ad hoc procedure that a script or
>program designed for the task might give them.
But what's the alternative ? They couldn't cope with UNIX, they need the
friendly approach of Windows. Most of them don't even realise that they
are being slowed down because they are not so fast in the first place.
>
>I think you could make a real case that while computers may
>have increased worker productivity, the dumbed down "ease of
>use" features of Microsoft's products have retarded that: in
>other words, we could have MORE if people weren't wasting so
>much time every single day do dumb things.
Again, I think the majority of ordinary users have greatly *increased*
productivity as they can now use all sorts of packages that they never
could before. The fact that those packages are "dumbed down" is what
enables such people to use them in the first place. Without the "dumbed
down" approach of Word, most companies would still have huge pools of
typists writing up everyone's memos. Instead, people write their own.
The increase in productivity is huge. So is the increase in poorly
written memos, but that's a price you have to pay.
>
>There are other things I don't particularly like about
>Windows, but they are mostly minor gripes or application
>specific. The big thing is the general stupidity of it, the
>insipid "even a moron can use this" design- because when
>morons can use it, it's guaranteed that they will..
But that was the whole point. Remember, Microsoft's mission statement
was "A computer on every desktop". Note the word "every". They want
every single person to be able to use them, so they need to cater for
the lowest common denominator.
Terry Austin
"Alan Silver"
<alan-...@prestwich-smile-gemach.freeserve.furryferret.co.uk> wrote in
message news:fIbVY$Cfi$k6E...@prestwich-smile-gemach.freeserve.co.uk...
> On the contrary, the more I read, the more I am convinced that Microsoft
> have a more far reaching vision of what the Internet could be than
> anyone else around.
Yeah, most companies accept that they cannot completely control
the Internet for their own financial gain. Regardless of the effects
on the 'net.
Terry Austin
Tony Lawrence
>
> In article <3A93B056...@pcunix.com>, Tony Lawrence
> <to...@pcunix.com> writes
> >But Microsoft STILL doesn't understand the Internet, or
> >basic networking. Or perhaps they do, and deliberately
> >pervert things for their own purposes- I'm not sure which
> >is worse.
>
> On the contrary, the more I read, the more I am convinced that Microsoft
> have a more far reaching vision of what the Internet could be than
> anyone else around. One reason that other people don't like it is
> because their vision is so radical that it challenges a lot of people's
> ideas. It also requires a lot of change. The Microsoft bashers don't
> like it because all of the major leads are being taken by Microsoft, who
> have an obvious interest in developing tomorrow's tools for Microsoft
> platforms.
I'm not talking about their vision or lack of same. I'm
talking about implementation. They screw up and pervert
protocols, standards and common practice- again, either
because their programmers are twenty-somethings with no
experience or because they are deliberately trying to break
other folks systems. Whichever it is, it sucks.
> > In general, I don't like Windows
> >because, well, because it's DUMB. Every where I go, I see
> >folks doing dumb things with Microsoft products. By dumb, I
> >mean horribly inefficient, clumsy, and just plain silly.
> >Things that could be done much better with just a teeny bit
> >of intelligent scripting or programming. Spreadsheets used
> >as databases, manual distribution of data, manual
> >conversions, and on and on and on..
>
> You're now blaming Microsoft for making things easy.
Yes, I am. Too easy, too dumb. That's a flaw.
> But what's the alternative ? They couldn't cope with UNIX, they need the
> friendly approach of Windows. Most of them don't even realise that they
> are being slowed down because they are not so fast in the first place.
The alternative is that people who DO have the knowledge
provide the scripts, procedures, etc. That's a management
issue, of course, but the dumbness of Windows encourages
people to do these stupid things. If they couldn't do them
so easily, they'd have to ask someone to get the task done-
and that would likely be much more efficient, safe, and
accurate.
>
> >
> >I think you could make a real case that while computers may
> >have increased worker productivity, the dumbed down "ease of
> >use" features of Microsoft's products have retarded that: in
> >other words, we could have MORE if people weren't wasting so
> >much time every single day do dumb things.
>
> Again, I think the majority of ordinary users have greatly *increased*
> productivity as they can now use all sorts of packages that they never
> could before. The fact that those packages are "dumbed down" is what
> enables such people to use them in the first place. Without the "dumbed
> down" approach of Word, most companies would still have huge pools of
> typists writing up everyone's memos. Instead, people write their own.
> The increase in productivity is huge.
Nonsense. A professional typing pool is far more efficient
and far less costly than what we have now- inexperienced
people futzing with fonts, adjusting their margins, wasting
time.. I see it everywhere I go- legions of middle
management people wasting countless hours preparing ugly
documents that could be done faster and better by a
professional.
> But that was the whole point. Remember, Microsoft's mission statement
> was "A computer on every desktop". Note the word "every". They want
> every single person to be able to use them, so they need to cater for
> the lowest common denominator.
But that costs us so much..
Oh well- no sense wishing the elephant were pink. It is
what it is.
Ian R
Tony Lawrence <to...@pcunix.com> wrote in message
news:3A9455E...@pcunix.com...
> Alan Silver wrote:
>
> I'm not talking about their vision or lack of same. I'm
> talking about implementation. They screw up and pervert
> protocols, standards and common practice- again, either
> because their programmers are twenty-somethings with no
> experience or because they are deliberately trying to break
> other folks systems. Whichever it is, it sucks.
>
And exactly what protocols and standards have they screwed up ?
I suppose SCO has perfect implementations of 'these supposedly perverted
standards' ?
This coming from a user of an OS where versions with the same name don't
even work together.
> > You're now blaming Microsoft for making things easy.
>
> Yes, I am. Too easy, too dumb. That's a flaw.
>
Too easy equals too dumb ??? Too easy is a flaw ??? In a business
environment ???
Care to explain the logic in that ?
Did crack suddenly become legal in New England ?
>
> The alternative is that people who DO have the knowledge
> provide the scripts, procedures, etc. That's a management
> issue, of course, but the dumbness of Windows encourages
> people to do these stupid things. If they couldn't do them
> so easily, they'd have to ask someone to get the task done-
> and that would likely be much more efficient, safe, and
> accurate.
