firefox is not unix, it is something horrible

? this video really is great. The germans are to the point ?
I didn't kew that Looney Tunes made "political" toons in WWII.
Thanks!
 
Profighost said:
If you used Amiga/Atari and/or Unix before Windows, you not only learned, that there was a mouse before Windows, you also missed many things for many years on Windows, other systems already had. Such as real multitasking, stable and usable functioning networking with nfs, or compare shells or Amiga's Rexx with what you have on Windows until "power-shell" ? appeared....
Click to expand...
Yes, but Windows was the first OS with 100,000,000 users. Not excellent but standard. Apple was good but changed their platform every 5-7 years - Apple II, then 68K Mac, then PowerMac, then Intel Mac. DOS/Windows was fully compatible 25-30 years from 1983 (DOS 2.0) to end of Windows XP (2008-2010).
 
ziomario said:
Turbo Pascal 5 was notable for its extremely fast compiling times. Why you said that the whole thing ran slow ?
Click to expand...
The Amiga 1000 had a 7 MHz 68000, we had to run Amiga transformer on it that emulated a 80286 PC at something like 300 kHz, then ran Turbo Pascal on top of that. Yeah, it was horrendously slow.

Profighost said:
We're talking 1980s.
There was no "computer science" yet at universities.
Click to expand...
Yes, exactly. I'm talking school (MTS; Don't know how that translates to other school systems) in '87 to '90. The school I went to (Christiaan Huygens) was the first in the Netherlands that actually had something that would eventually become computer sciences. The courses I took there was 80% hardware and 20% software. The 'software' side was mostly based around learning to code in Pascal.
 
6502 said:
DOS/Windows was fully compatible 25-30 years from 1983 (DOS 2.0) to end of Windows XP
Click to expand...
Oh, no, no, no.... Sorry, I disagree. You may have not experienced Windows before XP, then.

There are not points against Windows, only, of course.
I don't want to spread the whole history of Windows here (we're talking about firefox, browsers and how to fit this into Unix philosophy, actually)
So only that much:
The greatest thing Bill Gates achieved for humankind was to disconnect software from hardware.

Until Microsoft's DOS, and later Windows, one had to decide, which Software you want and then buy the according computer where it runs on.
Other way around ment, if you couldn't afford a machine (e.g. capable of running Unix >10k$) or the software license (e.g. Unix >10k$), you need to be settle with something (much) less (<2k$).
This was not the reason only why hardware prices were massively lowered, because since then any company can produce computer's hw, not IBM, Sun, Commodore,.... only, dictating their prices ("buy it or leave it").
IBM and Apple were almost kicked out of business then; Commodore has been killed.
But this also brought the revolutionary break-through for massive use of computers, and later the internet, and more.

One cannot be grateful enough to Bill Gates for having done that.

However, on the other hand this ain't no excuse nor greenpass for doing lots of things worse, already solved better on other systems.
Including to force users into a badly predefined, non-intuitive one-size-fits-nobdy-really structure, that will change witrh every new version.
For newcomers never ever seen anything different, this was great:
No abstract computer commands on boring textfields, but a colorful desktop promising "Everybody can use computers from the start without learning anything about them."
Besides I don't want to roll out all that free support done by legions of people just having the slightest computer knowledge to anybody unwilling to learn even the most rudimentary basics of computers, my prosecution agains MS is, that this way they made their users stupid and dependent.

For anybody already knew Amiga OS or Unix, Windows was a massive regress.
For many years. Not to say decades.
That's why people started FreeBSD or Linus Torvalds thought "crap! This can be done otherwise and better."

One may say:
First Microsoft freed software from hardware.
Then the Opensource community freed software (and computers).

Besides heavily unstable machines
(3.11, 95, 98 and even NT [the reasons for that lies in the problem we still face today, but a s not as heavily as then, is that you have a giant lot of different hardware modules that sholl wor properly together; and it was a long progress to reach that state we have to today
[again in this point mainly because of opensource, not Microsoft])
one of those thing what wasn't great was that Windows wasn't compatible with anything else
(without the massive growing pressure from Opensource they'd still be uncompatible to anything)
And the worst part:
Even not fully compatible with Windows itself.

If you ever tried to open a Word- or Excelfile from a former version (we're talking old-days, pre-XP-times, when there was no "Office" but Word and Excel, version numbers <6, pre xml-docs), and saw the jumble on your screen - if even...
...or you ever got your LAN killed, because someone connected a NT machine between all those 95ers, that did nothing else as just to took over and kill the LAN...
... could tell warstories the whole day....

