M$ could once make good software...
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| Author | Content |
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| maggrand Jul 25, 2006 9:16 PM EDT |
Well Microsoft have always created bad and expensive software. Okey that is not true. Because the best office version according to me is Office 97. It had all the thing i wanted. The next version was full of things i had no need for and also some bugs (what a suprise). So why stick whith that sh** when there are better free. Download any linux of your choice and a descent office replacement (OpenOffice, Koffice, AbiWord). Don't ever spend money on low quality products. ODF is here to stay. EU is on its way to make it a standard. So Microsoft has to make it topnotch into its own products. Otherwise it will lose its sale in EU. So again if you own any office version. Change it. If you own stocks in Microsoft sell them now.... |
| Aladdin_Sane Mar 07, 2007 1:16 PM EDT |
>Okey that is not true. Because the best office version according to me is Office 97. It had all the thing i wanted. No, it is true. I remember DOS 2.1: 1983, not 1997. I also remember Word (for DOS) WordPerfect, WordStar, IBM Displaywrite, pfs:Write, etc. My favorite was pfs:Write, but WordPerfect became a standard in college. Any of those were better than Word (except maybe DisplayWrite). MS has never had the best anything, categorically, except when they puchased/stole technology. I cannot cut MS any slack or "forgive" them their transgressions. Repeating what I've said elsewhere, "To me, MS was a small obnoxious company that made bad software. One day I woke up and MS was a large obnoxious company that makes bad software." |
| jimf Mar 07, 2007 2:03 PM EDT |
It's questionable that MS ever 'made' any significant OS. They bought DOS, IBM gave them a lot of assistance with win 3.x and 95, and, they had to hire x DEC programmers to do NT. W2k and beyond are pretty much kludge/combos of NT and 95. MS's real skill is in promotion. Selling a pig with bows, and making people believe it's a pretty girl... Now that's marketing. |
| dinotrac Mar 07, 2007 2:37 PM EDT |
Alladin_Sane - I must disagree mightily. My wife had a small word-processing business in the 80s and we used a number of word processors. Our main program, however, was MS Word, in part because it was quite good at very long documents and we found it less cryptic than WordStar. If we had started with WordPerfect, that might have been our mainstay, but we didn't and it wasn't. Word for DOS, IMHO, remains the best word processor Microsoft has marketed for PCs. Word for Windows has never seemed as tight or as elegant, WYSIWYG or no WYSIWYG. |
| jdixon Mar 07, 2007 3:19 PM EDT |
> I must disagree mightily... our main program, however, was MS Word... Having used both WordPerfect and Word under DOS, I'd give the edge to WordPerfect. I've heard other folks swear by AmiPro or Wordstar, and still others swear that the best word processor ever was Electric Pencil. What I take from this is that a favorite word processor bears a great deal of resemblence to a favorite distribution. :) |
| dinotrac Mar 07, 2007 3:57 PM EDT |
>What I take from this is that a favorite word processor bears a great deal of resemblence to a favorite distribution. :) Yes, with a caveat, at least in the old days... If you were a lawyer, WordPerfect's Table of Authorities feature was (is) mighty fine stuff. If you did large documents (we had to handle training materials for airline pilots), Word looked pretty good. If you wanted lightning fast (remember -- a 10mz 80286 was once a ripping machine), there was Xywrite. People who cut their teeth on Wang systems could migrate smoothly to MultiMate. In short, the different packages actually were, well, different. |
| DarrenR114 Mar 07, 2007 4:51 PM EDT |
I liked Wordstar's .dot commands and their keystroke commands - I didn't like all the function commands with WordPerfect. I remember that I was able to relate the commands to mnemonics - ^kb (block begin) ^kc (block copy) ^kp (block paste.) This guy explains it more thoroughly:
http://www.sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm People who prefer vi over emacs would probably have preferred Wordstar over Wordperfect. It was designed for not taking your hands off the keyboard homerow just like vi. |
| Aladdin_Sane Mar 07, 2007 5:19 PM EDT |