>
Back to planet earth. Scripts ? To write a memo ? How can you even mention
efficient if in your world every time someone needed to type a memo they had
to go get a tech ? What does a tech know about business objectives,
forecasting, scheduling etc ? Sounds more and more like someone is bitter
about not keeping up with technology.
>
> Nonsense. A professional typing pool is far more efficient
> and far less costly than what we have now- inexperienced
> people futzing with fonts, adjusting their margins, wasting
> time.. I see it everywhere I go- legions of middle
> management people wasting countless hours preparing ugly
> documents that could be done faster and better by a
> professional.
>
Most secretaries know more about fonts, margins and their word processors in
general than any technical professional including myself and apparently you.
I suppose you consider sending a text file to lp a professional document ?
>
> > But that was the whole point. Remember, Microsoft's mission statement
> > was "A computer on every desktop". Note the word "every". They want
> > every single person to be able to use them, so they need to cater for
> > the lowest common denominator.
>
>
> But that costs us so much..
>
What cost ?
You want to point out the benefits of your OS of choice ? That's fine.
Haven't seen any from you. You want to point out weaknesses in other OS's ?
That's fine. So far all I've heard unrealistic biased spouting.
Ian R
John Schmidt <j...@saltmine.radix.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.SV4.3.96.101022...@saltmine.radix.net...
>
>
> We can start with nntp. They didn't just make an "oops", they
> screwed up utterly. Their broken usenet server software insisted
> on rewriting message-IDs and propogating, causing horrible spews.
> That's inexcusable. *Completely* and *utterly* inexcusable. The
> only - yes ONLY - header that should be modified in usenet transit
> is "Path: ", which should have site information appended to the
> existing line. NO OTHER MODIFICATIONS SHOULD BE MADE.
>
> Not a hard rule to understand or follow, as far as I can tell.
> The fine folks at MS couldn't wrap their noggins around it, though.
>
> JS
>
You call a news reader that (i've never had problems with, but in all
fairness have heard complaints about) sometimes mixing up message thread
id's perverting protocols ???
CurtC125
They simply want to MS Bash because they don't like MS... nothing we say or
do is going to change that for them due to their close mindedness.
They are completly missing the point that MS is trying to bring the
technology to everyone, not just the "geeks". They sound like frightened
children who aren't special anymore cuz all the other kids have the same
toys now.... The thing they don't realize is that MS helped create the big
picture. By them developing their products it pushed others to develop
theirs and caused what could be called a "technological revolution" of
sorts. They bridged the gap between the geeks and the average person and
allowed for the PC to be brought into the small to midsize buisness.
Ok, now I will admit there are products that have flaws, and ideas that I
don't completely agree with, but that doesn't make them "evil". We can
always find flaws in EVERYTHING if you look hard enough.....
Ian R
particular os, it's the extreme idiocy that irritates the hell out of me.
Consider the bashing over with on my end.
CurtC125 <Software@NO_SPAM.Darkfalz.Com> wrote in message
news:OFAIE#MnAHA.2088@tkmsftngp05...
James R. Sullivan
Ian R wrote:
>
> John Schmidt <j...@saltmine.radix.net> wrote in message
> news:Pine.SV4.3.96.101022...@saltmine.radix.net...
> >
> >
> > We can start with nntp. They didn't just make an "oops", they
> > screwed up utterly. Their broken usenet server software insisted
> > on rewriting message-IDs and propogating, causing horrible spews.
> > That's inexcusable. *Completely* and *utterly* inexcusable. The
> > only - yes ONLY - header that should be modified in usenet transit
> > is "Path: ", which should have site information appended to the
> > existing line. NO OTHER MODIFICATIONS SHOULD BE MADE.
> >
> > Not a hard rule to understand or follow, as far as I can tell.
> > The fine folks at MS couldn't wrap their noggins around it, though.
> >
>
> You call a news reader that (i've never had problems with, but in all
> fairness have heard complaints about) sometimes mixing up message thread
> id's perverting protocols ???
nntp is not the news reader, but the "network news transport protocol", the
protocol that the usenet uses to propagate your articles around the world.
It's a single language that everyone must speak with the proper grammar
and syntax for the usenet to work. And it's only an example of where
they ignore the accepted practise and hang the consequences.
A great example of this was the DCE work during the 90's. MS professed
compliance, but rarely achieved it. They then modified their code to
subvert the standard, producing DCOM.
There was a great quote in the early 90's from a Microsoft Product Manager,
when asked about Microsoft's particiaption in the X/Open group (a user driven
group trying to produce standards for operating systems and interoperability),
or lack of participation. Her quote, and I remember it well, was, "Users don't
make standards, we make standards."
Microsoft does a good job producing basic tools, but I wouldn't give up my
UNIX system for all the tea in China. More than once, a task that was
basically impossible within my MS environment, took 30 minutes of scripting
in a UNIX environment, where I've used it ever since. Of course, if I was
driven to it, I could give up my Windows machine for a UNIX box :-)
The frustration that professional programmers and computer scientists have is
that we know what computers are capable of and are sadden to see what they've
been reduced to.
--
Jim Sullivan
Director, North American System Engineers
Tarantella! http://www.tarantella.com
831 427 7108 - j...@tarantella.com
J French
<Software@NO_SPAM.Darkfalz.Com> wrote:
>.... The thing they don't realize is that MS helped create the big
>picture. By them developing their products it pushed others to develop
>theirs and caused what could be called a "technological revolution" of
>sorts. They bridged the gap between the geeks and the average person and
>allowed for the PC to be brought into the small to midsize buisness.
MS helped, but it was the IBM PC that first forced standardization of
the PC design.
IBM made MS - if IBM had run with Digital Research CP/M then MS would
never have got into operating systems.
Personally I find one company dominating the Operating System,
Programming Languages and mass Applications a distinctly dodgy
proposition. Apart from the commercial/anti trust problems, it opens a
temptation to merge rather than clearly separate the three layers.
MS have major design flaws in Windows - they also have a tendency to
hijack standards and pervert them. Look at what they got up to with
HTML.
Alan Silver
rkfalz.Com> writes
>Ian.... it's a lost cause...