.....you would not agree with "fully compatible".
Definitive: NO.

Compatibility formely (before app. 1994...1998) was clearly defined to hardware.
"IBM-PC compatible" even if it already ment MS DOS or early Windows, was as normal as "Amiga", "Atari", or what have you.

Since then compatibility is/shall be defined as the capability of reading/showing/editing data, which means files.
You have to agree e.g. on PDF, JPG, OGG.... as a standardformat for its purposes, not on which Hardware or OS it's usable.
 
I still see too many programmers who think that the language they have chosen is superior to the language that others have chosen. Don't you think,instead,that a programming language is something like a dress that fits better on someone than on others ?
 
I have used Pascal for short before C if this is important. I have made a comparison. Like you, I can say that "I see too many programmers" who think like this: "I know Pacal from school and don't want to learn anything else. Pascal can do everything. I tried to read a book for C but it seems complex. I will use Pascal as long as possible."
 
ziomario said:
a programming language is something like a dress that fits better on someone than on others ?
Click to expand...
The choice which programming language to be used shall not be done by personal flavors, which suits you better, which one is currently trendy.
Of course you're way more efficient in programming within a language your are settled in.
But if you know a programming language - if you know programming - you fit in any language quickly.
You may get the one or the other concept first, but you don't need to start all over again.

The programming language shall be chosen for it's pupose.
Nearly all languages are developed for to fit better in a special purpose, because others don't.

So if you can chose (most can't, because it's given: the boss decided, or there is already lots of code you continue working on) the best thing would be first carfully analyse the job your program needs to do. Then look which languages there are, which one comes closest, and then chose what you feel best with.
Besides there are other arguments, like is there an editor (e.g. syntax highlighting), are the compiler safe - need it to be safe, etc. etc.
It's not easy. Still you may learn an additionaly language.
But this way you may have the chance to face fewer problems, such as you need to define some type of data that isn't yet smoothly offered by the languages you already know, can be better handled... whatever.

I often face restistance when I recommend to use Assembler for small, simple 8bit-Microcontroller projects.
They all want to do C.
Well, yes, C is closest to Assembler, and have lots of advantages.
But not seldom they run into timing problems.
And I ask:"Did you measure how many milliseconds this piece of code uses to be processed?"
Blank faces.
So I asked again:"Did you changed the compiler?"
Blank faces:"Why? C is C."
No. Not necessarily. Even not if "ANSI C" is written on the box.
But apart from that every compiler produces other machine code for the same C source.
So with critical, narrow timing requirements, you'll better check the process time for your code and test if what you burden you microcontroller additionally with.
If you're doing something with UI on a PC or embedded sys with OS, you have seldom problems then.
But if you program a control loop (e.g. power electronics) where a constant frequency is mandatory to have the system stable, and if you look only at your higher language's source, blindly trust every compiler and simply rely on the speed of the processor will handle it in any case, without measuring and testing, you may run into massive probs,
not understanding them.

Best example:
Look at your FreeBSD!
You have bash scripting, Perl, Python.... - no need to do everything in C/C++.
From all languages you know you chose one best fitting to the job.
So if you're doing programming and can chose, keep an eye open, what languages there are. With which background for what purpoese they have been devolped, and chose what fit's you'r current task best.
Not what's most trendy at the moment, where's the most gossip about.

Hardcore professionals like Hunt & Thomas "The pragmatic programnmer" advice: learn a new programming language every week.
...to me... no, I don't do that much programming :cool:
 
Profighost said:
<snip>...
To understand this (Pascal), you need to see the time.
We're talking 1980s.
There was no "computer science" yet at universities.
People getting involved in computers are either urged to use that new technology, mostly natural scientists at universities or office staff of big companies (from those came most reluctance against Unix).
Or were interested in, mostly mathematicians, physicists and electronics engineers (Unix/BSD), and also technically interested students, which mostly only could afford a homecomputer (BASIC), those 1MHz, 64kB, not necessarily with mass storage but with TV connection things.
The "rest" got to computers mostly in the late 90s.

It was completely normal that anybody needed to have at least a small class in computers first before you were allowed to use them.
(At least people learned, what "save file to disk" means, instead of blindly trust the system automatically syncs with a cloud in the background ?)
Part of most of those classes also contained a bit fundamental start of programming, because this not only teaches you how a computer works but there also often was a need to write at least small programms for yourself.
There was no internet like today, where you just quickly google a free tool that does the job you need.
Most today's users simply don't get the concept of having an powerful automation monster directly in front of them and use it to automate.
They only got "powerful". ?
Book tip for the summer:
Clifford Stoll, The Cuckoo's Egg - you'll virtually dive into the Berkeley of the early 80s, get a colorimeter of computers of those days, the dawn of internet and especially Berkeley Unix.