>I must disagree mightily. OK. >Xywrite This, I had forgotten about. Thanks for reminding me. Ami Pro can't be in the running, unless there was ever a DOS (text) version. Now text-based text editors in Linux do follow some of the old ways: joe uses WordStar keystrokes, for example. Personally, I hated WordStar, because those keystrokes did not seem very mnemonic to me. The award for most mnemonic has to go to Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS. That was cool. But if I were getting a word processor for a touch typist in those days, WordStar had it down, for sure. I propose all the above software be open-sourced, GPL'd, and ported to Linux. Why not? |
| tuxtom Mar 07, 2007 9:11 PM EDT |
Wordperfect and Quattro Pro on 286 w/640K + Everex memory expansion board to 1MB and 10MB "brick" HD running IBM DOS 3.1. Those were the days...I was a late bloomer. I had a Princeton Graphics EGA monitor that was da bomb back in those days. Colored text, baby!!! |
| dcparris Mar 07, 2007 9:32 PM EDT |
Actually, I've known some folks who would love to see a good console-based word processor. Sometimes GUIs are just overkill - especially when someone donates an old Pentium I box. ;-) |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 07, 2007 10:23 PM EDT |
What I really loved about the old word processors were the plastic strips that you put above the F1-F12 keys that listed all the keyboard shortcuts of the Fx keys in combination with Crtl, Alt, etcetera. I still have one somewhere for WordPerfect. Shift+F7 = print! |
| Aladdin_Sane Mar 07, 2007 11:55 PM EDT |
F3, F3 = Help (Cheat sheet style) >Sometimes GUIs are just overkill To what end did you have in mind? I don't know of any text mode WP that'll do proportional fonts, for example. But still, check out Synaptic's "Editors" section, there's oh, a few, there (283 current count in my setup). (Oh, looky, another 670 in Word Processors," incl. Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary.) |
| swbrown Mar 08, 2007 12:18 AM EDT |
>>Sometimes GUIs are just overkill
>
> To what end did you have in mind? I don't know of any text mode WP that'll do proportional fonts, for example. Well, as an example, it's a hell of a lot easier to write a publishable-quality paper in LaTeX than with Word or OpenOffice.org. You spend your time writing and describing the content and leave the formatting up to the system. Depending on the conference/journal, they'll often provide you with a style file to go along with your LaTeX source which will cause it to render according to their rules. It's also very convenient, as it's just raw text and you can put it under version control and get a meaningful diff when you have multiple people contributing to the paper. However, when writing papers for the medical field, as opposed to the computer science field, they often /require/ doc format. It's a pain in the ass, as you have to then spend a lot of time tweaking the formatting rather than writing the content. Eventually the features in Word/OpenOffice.org intended to get the benefit of something like LaTeX, semantic word processing if you will, will be good enough to use for this kind of thing, but right now, they're both lacking. |
| dinotrac Mar 08, 2007 2:58 AM EDT |
>To what end did you have in mind? I don't know of any text mode WP that'll do proportional fonts, for example. Word for DOS did. |
| dcparris Mar 08, 2007 7:54 AM EDT |
> To what end did you have in mind? I don't know of any text mode WP that'll do proportional fonts, for example. I wasn't the one interested in a text mode WP, so I'm not sure what the other guy had in mind. I believe he was limited to older hardware and/or just preferred working in the console. Emacs very nearly has WP capability, but I don't know if I would want to spend the time it would likely take to figure out how to use it. There was one, I am sure, that came with earlier versions of GNU/Linux, but I can't recall what it was. I'll check out synaptic, as you pointed out. swbrown: I prefer Writer over Word for writing books. OOo's document navigator is phenomenal when you need to move through 240pp by chapter, illustration, and so on. The paragraph and character styles (does Word offer character styles?) prove invaluable if you're writing technical documentation. You do have to define everything yourself, but once done, it's a cinch to modify your document. I wrote PitP almost entirely in OOWriter. I did a little cross-platform editing in Word, but eventually wound up using Writer exclusively. When I was done, I simply saved to PDF and published on Lulu. |