Agreed
>The thing they don't realize is that MS helped create the big
>picture. By them developing their products it pushed others to develop
>theirs and caused what could be called a "technological revolution" of
>sorts. They bridged the gap between the geeks and the average person and
>allowed for the PC to be brought into the small to midsize buisness.
In the UK, there is (or was, don't know what happened to him) a fairly
notable character called Clive Sinclair. Many years ago, he produced a
small DIY computer that was at a price anyone could afford. He went on
to produce all sorts of innovative (and sometimes wacky) products.
People laughed at him from the start, but without his initiative, the
personal computer (yes, even the IBM and Microsoft side of it) would
have taken longer to arrive. He brought the idea of the computer for
home use towards reality.
People still laugh at him though. People are ready to accept the
benefits and criticise the benefactor.
>Ok, now I will admit there are products that have flaws, and ideas that I
>don't completely agree with, but that doesn't make them "evil". We can
>always find flaws in EVERYTHING if you look hard enough.....
I don't think anyone in this discussion has claimed that Microsoft as a
company is whiter than white. They seem to have had their fair share of
dirty tactics and gorilla marketing. The cause of annoyance here is when
someone's dislike of the company is expressed as an inaccurate slamming
of their products.
Tony Lawrence
> I don't think anyone in this discussion has claimed that Microsoft as a
> company is whiter than white. They seem to have had their fair share of
> dirty tactics and gorilla marketing. The cause of annoyance here is when
> someone's dislike of the company is expressed as an inaccurate slamming
> of their products.
Yeah, right. Inaccurate slamming.
I guess some people just never will understand.. S'Ok-- have
your toy computer. As was explained by some one else, those
of us who really understand this stuff are saddened by by
what Msoft has done, and saddened by the incredible wasting
of time caused by it.
And that's the end of my participation in this. It's like
religion: even though I know that Born Agains are fooling
themselves, there's no point in arguing with 'em.. just
leave 'em alone and try to get along. At least their god
doesn't run around breaking other god's code :-)
J French
On Thu, 22 Feb 2001 17:28:26 +0000, Alan Silver
<alan-...@prestwich-smile-gemach.freeserve.furryferret.co.uk>
wrote:
>In article <OFAIE#MnAHA.2088@tkmsftngp05>, CurtC125 <Software@NO_SPAM.Da
>rkfalz.Com> writes
>>Ian.... it's a lost cause...
>
>In the UK, there is (or was, don't know what happened to him) a fairly
>notable character called Clive Sinclair. Many years ago, he produced a
>small DIY computer that was at a price anyone could afford. He went on
>to produce all sorts of innovative (and sometimes wacky) products.
>People laughed at him from the start, but without his initiative, the
>personal computer (yes, even the IBM and Microsoft side of it) would
>have taken longer to arrive. He brought the idea of the computer for
>home use towards reality.
Actually Chuck Peddle in the USA preceeded Sinclair by some years -
the Commodore Pet. - Pretty mass market.
Later a Computer journalist David Osborne(?) came out with the Osborne
- CP/M 80 - price £1000 - included £1000 street value software -
luggable - and under half the price of other machines at the time.
And of course there was always the Apple.
Personally I reckon that it was Visicalc on the Apple II that forced
PCs into businesses - and incited IBM to enter the fray.
Gary Labowitz
OS/360 -- which I worked on in 1962-1968. There is nothing new.
Gary
"J French" <je...@iss.u-net.com> wrote in message
news:3a962369...@news.u-net.com...
Bill Vermillion
Alan Silver <alan-...@prestwich-smile-gemach.freeserve.furryferret.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <OFAIE#MnAHA.2088@tkmsftngp05>, CurtC125 <Software@NO_SPAM.Da
>rkfalz.Com> writes
>>Ian.... it's a lost cause...
>Agreed
>>The thing they don't realize is that MS helped create the big
>>picture. By them developing their products it pushed others to
>>develop theirs and caused what could be called a "technological
>>revolution" of sorts. They bridged the gap between the geeks and
>>the average person and allowed for the PC to be brought into the
>>small to midsize buisness.
>In the UK, there is (or was, don't know what happened to him)
>a fairly notable character called Clive Sinclair. Many years
>ago, he produced a small DIY computer that was at a price anyone
>could afford. He went on to produce all sorts of innovative (and
>sometimes wacky) products. People laughed at him from the start,
>but without his initiative, the personal computer (yes, even the
>IBM and Microsoft side of it) would have taken longer to arrive. He
>brought the idea of the computer for home use towards reality.
>People still laugh at him though. People are ready to accept the
>benefits and criticise the benefactor.
They don't seem to be laughing at him. Current products of
Sinclair Research are the world's smallest AM and FM radios [which
fit in your ear] and a power-pack that attached to a bicycle's
front wheel.
Bill
Bill Vermillion
>They don't seem to be laughing at him. Current products of
>Sinclair Research are the world's smallest AM and FM radios [which
>fit in your ear] and a power-pack that attached to a bicycle's
>front wheel.
>www.sinclair-reseach.co.uk
^^^
Make that www.sinclair-research.com.uk
James R. Sullivan
Tony Lawrence wrote:
> At least their god
> doesn't run around breaking other god's code :-)
Great line! Had me laughing!
Peter F. Dubuque
>> Alan Silver wrote:
>>
>> I'm not talking about their vision or lack of same. I'm
>> talking about implementation. They screw up and pervert
>> protocols, standards and common practice- again, either
>> because their programmers are twenty-somethings with no
>> experience or because they are deliberately trying to break
>> other folks systems. Whichever it is, it sucks.
>>
> And exactly what protocols and standards have they screwed up ?
HTML exports in Office.
CSS1.
Java.
Kerberos.
Just to mention a few.
--
Peter F. Dubuque - pet...@shore.net - Enemy of Reason(TM) O-
Ian R
this.
Peter F. Dubuque <pet...@shell3.primushost.com> wrote in message
news:wMBl6.6183$JG.7...@news.shore.net...
Peter F. Dubuque
> That is complete and utter crap. There's obviously no point in continuing
> this.
> Peter F. Dubuque <pet...@shell3.primushost.com> wrote in message
> news:wMBl6.6183$JG.7...@news.shore.net...