Back to (sub)topic:
Pascal was originally never ment to be a programming language for doing real, big stuff.
(Even if modern interpreters are capable of doing a serious job.)
It was ment to lead people to programming by teaching the basic concepts of a higher procedural language (this were pre-objective times) and above all structured programming.

Those homecomputers had a very primitive BASIC in their ROMs, acting as some kind of very primitive OS.
But sadly BASIC was also promoted to be the best start to learn programming with.
That's where this GOTO-spaghetti-code crap came from.

Pascal's syntax is so cumbersome, particulary function names are so long, not to be efficient for programming, but to make the programming elements clearly visible and get closer to natural language, so total newcomers to programming would not completely freak out by seeing short, efficient, abstract syntax.
Or even Assembler, which was the only real alternative to programm something halfway usable on a homecomputer.
...<snip>
Click to expand...

I obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Illinois, USA (SIU-C) in 1986. SIU-C had a PDP-11 running one of the early UNIXes, although it was not widely available to underclassmen. Instead we mostly wrote PASCAL programs to learn basic computing concepts, on the university's MUSIC system (Multi-User System for Interactive Computing), sometimes using IBM punch cards and keypunch machines, but often using the university's full screen "Panel" editor terminals, and obtained our green bar paper printouts, which were generated by tractor-fed wide-carriage printers at the student computer lab. PASCAL was preferred over BASIC, by me and at the university, precisely because it was an available structured language, but I also wrote in machine language for 8080 microprocessors, in COBOL, and in assembly language for Zilog Z80 microprocessors and for the university mainframe computers. In earlier years I also wrote a debugger for the Z80.

I dropped out of computing after about 8 years as a business computing specialist, and as an on-again, off-again student, in 1989, to open a comic book retail store and subdistribution business, and wrote a fairly complete customized inventory control system from scratch for our businesses, over a period of about 5 years, using Turbo Pascal on one of the original IBM-PCs, which we had obtained for the store. It included an RDBMS of my own design which I implemented using dynamically loaded Pascal procedures, using names as short as XSEEK and XSCAN. Later, after our distributors started offering on-line ordering features, I added a purchase ordering subsystem which allowed us to download text file based catalogs and upload our monthly orders, which we electronically combined with customer orders using the IBM-PC. Getting back to topic for a minute, we also downloaded our catalogs from the distributors' sites using Netscape Navigator if I recall correctly, later to return our completed orders via upload or on floppy disks.

Since then, I haven't used Pascal in about 20 years, but still believe it to be a very usable structured programming language, taught to me back in those days when structured languages weren't so popular. Also, if I'm not mistaken, newer versions of Pascal allow substitutions of { and } for BEGIN and END statements.
 
6502 said:
I have used all versions from Windows 3.0 (before 3.1) to XP. Have good experience with Win16 and Win32 API.
Click to expand...
Okay. But then maybe alone or not having to exchange data with others.

I have faced many situations, when there were several Windows versions at the same time, plus other systems.
Still only in Windows you were already facing problems:
You had a 98 machine, a friend runs 95, in U's institute they have NT, and you have to work together on the same project, exchanging files.
Even that wasn't 100%.
And when some one else came along, still on 3.11 .... - faster to write it all new again.

Then this printer fits not that Windows.... no driver available for that....

And this ain't respecting at those times additionally other systems also existed, with own filesystems, code-tables and fileformats:
Apple, Amiga, Unix....

If you faced that, you would not agree to the term
"fully compatible"

Sorry, but No. Definitively not.
Most compatibilty under Windows was brought from opensource community by several small toosl you additonally install under windows, to be able to exchange data with other systems.
That came from Opensource, not MS.

And since even today's better than since,
Opensource System are way more compatible to others.
Try to mount a FAT32 or NTFS under FreeBSD or Linux.
No prob at all or at least possible.
Then try to mount ufs, zfs, ext2.... nfs(!) under Windows.
Especially if you don't own the "platinum professional business first class diamond" license... good luck with that! ?

Or we both simply have a different kind of definition what "compatible" means.
 
hardworkingnewbie said:
...Rockstar!
Click to expand...
?
(you induced me the picture of someone programming by jumping in front of his Playstation.
Yeah. Of course, that's where the future is!)