| Abe Mar 08, 2007 8:33 AM EDT |
Those were the good old days, when are we going to leave them behind? Enjoy what we have now and look for the future. |
| Aladdin_Sane Mar 08, 2007 1:29 PM EDT |
>Enjoy what we have now and look for the future. "Hmm..." I said, as I listen to beautiful music on my analog turntable and type on wireless keyboard using LCD... |
| jimf Mar 08, 2007 1:40 PM EDT |
Too much for me. You guys have gone way beyond nostalgia ;-) |
| dcparris Mar 08, 2007 2:21 PM EDT |
Aw, c'mon, Jim! I bet you've still got your 8-track handy. I assume you *are* old enough to remember those. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 08, 2007 2:26 PM EDT |
I wrote my own text program in Basic on a TRS-80 Model 3. |
| jimf Mar 08, 2007 2:29 PM EDT |
> Aw, c'mon, Jim! Lol, old enoug to know better. I don't even have my turntable any more. Everything has been converted to digital. |
| jdixon Mar 08, 2007 3:17 PM EDT |
> I wrote my own text program in Basic on a TRS-80 Model 3. I wrote mine in 6809 assembly on the Tandy Color Computer. :) |
| dinotrac Mar 08, 2007 3:48 PM EDT |
TRS-DOS!!! OOOOOOOOh... To this day, TRS-DOS has better support for cassettes than Linux. |
| Aladdin_Sane Mar 08, 2007 10:21 PM EDT |
>I wrote my own text program in Basic on a TRS-80 Model 3. I wrote my own graphics program in BASIC on Model I. (OK, OK, they were really asterisks, but still...) (Joan Jett's 1981 album "I Love Rock 'n Roll" is on the turntable now.) |
| swbrown Mar 09, 2007 12:32 AM EDT |
Oh yeah? I spun the disk platter with my feet while flipping the bits manually with a magnetized needle. |
| DarrenR114 Mar 09, 2007 5:25 AM EDT |
My first duty assignment was in data operations using punchcards as input. I got pretty proficient doing touch typing with the punchcard device - there was little tolerance for typos. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 09, 2007 8:00 AM EDT |
Just to discuss ancient machines for a moment... I hope to find, on Linux, an environment like ROM BASIC. Start it in a console in a particular directory, and get a > prompt, use "LOAD" and "SAVE" to get BASIC programs to and from that directory, "RUN", lines interpreted if you don't give them a line number, etc etc etc. What I've seen in learning programming is that the separation caused by writing, then saving, compiling, then finally seeing the output, requires a more mature mind just to keep track of what one did compared to what one sees. ----------- > print 5 + 4 9 > print "Hello World" Hello World > 10 print "Hello World" > run Hello World > etc operator "etc" not found. > ----------- The feedback is instantaneous, there is no separation between the program and its results. Thoughts? |
| Abe Mar 09, 2007 9:27 AM EDT |
Quoting:I got pretty proficient doing touch typing with the punchcard deviceTouch typing? The punch machine I started with had to hammer it to take. I guess that is why they were called PUNCH machines |
| DarrenR114 Mar 09, 2007 9:46 AM EDT |
Abe, I didn't say the keys were light to the touch - it *did* seem like you needed a hammer sometimes, but I'm sure you'll agree that it helped for speed if you didn't have to look at the keyboard for every keypress. There were two types of key punch machines in that shop that I remember ... there was the really old one that had the cylinder for loading the card template - the keyboard was more like using a mechanical typewriter. And then there was the more "modern" one where the keyboard was more like a Selectric typewriter - you put it in "program" mode to read the templates and simply fed the template card in to be scanned. |
| Abe Mar 09, 2007 10:16 AM EDT |
Quoting:I didn't say the keys were light to the touch - it *did* seem like you needed a hammer sometimesI know you didn't. What I was trying to imply is, I did so much card punching I still type the same way on the nice and soft keyboards we have today. |
| tuxtom Mar 09, 2007 10:52 AM EDT |
Hey Dino and Aladdin: http://sandiego.craigslist.org/sys/291174906.html Think I should buy it? |
| swbrown Mar 09, 2007 1:16 PM EDT |
> I hope to find, on Linux, an environment like ROM BASIC.