>> In comp.lang.basic.visual.misc Ian R <ia...@notquitesure.net> wrote:
>>
>> > And exactly what protocols and standards have they screwed up ?
>>
>> HTML exports in Office.
>> CSS1.
>> Java.
>> Kerberos.
>>
>> Just to mention a few.
Here are my assertions, elaborated upon.
- Office exports an unmaintainable melange of HTML, XML, VML, and CSS. The
severity of this varies depending on the product. Word, for example,
merely exports grotesque code that works in some form in other
browsers. PowerPoint HTML exports are usually unviewable in any browser
other than IE.
- Except for IE5.5 for the Macintosh, no Microsoft browser is fully
compliant with CSS level 1. Three non-compliant Windows versions (4.0,
5.0, and 5.5) have been released since it was adopted as a standard over
four years ago.
- Microsoft developed a proprietary version of Java intended to lock
developers into the Windows platform. They labeled it as JAVA COMPATIBLE
even though it failed Sun's compatibility tests.
- Microsoft's implementation of Kerberos contains proprietary extensions
that make it incompatible with other implementations. They released
details of their extensions on their website with a click-through EULA that
allows the use of the information "for the sole purpose of reviewing the
Specification for security analysis" and explicitly withholding the right
to use the information to implement a version of Kerberos compatible with
the specification.
There are plenty of other possible complaints. I'm omitting
- obvious bugs
- modification of Microsoft's proprietary standards to either lock people
into their products or force upgrades (e.g. perpetually changing Office
file formats)
- attempts to introduce competing proprietary standards when perfectly
acceptable open standards already exist (e.g. DirectX vs. OpenGL)
Rebut these complaints, if you wish, or don't--I don't care. But don't
dismiss them as "complete and utter crap" unless you have facts to back
up your dismissal.
Alan Silver
net.com> writes
>Actually Chuck Peddle in the USA preceeded Sinclair by some years -
>the Commodore Pet. - Pretty mass market.
Sorry, I wasn't intending to imply that CS invented home computing, just
pointing out that sometimes the innovators get criticised.
Alan Silver
<pet...@shell3.primushost.com> writes
>> And exactly what protocols and standards have they screwed up ?
>
>HTML exports in Office.
>CSS1.
They haven't done anything to the standards here. They have just
produced export facilities that produce invalid HTML and CSS. Netscape
is just as guilty of this as MS, as are whole bunch of other people.
As a professional web designer who actually cares about valid code, I
can confirm to you that it's almost impossible to find a software
product on the market that produces valid HTML (except where you
physically type it yourself, like in Notepad). MS is no worse than
anyone else. They actually work with the W3C closely in guiding new
standards.
Alan Silver
<to...@pcunix.com> writes
>Alan Silver wrote:
>
>> I don't think anyone in this discussion has claimed that Microsoft as a
>> company is whiter than white. They seem to have had their fair share of
>> dirty tactics and gorilla marketing. The cause of annoyance here is when
>> someone's dislike of the company is expressed as an inaccurate slamming
>> of their products.
>
>
>Yeah, right. Inaccurate slamming.
It was. If you want to offer some reasoned arguments based on facts, I'd
be glad to hear them. If you just want to bash Microsoft without any
logic, then don't bother posting here.
>
>I guess some people just never will understand.. S'Ok-- have
>your toy computer. As was explained by some one else, those
>of us who really understand this stuff are saddened by by
>what Msoft has done, and saddened by the incredible wasting
>of time caused by it.
Your patronising attitude does nothing to help your case.
As it happens, I do understand. I worked for years on UNIX boxes and
only switched to Windows about three years ago when a change of job
forced it. At first, I had the same blinkered attitude as you. I
attempted to recreate my old UNIX environment as much as possible (some
of which I still use). After a while, I began to explore what Windows
could offer and discovered that it had a lot going for it. Sure it has
problems, but then so does UNIX.
I think one of your big problems is that you are taking a very narrow
view of a broad issue. Microsoft were one of the main players in the
opening up of computing to the masses. Go into any office nowadays and
you will see people doing tasks that they just couldn't do before.
Either they did without or they passed the job to someone else, which is
not always an efficient way to do it. Sure some do it wrong, some do it
slowly, but overall people are working in ways they never could before.
Those of us who really understand both sides realise that both types of
environment have a lot to offer. You who think you understand computers
because you use UNIX are missing a large part of the picture. I
understand where you are coming from, I also felt the same way until I
started to understand the other side.
>
>And that's the end of my participation in this.
That's a relief. Although I bet you can't resist coming back to see what
replies you got ;-)
> It's like
>religion: even though I know that Born Agains are fooling
>themselves, there's no point in arguing with 'em.. just
>leave 'em alone and try to get along. At least their god
>doesn't run around breaking other god's code :-)
You were so close and then you blew it !! You almost realised that there
can be two sides to an argument and both sides can be right. Then you
went and threw in another childish slamming of Microsoft. Shame, I
thought you were going to leave us with a final bit of sense instead of
more one-sided MS bashing.
Tony Lawrence
>
> In article <3A95887F...@pcunix.com>, Tony Lawrence
> <to...@pcunix.com> writes
> >Alan Silver wrote:
> >
> >> I don't think anyone in this discussion has claimed that Microsoft as a
> >> company is whiter than white. They seem to have had their fair share of
> >> dirty tactics and gorilla marketing. The cause of annoyance here is when
> >> someone's dislike of the company is expressed as an inaccurate slamming
> >> of their products.
> >
> >
> >Yeah, right. Inaccurate slamming.
>
> It was. If you want to offer some reasoned arguments based on facts, I'd
> be glad to hear them. If you just want to bash Microsoft without any
> logic, then don't bother posting here.
As we've seen in other places in this thread, you just
ignore facts.
Fact: Microsoft perverts standards, deliberately or out of
stupidity- either way, it sucks.
>
> >
> >I guess some people just never will understand.. S'Ok-- have
> >your toy computer. As was explained by some one else, those
> >of us who really understand this stuff are saddened by by
> >what Msoft has done, and saddened by the incredible wasting
> >of time caused by it.
>
> Your patronising attitude does nothing to help your case.
It's not my case. But when folks need patronizing comments,
I'm happy to give 'em.