Yeah. I didn't respect this point, thought as an engineer:
"What's needs to get the job best done."
Not as a salesman :"What's produces the most positive feeling." ?
 
Profighost said:
The choice which programming language to be used shall not be done by personal flavors, which suits you better, which one is currently trendy.
Of course you're way more efficient in programming within a language your are settled in.
But if you know a programming language - if you know programming - you fit in any language quickly.
You may get the one or the other concept first, but you don't need to start all over again.

The programming language shall be chosen for it's pupose.
Nearly all languages are developed for to fit better in a special purpose, because others don't.

So if you can chose (most can't, because it's given: the boss decided, or there is already lots of code you continue working on) the best thing would be first carfully analyse the job your program needs to do. Then look which languages there are, which one comes closest, and then chose what you feel best with.
Besides there are other arguments, like is there an editor (e.g. syntax highlighting), are the compiler safe - need it to be safe, etc. etc.
It's not easy. Still you may learn an additionaly language.
But this way you may have the chance to face fewer problems, such as you need to define some type of data that isn't yet smoothly offered by the languages you already know, can be better handled... whatever.

I often face restistance when I recommend to use Assembler for small, simple 8bit-Microcontroller projects.
They all want to do C.
Well, yes, C is closest to Assembler, and have lots of advantages.
But not seldom they run into timing problems.
And I ask:"Did you measure how many milliseconds this piece of code uses to be processed?"
Blank faces.
So I asked again:"Did you changed the compiler?"
Blank faces:"Why? C is C."
No. Not necessarily. Even not if "ANSI C" is written on the box.
But apart from that every compiler produces other machine code for the same C source.
So with critical, narrow timing requirements, you'll better check the process time for your code and test if what you burden you microcontroller additionally with.
If you're doing something with UI on a PC or embedded sys with OS, you have seldom problems then.
But if you program a control loop (e.g. power electronics) where a constant frequency is mandatory to have the system stable, and if you look only at your higher language's source, blindly trust every compiler and simply rely on the speed of the processor will handle it in any case, without measuring and testing, you may run into massive probs,
not understanding them.

Best example:
Look at your FreeBSD!
You have bash scripting, Perl, Python.... - no need to do everything in C/C++.
From all languages you know you chose one best fitting to the job.
So if you're doing programming and can chose, keep an eye open, what languages there are. With which background for what purpoese they have been devolped, and chose what fit's you'r current task best.
Not what's most trendy at the moment, where's the most gossip about.

Hardcore professionals like Hunt & Thomas "The pragmatic programnmer" advice: learn a new programming language every week.
...to me... no, I don't do that much programming :cool:
Click to expand...

My question assumed that the choice had to concern several languages that can be used to achieve the same purpose. I thought you understood that. But sorry I should have specified it. And my question did not involve using a language because it is fashionable, but because you feel it or not as part of your self.
 
even, other than a Unix, that's what we have, I've been using Firefox for a decade. and I don't intend to stop using it. the worst of it is Google Chrome, something I've hated since the beginning. Firefox is full of useless things and you are right about that, but on the good side, in several versions of Firefox, the community can mobilize and maintain an exclusive, under another name of course. I wanted Seamonkey but would have to spend my time creating ports.

Firefox has its problems but it would be worse without it. chrome has a lot of optimization problems, due memory usage, not well worked by its Engineers, something that leads to high consumption. just like Firefox is becoming, all this junk, heavy. something uncomfortable.

I made a suggestion to have Seamonkey back in the project, Polemoon, something lighter. I may be exaggerating, but this will really define a unix system. on NetBSD I compile seamonkey, and that's ok, I don't need a lot of unnecessary modifications.
 
Profighost said:
Pascal's syntax is so cumbersome, particulary function names are so long, not to be efficient for programming, but to make the programming elements clearly visible and get closer to natural language, so total newcomers to programming would not completely freak out by seeing short, efficient, abstract syntax.
Click to expand...
Java has the same issue of being prone to long, headache-inducing function names. Heck, any language is prone to those.
Profighost said:
I know.
But my post(s) are already (too) long. ?
Click to expand...
Yeah, if you run into ralphbsz , the Forums will run out of disk space holding conversation transcripts ;)
 
astyle said:
I'm not a mod, but I'd still like to ask to keep politics out, and keep the discussions technical.
Click to expand...
Well, I agree that we must keep the discussion technical, but I cannot call the cartons in today's context political, and I do not see any space for political discussions there, it is just a small deviation.
 
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