OT: OS/2, Linux and Windows (was Re: TZ)

[Steve Lamb]

Wednesday, March 22, 2000, 3:26:54 AM, Simon wrote:
> No, it only implements the less efficient "NetBIOS over tcp/ip"
> transport, which isn't even the native SMB network transport mechanism.

    And this is a problem?  I don't see how it is less efficient when the de
facto standard of networking /IS/ tcp/ip.

> Samba implements little or none of the SMD network management functionality,
> and very few flavours of the many SMB dialects!  It does enought to 
> "get by" between linux and windows or OS/2!

    Which is all that is needed, the rest is just a sorry excuse for a real OS
and real remote administration.

> Fair enough. I do still run some DOS tools (like our timesheet system,
> some enbedded system development tools which aren't made anymore etc, 
> etc).

> Why?  Because they work and aren't broken so I don't need to 
> fix anything or upgrade anything or bring dead companies back
> to life to port their software to something else!

    Fine, VMWare.  Sure, it is commercial but it works.  Of course there is a
drive for making a free version of it.  There's also BROCHS.

>>    Define Linux.  Larger then the kernel?  Yes.  Larger than the kernel and
>>bare minimum for user space?  Yes.  Larger than a good distribution (say,
>>Debian with 2 CDs worth of packages), no.
> Oh read the question! I was commenting on the amount of work required
> to duplicate OS/2, which would be "too much"!

    I did read the question.  Your answer was that OS/2 was larger than Linux.
My response was perfectly acceptable to your half-assed answer.

> You must realise that this is an unusal position to take about unix! Even
> amongst it's advocates there's certainly an awful lot of opinion to the 
> contrary, unix is certainly powerful, but is rarely considered user friendly!
> This opinion does little to back up your credibility!

    Why?  I have realized something that most people do not.  "User Friendly"
is non synonymous with "newbie friendly".  In fact the two are often at ends.
When I sit down at my unix box I can work.  I don't have to get around little
OS inconsistencies, handholding and otherwise limiting factors.  I work.  I
hardly have to think about what I am doing.  That is user friendly, just
doing.

> Unix is chock full of inconsistancies: config tools vary unbelievably across
> versions and distributions, config file locations change, common tool
> command line options vary, there is a truly bizarre range of command line 
> formats accross it's utilitioes, regular expressions are different accross many 
> tools, no two X programs work the same way....!

    Yet all of these are minor and easily adjusted to.  Meanwhile I can
transfer my config files from one machine to the next and be pretty assured is
is going to work.  Try that with the registry some time or with any of OS/2's
configuration files.  First stumbling block...  What drive are you booting
from?  C:, D:, E:, QYXRSYTDHGDS:?  Mine is /.  My home is ~.  My customized
tools are in ~/bin.  My .tcshrc file hasn't changed much in 5 years.  My
.zshrc file changes only when I add new features to it.  I don't have to worry
about what drive I boot from screwing up the whole works.

    Config tools vary?  Mine is vim, what's yours?

    config file locations change.  /etc, where are yours?

    common tool command line options vary?  Well, in the realm of Linux, no,
they don't.  Linux has pretty much standardized onto the GNU tools.  Even so
there is normally only 1-2 user spaces and the vast majority of the command
line options /do/ sync up.  In fact, I'd wager 90% of what you need to get
done is common across platforms.  That is damned amazing considering the sheer
diversity of what is called "unix" these days.

    Bizarre command line formats?  What?  I know of two.  Short and long
options.

    Regexps have changed?  I know of two formats; traditional and perl.  The
difference between the two is what is escaped and what isn't.  Oddly enough,
I've never even used traditional in the 5 years I've worked with RegExps, it's
all been perl in that time.

    X programs not working the same way?  What crack you smoking?  Good stuff
since they are quite consistent and growing more so as more and more are
ported to Gnome, KDE or both.

    None of those, NONE, compared to the fact that RMB means one of several
different things depending on the object in question on Windows and, IIRC,
OS/2.  None at all come close to the problems having drive letters introduces.
None at /ALL/ overcome the simple ease of ln -s which is not possible because
your OS doesn't implement the "inefficient" inode structure.

> If you really did use "the same config files" on all those disparate unixs
> systems then some of them didn't work! [e.g. sendmail.cf]

    Three assumptions:

1: That the machines I am using have such utils on them.

2: That I was referring to system config files when I was clearly stating my
personal config files.

3: I'd use such a POS like sendmail in the first place.

root@teleute:/var/log/exim# telnet 0 25
Trying 0.0.0.0...
Connected to 0.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 teleute.rpglink.com ESMTP Exim 3.12 #1 Wed, 22 Mar 2000 07:50:53 -0800
quit
221 teleute.rpglink.com closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.

    Exim, which does have standard configs across the board.

> I don't expect it to do anything, just commenting that binary compatibility
> means that shrinkwrap software is a reality on this system, not a
> suck-it-and see experiment!

    Ohhhh, you said that Windows does it right.  You mean where the
application authors are allowed to overwrite system files at a whim?
You were saying something about "suck-it-and-see"?

> undertsanding the difference between the words "user-friendly" and "powerful",
> what happened to you?

    See my definition of "user-friendly" versus "newbie friendly" above.

> Shell, Perl, and tcl, awk etc are ill conceived difficult write-once
> languages with unthoughtout syntax based on a  weirld mix of C and 
> punctuation characters.

    Wow, your bias is /REALLY/ showing now.  Perl is ill-conceived, difficult,
write-once with unthoughtout syntax?  That pretty much describes the exact
opposite that Larry Wall thinks it is.  Pardon me if I don't go with his
version.

> Python is good, but doesn't come from the unix community and isn't at all a
> standard part of unix (or even a defacto part of it) - I've got the OS/2
> version on my system - big deal.

    Python doesn't come from the unix community?  *cough*

> REXX is a nicely designed simple powerful extensible (ANSI) standardised

    Simple, no.  Powerful, not even close.  You failed right there.

> guarantee programmers jobs by generating unmaintainable unstructured
> unpredicatable, semi-portable software!

    And you call yourself a programmer.  Sunny, I generate maintainable perl
code, quite clean.  So does several of my coworkers.  Try again.

HINT: Most /REAL/ programmers know that any language can be unmaintainable or
very clean, it all depends on the author, not the language.

> So you're prepare to agrue the merits of shell scripts, without ever
> having had to write one!

    No.  If you could read something other than your own navel you would see
that I pointed out that Perl has pretty much replaced shell.

> system ever developed - I prefer OS/2 despite it's warts because it's
> friedlier and more consistent, but is still powerful and it doesn't
> feel like working back in the 70s!

    No, it feels like working in the bunny-fluffy 60s.

-- 
         Steve C. Lamb         | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
         ICQ: 5107343          | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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