If you can't see the problems with Microsoft and it's OSes,
you are willfully blind. That doesn't mean that Bill Gates
should go to jail (though breaking him up wouldn't be a bad
idea) and it doesn't mean that it's all just so horrible
that it can't be used at all. At the beginning of this
thread, I mentioned WSH- that's a GOOD thing, although
unfortunately Microsoft doesn't promote it enough and it
remains underutilized and generally unappreciated. But with
it, it is at least now a lot easier to do something
intelligent with Windows.
>
> As it happens, I do understand. I worked for years on UNIX boxes and
> only switched to Windows about three years ago when a change of job
> forced it. At first, I had the same blinkered attitude as you. I
> attempted to recreate my old UNIX environment as much as possible (some
> of which I still use). After a while, I began to explore what Windows
> could offer and discovered that it had a lot going for it. Sure it has
> problems, but then so does UNIX.
Who said Windows can't offer anything? You are changing the
subject-
>
> I think one of your big problems is that you are taking a very narrow
> view of a broad issue. Microsoft were one of the main players in the
> opening up of computing to the masses. Go into any office nowadays and
> you will see people doing tasks that they just couldn't do before.
Doing things inefficiently, yes. And being plagued by viri
that are encouraged by Microsofts ease of use and generally
crappy programming practices.
> Either they did without or they passed the job to someone else, which is
> not always an efficient way to do it. Sure some do it wrong, some do it
> slowly, but overall people are working in ways they never could before.
>
> Those of us who really understand both sides realise that both types of
> environment have a lot to offer. You who think you understand computers
> because you use UNIX are missing a large part of the picture. I
> understand where you are coming from, I also felt the same way until I
> started to understand the other side.
I'm MSCE certified. I understand the Windows computing
environment. I don't like it, for all the reasons already
given. Admittedly, it's getting better. Maybe some day it
will be good enough- I doubt it, though, and none of that
changes the fact that we are talking about a predatory
bully.
>
> > It's like
> >religion: even though I know that Born Agains are fooling
> >themselves, there's no point in arguing with 'em.. just
> >leave 'em alone and try to get along. At least their god
> >doesn't run around breaking other god's code :-)
>
> You were so close and then you blew it !! You almost realised that there
> can be two sides to an argument and both sides can be right. Then you
> went and threw in another childish slamming of Microsoft. Shame, I
> thought you were going to leave us with a final bit of sense instead of
> more one-sided MS bashing.
As opposed to one sided Microsoft defending?
Tony Lawrence
Being "no worse" still doesn't change the fact that they
screw things up- deliberately or from sloppiness, it doesn't
really matter.
And of course you continue to ignore everything else..
Alan Silver
<to...@pcunix.com> writes
>If you can't see the problems with Microsoft and it's OSes,
>you are willfully blind
I never said that. On the contrary, I have attempted several times to
point out that I know that there are problems with Windows, just as I
know that there are strengths with other OSs. My whole argument has been
the slamming of Microsoft in total, without any recognition of the
strengths and weaknesses on both sides.
I'm not a Microsoft junkie. As pointed out before, I spent my formative
years on UNIX and still think highly of it. I'm just fed up of UNIX
junkies slamming Microsoft when they obviously don't understand it.
That's not saying *you* don't understand it, I don't know you. It's just
that you came across that way.
The other point that seems to be carefully ignored here is that UNIX and
Windows are not in the same market. UNIX is not suitable for a desktop
audience. The vast majority of computer users today want a simple
machine that enables them to do Office-type applications. That might not
be your cup of tea (or mine), but it is a reality, and for those people,
UNIX would be a disaster. That doesn't make either OS better than the
other, just different. If you would agree to that (which is essentially
what I was trying to say before), then I don't think we have any basic
disagreement.
Brian K. White
>
> Tony Lawrence wrote:
>
> > (PLEASE: for the morons who reply without reading the entire
> > post: please read at least TWO of the paragraphs that follow
> > before you waste everyone's time with a stupid post)
> >
> > Let's take a real life example: I have a list of folks who
> > want to receive email when new pages are added to my web
> > site. Naturally I use Majordomo for the list, and naturally
> > I have a script that generates the text- it figures out what
> > I've added recently, creates the text, decides whether it is
> > enough to send out a mailing, and sends it to Majordomo if
> > it is. In other words, the entire thing happens without
> > intervention or conscious effort on my part. I gurantee
> > that 99% of MSOFT shops faced with the same need would do it
> > by hand BECAUSE THEY CAN AND BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW ANY
> > OTHER WAY.
> >
> > And of course this same thing CAN BE DONE on Windows-
> > understand that I am not saying you NEED Unix to do this-
> > just that the "ease of use" and obscurity of Windows
> > scripting causes this inefficiency.
>
>
> I just thought of another example- something I see
> CONSTANTLY:
>
> Company XYZ has a web page. Regularly, certain pages need
> to be updated with new information and old data needs to be
> taken down. Any half-assed web master, using Windows or
> otherwise, would do this with a database that produces the
> current page either statically or on the fly. It doesn't
> have to be fancy or even a real database; I often do it with
> simple HTML forms that report the new data..
>
> But your typical little MSOFT shop doesn't. They COULD, but
> all they know is FrontPage or something like it, so somebody
> hand edits every week or even every day and posts it.
> Manually. Because they can, and because the very idea of
> scripting never occurs to them.
>
> The hand work takes time, and worse, it often introduces
> errors of content or formatting or both. When more than one
> person is involved, you get inconsistent pages, duplication,
> etc.
>
> Again: YOU CAN DO THIS AUTOMAGICALLY WITH MICROSOFT OS'ES.
> But people don't, because most of them aren't even aware
> that they CAN do anything but point and click, and because
> it is usually not as direct and easy as it is with Unix.
>
> Ease of use has produced legions of folks who really are
> computer illiterate but don't know it. They think they are
> "using" their computers, but they really aren't. They are
> popping TV dinners in the microwave think they are cooking-
> and worse, not knowing that there is any other way, and
> never realizing that while that may be a great way to make a
> quick lunch, it's a very dumb way to make dinner for twenty.