[...]
> The feedback is instantaneous, there is no separation between the program and its results.
>
> Thoughts? Interactive shells for languages are extremely common, and even graphical ones ala smalltalk. E.g., run Python with no arguments. Your example: >> print 5 + 4 >9 >> print "Hello World" >Hello World >> 10 print "Hello World" >> run >Hello World >> etc >operator "etc" not found. >> Becomes: >>> print 5 + 4 9 >>> def main(): ... print "Hello World" ... >>> main() Hello World >>> etc Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 1, in ? NameError: name 'etc' is not defined >>> |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 09, 2007 1:39 PM EDT |
I'd heard about python, but not tried it myself. Everything I'd read was "write it first, then run it". Glad to know I was uninformed. There is hope. |
| jdixon Mar 10, 2007 4:37 PM EDT |
> I hope to find, on Linux, an environment like ROM BASIC. I can't speak for IBM compatibles, but you might want to look at the following pages: Tandy Color Computer: http://members.cox.net/javacoco/ Tandy Model 1/3/4: http://www.tim-mann.org/xtrs.html The Color Computer, Model 1 and Model 3 all included Basic in ROM. |
| tracyanne Mar 10, 2007 5:15 PM EDT |
Actually Microsoft do make some excellent software. Visual Studio (now currently VS 2005) is an excellent piece of software, not the least because there is nothing in Free Software, or even other proprietary software that comes even close to the functionality and ease of use. I'd love to have a Linux version of Visual Studio, maybe with a lot of work monodevelop will get close, one day. |
| Abe Mar 11, 2007 7:12 AM EDT |
Quoting:Visual Studio (now currently VS 2005) is an excellent piece of software,Yes it is. As I said before, if MS knows how to develop apps, it is their development tools and utilities. MS has already added support for Python and planning for PHP & Perl support. Quoting:not the least because there is nothing in Free Software, or even other proprietary software that comes even close to the functionality and ease of use.That is not totally true. I never used KDevelop but I hear it is very powerful and keeps getting better. It is used to develop the whole KDE desktop framework and applications. There are commercial ones, which are not necessarily better, but I would say they are as good. Their problem is that they don't have an equal marketing machine and the training centers that MS subsidizes. |
| swbrown Mar 11, 2007 10:19 AM EDT |
I can't stand VS - it has no source configuration layer like with autotools, assumes all developers will be using VS, and is only usable on one platform. |
| Abe Mar 11, 2007 11:36 AM EDT |
Quoting:I can't stand VSI don't blame you but that doesn't mean others don't love it I personally don't like it either for the same restrictions you mentioned and the amount of code it produces unnecessarily. But I have to use it in corporate environment though. There are many who can't create a single line of code without VS. Those who start with VS, they almost never use anything else. I don't think this is a reflection on how good VS is, but rather how locking and badly addictive it is. Sort of like drugs, you know! The amount of open source code that exists on the Internet make VS obsolete. But for MS Windows, VS is it. |
| tuxchick Mar 11, 2007 12:01 PM EDT |
You have to love an IDE that lets you effortlessly create megabyte-sized "hello world" executables. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 11, 2007 12:10 PM EDT |
jdixon, thank you. Indeed xtrs is a Debian package. Could it be easier? :^) |
| tracyanne Mar 11, 2007 7:59 PM EDT |
quote:: There are many who can't create a single line of code without VS. ::quote And I count myself as one of them, and I can't for the life of me see the point of writing boilerplate code by hand. I never did it when I was a mainframe developer on WANGs (yes I've been around that long), and I certainly see no point in doing it now. Mono develop is almost good enough, all that's missing is the GUI development interface for building Web apps. As soon as that's available I'll have something I can almost decently develop web apps on Linux. |