>
> But that's what happens every day in the MSOFT world: dinner
> for twenty prepared in a microwave. Slowly. Painfully.
> Nobody gets fed on time, and the food isn't very good, but
> nobody complains because TV dinners in the microwave is so
> much easier than peeling veggies and boiling water and using
> that darn stove that nobody understands..
That's a great analogy. I'm always looking for ways to describe the
difference of approach between windows & unix when people ask me. It's
frustrating sometimes because the fact is, I get lots of questions from folx
who are curious and are open to some other way of operating even though they
themselves have never seen anything else, and I sometimes fail to really hit
the idea home. This one good addition to my vocabulary, along with my
sometimes used "car" analogy.
"windows=mid-sized family sedan with automatic transmission. unix=kit car
with full machine shop that can be made into anything from ferrari to
dump-truck to space shuttle to moped" anyone can drive the sedan with about
2 minutes training, whereas you need to be at least skilled enough to follow
directions to construct the stock kit car, and if you are capable you can
customize it to perform any specialized function"
that analogy doesn't cover some important points however like "the kit car
parts do not <leak memory & crash for no reason after a certain amount of
time running, inversly logarithmically proportional to the amount various
types of stress applied>" or "the kit car parts do not interact badly with
the other kit car parts causing the car as a whole to <same as above>" or "
the kit car in most cases does not need a driver for months or years at a
time nor to be shut down and restarted periodically as a
performance/reliability precaution, nor will it do so on it's own.
which is why I'm always on the lookout for good ways to express the appeal
of unix.
another one I don't use much anymore is the typical home stereo, vs. one
that has all the internal resistors and other components replaced with
variable versions and the outside of the box is completely covered with
little knobs.
that one is neat but inaccurate on at least a few levels.
--
Brian K. White http://www.squonk.net/users/linut
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro BBx Linux SCO Prosper/FACTS AutoCAD #callahans Satriani
Ian R
>
> Tony Lawrence wrote:
<a lot of ramblings clipped> :)
Summation: What does a person's incompetence have to do with an OS ? Are you
saying that because a person is incompetent that it's the fault of the OS
and the OS is garbage ? Following that logic I could take that same MS
incompetent and put him/her on a Unix platform and all of a sudden Unix
becomes the worst OS ever invented. (Or BeOS, Mac etc). Er... who exactly is
the blind zealot again ?
With regards to protocols and standards being 'perverted':
You among others keep mentioning names but no specifics. In order to see
your point details and specifics would helpful otherwise that would be like
me saying (over and over again) Unix sucks with out giving any reasons. For
what it's worth this 'MS zealot' does not think Unix itself sucks, but I do
have issues with Unix applications in general with regards to
interoperability and efficiency in a business or office environment.
I don't know what kind of office environment you have been exposed to but in
most ones I've seen the average secretary seems to be the equivalent of that
'professional secretary' you keep wanting to stick in a typing pool. It's
not 1970 anymore, the office workers are a lot more literate than you seem
to give them credit for. They may not know anything about networking or file
systems or kernels (and there's no reason that they should) but they pretty
much know how to do memos and spreadsheets and mass mailings perfectly fine
with out the need for arcane scripts. I'll even bet that there are quite a
few that know and use VBA to an extent that makes both you and I look like
newbies.
With regards to techs knowing office systems there's a difference between a
consultant and a tech. As a consultant you are correct in what you say,
although I wish you'd keep up to date a bit more on MS products before you
slam them.
You missed the point on the text file going to the printer. I don't give a
rat's ass about the printer pooling. I was talking about the quality of
applications available and what tunnel minded (unix or otherwise) diehards
consider a 'professional' document.
And yes Windows does support printer pooling.
What does faxing and printing manually by a user have to do with anything ?
Every OS pretty much supports it. Even Linux. If a person wants to do things
inefficiently, that's their right. It's a problem with training and
management. Maybe you should go in and show them the 'right' way to do it.
Might get you some business.
The only inefficiency I can see is in your logic. I've heard that drugs are
a problem in the States but I didn't realize that it was this bad... :)
P.S. You get one more personal slam and then I think that makes us even.
Then maybe we can discuss this rationally.
Ian R
If I had a kit car it'd be staying in the back yard for fun. I certainly
wouldn't be taking it out on the highway....
Brian, nobody was knocking Unix, one of the original points of the thread
was slamming of MS and it's products by certain 'tunnel minded idiots'
without justification. If Tony, and any others who contributed to this
'discussion' have a preference for Unix, it's their right. Like I've
mentioned before, in certain instances it makes sense to run a Unix (or any
of it's variations) environment, in others there are better solutions. A
couple of those instances being for example the home user market or an
office environment. I'll be one of the first to admit (and this is a
personal opinion) that the Win9x series of OS's are not one of the better
ones out there. However the NT series is comparable if not better than most
other OS's, in most aspects including useability, stability and
administration. One of the most important aspects (for both Win9x and NT) is
the availability and inter-operability of applications. This is where MS
wins hands down whether one likes it or not. For all it's flaws Win9x is
much more usable than any Unix environment in it's respective marketplace. I
mentioned before and I'll say it again, one of the shops I worked for ran a
mixed SCO and NT environment and we rarely had problems with either OS. The
front office ran 95. That decision was based on hardware requirements
otherwise we would have used NT instead. There's no way we would have put
them in a Unix environment. The application and useability factors simply
ruled that out.
As for stability, in this day and age all OS's are stable enough. It's
improperly written drivers and applications that cause problems. Give any
decent programmer any OS and I'll bet they can write an app that will drive
it to it's knees.
Instead of knocking MS perhaps one should be pushing Sun to provide a decent
framework and development environment and perhaps move their thinking ahead
30 years or so. I'll tell you right now, CORBA and EJB aren't going to cut
it. They have a decent hardware product to start with so it shouldn't be too
hard. If a little company like BeOS can do it there's no reason Sun can't. I
sincerely hope that the mentality of the contributors on the Unix side of
this discussion isn't indicative of Sun's strategy otherwise I don't see
that happening.
Brian K. White <br...@aljex.com> wrote in message
news:0lVm6.316982$w35.51...@news1.rdc1.nj.home.com...
Mike Kenyon - David Austin Roses Limited
> With regards to protocols and standards being 'perverted':
> You among others keep mentioning names but no specifics. In order to see
> your point details and specifics would helpful otherwise that would be like
> me saying (over and over again) Unix sucks with out giving any reasons.
Java has been mentioned numerous times in this thread. As I understand it,
Microsoft is alleged to have removed (something which Sun's license forbids)
sections of the core Java API and replaced it with Windows-specific calls,
thus making Java applications created with Microsoft's toolkit un-runable on
systems which are fully-compliant with the Java spec.
Kerberos: Microsoft add another head or something? :)
There are way too many newsgroups being cross-posetd to here!
--
Mike Kenyon <mi...@davidaustinroses.co.uk> | Tel: +44 (0) 1902 376351
I.T. Manager for David Austin Roses Ltd | Fax: +44 (0) 1902 372142
Alan Silver
<to...@pcunix.com> writes
>But your typical little MSOFT shop doesn't. They COULD, but
>all they know is FrontPage or something like it, so somebody
>hand edits every week or even every day and posts it.
>Manually. Because they can, and because the very idea of
>scripting never occurs to them.
Whilst I agree with a certain amount of what you are saying, I think you
are wrong here. No professional web designer would do it this way. No
professional web designer would use FP for that matter. As for amateurs,
well I've seen exactly what you describe on all systems, UNIX, MS, etc.
This is a professional vs amateur argument, not Microsoft vs anyone
else.
Now I agree that MS is partially responsible for producing legions of
amateurs, but that's not really the same thing as you're saying. As it
happens, FP makes it quite easy to do dynamic updates with scripts, so
there's actually more chance of your FP amateur doing it that way than
your UNIX amateur, who would probably shudder at the sight of any kind
of scripting language.
J. L. Schilling
: Ian R wrote:
:> With regards to protocols and standards being 'perverted':
:> You among others keep mentioning names but no specifics. In order to see
:> your point details and specifics would helpful otherwise that would be like
:> me saying (over and over again) Unix sucks with out giving any reasons.
: Java has been mentioned numerous times in this thread. As I understand it,
: Microsoft is alleged to have removed (something which Sun's license forbids)
: sections of the core Java API and replaced it with Windows-specific calls,
: thus making Java applications created with Microsoft's toolkit un-runable on
: systems which are fully-compliant with the Java spec.
: [...]
: There are way too many newsgroups being cross-posetd to here!
I posted something before about Microsoft and Java, but I cut down the
number of newsgroups so I guess not everyone saw it :-) Yes, Microsoft
did alter the Java API, as part of an attempt to undermine its universality
while still making it a useful programming language for Windows (embrace,
extend, destroy). Sun sued them, and basically won; Microsoft products that
use Sun's Java technology are now frozen at an old, out-of-date version of
Java (1.1.4 I think) and Microsoft is basically out of the Java space and
pushing technologies that compete with it (C#, .NET, all that).
All that said, Java is not the best example of "Microsoft perverting
standards". First, Java was a young technology then (still is in many
ways) and some of what Microsoft did may have been partly motivated on
legitimate technical grounds (Netscape was forced to alter the API as
well in places). Secondly, Java is more controlled by a particular
vendor (Sun) than your average open standard or protocol. (This situation
is improving, however, thanks to Sun's revised Java Community Process
program, where other companies and institutions do now have a real say in
the evolution of the Java language.)
--
Jonathan Schilling SCO, Inc. j...@sco.com
Peter F. Dubuque
> All that said, Java is not the best example of "Microsoft perverting
> standards". First, Java was a young technology then (still is in many
> ways) and some of what Microsoft did may have been partly motivated on
> legitimate technical grounds (Netscape was forced to alter the API as
> well in places). Secondly, Java is more controlled by a particular
> vendor (Sun) than your average open standard or protocol. (This situation
> is improving, however, thanks to Sun's revised Java Community Process
> program, where other companies and institutions do now have a real say in
> the evolution of the Java language.)
In this case, I think Sun's control is a *good* thing, and is better for
the development of Java than any of the usual external standards
organization would be.
The problem with standards organizations is that they just publish a
specification for a protocol, language, platform, etc. and have no
enforcement power. Look at CSS...it's a well-defined standard controlled
by the W3C. Microsoft chooses to implement a lot of CSS level 1, some of
CSS level 2...but not the full specification in either case. Yet they claim
"support for CSS" in their browser. As for HTML, a specification exists,
but browsers vary in which tags they support, allow malformed HTML (thus
enabling HTML writers to be sloppy), and allow nonstandard proprietary
tags. As a result, web developers need to jump through hoops to get
consistent results from one browser to another. And who is going to fix
this? The W3C doesn't own a trademark on HTML or CSS, even though they
publish the specification. It has no enforcement authority...its finished
standards are all labeled "recommendations."
In Sun's case, they *do* control the Java trademark. Anyone can create
their own implementation of Java, but to call it Java, they must be
fully compatible with Sun's reference implementation. And Sun has the
financial resources to enforce this with legal action if necessary. Does
this allow Sun to unilaterally change the language? Sure. But with the
Java Community Process in place, I doubt you'll *ever* see a so drastic a
shift as, say, VB.NET is from previous VBs.
Bill Vermillion
I<ia...@notquitesure.net> wrote:
>I see, now OS's are comparable to tv dinners and kit cars.. uh
>huh.... If I had a kit car it'd be staying in the back yard for
>fun. I certainly wouldn't be taking it out on the highway....
What fun is it drive a kit car in the back yard - unless you have a
really big back yard like Ted Turner [with his million acres]. Kit
cars just aren't what they used to be since the death of the Lotus
Super Seven :-) But the first Sys V's I used - where you had to
manually edit the password file - and get it exactly right if you
ever wanted to log in again - were a lot like building old kit
cars. But neither kit cars nor OSes are quite that primitive
anymore.
>Instead of knocking MS perhaps one should be pushing Sun to provide
>a decent framework and development environment and perhaps move
>their thinking ahead 30 years or so.
There are other Unix environments besides Sun. The AIX world has a
lot of proponents out there.
> They have a decent hardware product to start with so it shouldn't
>be too hard. If a little company like BeOS can do it there's no
>reason Sun can't. I sincerely hope that the mentality of the
>contributors on the Unix side of this discussion isn't indicative
>of Sun's strategy otherwise I don't see that happening.
BeOS appeared to really targeted toward a graphics/multimedia
interface. But they stumbled about a year ago. The opened the
interface to open source with the release of 5.0, and they appear
to be concentrating almost excuslive on BelA - their 'internet
appliance' software.
BeOS never really delivered on the BeBox, and concentrated on BeOS.
The focus appears now to be on BelA, in roles as an Information
Appliance or an Entertainment Appliance. They never made it in the
hardware world. You need to update your information sources a bit.
Bill
Ian R
> In comp.lang.basic.visual.misc J. L. Schilling
<j...@kauai.newjersey.sco.com> wrote:
>
>
> In this case, I think Sun's control is a *good* thing, and is better for
> the development of Java than any of the usual external standards
> organization would be.
>
I'll agree, as long as Sun doesn't let things stagnate.
> The problem with standards organizations is that they just publish a
> specification for a protocol, language, platform, etc. and have no
> enforcement power. Look at CSS...it's a well-defined standard controlled
> by the W3C. Microsoft chooses to implement a lot of CSS level 1, some of
> CSS level 2...but not the full specification in either case. Yet they
claim
> "support for CSS" in their browser. As for HTML, a specification exists,
> but browsers vary in which tags they support, allow malformed HTML (thus
> enabling HTML writers to be sloppy), and allow nonstandard proprietary
> tags. As a result, web developers need to jump through hoops to get
> consistent results from one browser to another. And who is going to fix
> this? The W3C doesn't own a trademark on HTML or CSS, even though they
> publish the specification. It has no enforcement authority...its finished
> standards are all labeled "recommendations."
>
Fair enough. But one could argue the same thing with Netscape. Their
implementation is even worse than that of Microsoft's even down to HTML.
Images , frames, CSS, DHTML, the in-famous Layer tag.... You can't blame
these problems solely on Microsoft. The W3C is useless when it comes to
anything. You need a large corporation (at least at this current time) to
produce some kind of standard. Be it Microsoft, Sun or IBM.
> In Sun's case, they *do* control the Java trademark. Anyone can create
> their own implementation of Java, but to call it Java, they must be
> fully compatible with Sun's reference implementation. And Sun has the
> financial resources to enforce this with legal action if necessary. Does
> this allow Sun to unilaterally change the language? Sure. But with the
> Java Community Process in place, I doubt you'll *ever* see a so drastic a
> shift as, say, VB.NET is from previous VBs.
>
You're forgetting that Java is relatively recent and didn't have a
predecessor. VB has been around a lot longer and rightly or wrongly required
major changes to keep up to date. The new framework is pretty impressive and
despite the upcoming migration nightmares, I personally think had to be done
at some point. At a risk of starting a war here, I think Sun's lack of
change has less to do with the community concept and a bit more to do with
Sun's lack of imagination. Just a personal opinion.
Tony Lawrence
>
> In article <3A9C0589...@pcunix.com>, Tony Lawrence
> <to...@pcunix.com> writes
> >But your typical little MSOFT shop doesn't. They COULD, but
> >all they know is FrontPage or something like it, so somebody
> >hand edits every week or even every day and posts it.
> >Manually. Because they can, and because the very idea of
> >scripting never occurs to them.
>
> Whilst I agree with a certain amount of what you are saying, I think you
> are wrong here. No professional web designer would do it this way. No
> professional web designer would use FP for that matter. As for amateurs,
> well I've seen exactly what you describe on all systems, UNIX, MS, etc.
> This is a professional vs amateur argument, not Microsoft vs anyone
> else.
>
> Now I agree that MS is partially responsible for producing legions of
> amateurs, but that's not really the same thing as you're saying.
Yes, it is exactly what I have been saying. Microsoft's
"ease of use" design encourages and enables inefficent
practice.
Again, it's the dark side of a good thing. I *like* drag
and drop interfaces. I wouldn't want them removed from
Windows or Unix. And once again (become some moron who
hasn't followed the entire thread will jump all over me
otherwise) I hasten to mention that MSOFT OS'es have the
underlying tools to do the more complex tasks that GUI's
don't do well. The problem is that just that those tools
are not well known, are not easy to use, etc.
Tony Lawrence
:> With regards to protocols and standards being
'perverted':
:> You among others keep mentioning names but no specifics.
In order to see
:> your point details and specifics would helpful otherwise
that would be like
:> me saying (over and over again) Unix sucks with out
giving any reasons.
Let me state emphatically that I am an equal oportunity
hater of OSe's.
They all suck. If you want me to tear apart SCO or Linux,
I'd be happy to rant on for a few pages. However, we were
talking here specifically about Microsoft.
Microsoft gets more disdain from me because of their "ease
of use" and because they are a greedy, immoral company (by
my standards, and let's hope by the courts). I labor under
no delusion that had any other contender been as smart or
lucky as Bill Gates, they'd be every bit as nasty and ugly
as he has been. In fact, I don't think any company gains
dominance "playing fair". Maybe in a better world we'd
limit the power and size of corporations even more than we
do just because of that, but that would be very difficult to
do without world government cooperation and would also bring
its own set of problems with it, so I don't think that's
likely to happen. It would be interesting, though.
So, yes, Unix sucks. For some of the same reasons Microsoft
sucks, and for some different reasons. Microsoft sucks for
the reasons we've been discussing.
As for reasons and examples, you've been given them. You
keep saying you haven't, but you have. That's fibbing, Ian,
just like all the fibbing Chairman Bill did in court.
daven...@sourplum.org.uk
> really big back yard like Ted Turner [with his million acres]. Kit
> cars just aren't what they used to be since the death of the Lotus
> Super Seven :-)
Well, Caterham Cars bought the rights to the Lotus seven, and produce an
excellent range of Series 3 decendents - see www.caterham.co.uk
Dave
Bill Vermillion
Thanks for that link. They look a bit strange with today's big
fat tires. The originals surely were raw with that little Enfo
engine in them. Using the classic DCOE's - my Alfa Veloce had
the DCO3's - 110HP at 1300c. [worked on a bit]