| Abe Mar 12, 2007 10:07 AM EDT |
Quoting:all that's missing is the GUI development interface for building Web apps. As soon as that's available I'll have something I can almost decently develop web apps on Linux.There are IDEs already for developing web page on Linux. Quanta and Vnu are couple. If you want to learn and develop for/on Linux, let Google be your friend and search for examples on the Internet. You will find so much code and tutorials that will last you for ever. |
| DarrenR114 Mar 12, 2007 10:30 AM EDT |
@Abe - you mean that programming is just an informal course titled "Plagarism 1001"? |
| Abe Mar 12, 2007 10:51 AM EDT |
Quoting:you mean that programming is just an informal course titled "Plagarism 1001"? I wouldn't call it that. It is good old clean open code sharing. Much of it released under GPL. Here is a link for anyone to clarify and avoid Plagiarism. http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml |
| bigg Mar 12, 2007 10:58 AM EDT |
> you mean that programming is just an informal course titled "Plagarism 1001"? It is, sort of, if you know what you are doing. You are either copying your old code or someone else's for most of what you want to do. |
| hkwint Mar 12, 2007 11:03 AM EDT |
KDevelop did pretty well for simple rather low level C++ programming (no, not hardware or kernel stuff, far too low for me, just some OpenGL point-plotting functions), I believe. Since it was version 0.5 back then and 3.4 now, a lot must have changed. Be sure to give it a look. |
| tracyanne Mar 12, 2007 9:39 PM EDT |
quote:: There are IDEs already for developing web page on Linux. Quanta and Vnu are couple.
If you want to learn and develop for/on Linux ::quote That's NVU. Tried them, colour me under whelmed. |
| tuxtom Mar 12, 2007 11:10 PM EDT |
Eclipse |
| Abe Mar 13, 2007 8:54 AM EDT |
Quoting:Tried them, colour me under whelmed.They are not perfect and I don't use them, but are very good to start with. Or would you rather use FronPage?!!! |
| tracyanne Mar 13, 2007 4:34 PM EDT |
quote:: They are not perfect and I don't use them, but are very good to start with. Or would you rather use FronPage?!!! ::quote There is simply no comparison, Frontpage doesn't even rate high enough to be called junk. Quanta, NVU, Bluefish are all good products, but they arn't quite good enough to rate alongside Visual Studio. VS is a fully professional development tool designed to make developing applications - especially web apps - a doddle. You don't have to think about all that boiler plate code that Quanta, NVU, Bluefish leave you to deal with. Eclipse, doesn't quite get there either. As much as I hate to admit it, development work with VS is so much easier and it fulfills it's promise of freeing me up to worry about higher level stuff like the business logic. Rails and similar tools for Python and PHP may actually achieve this, but I don't know as I don't program in Ruby or Python or PHP. MonoDevelop promises to implement similar functionality to that of Visual studio, if it does then it will be a very useful tool, and one I can use to develop applications on Linux - which would please me no end, as I miss a lot of the things that make Linux such a pleasure to work on - multiple desktops, fully configurable windows (frame less, floating on top of all others, forced sizing, removable tool bars etc) smart text editors that don't assume you want to dump binary data into them when you copy and past files, a file manager that doesn't assume that dragging files from one location to another is always a move, or that dragging files my computer to a location on a file server is always a copy. I could go on. |
| tuxtom Mar 13, 2007 6:28 PM EDT |
@tracyanne: I only mentioned Eclipse as an IDE...I have used it for Java, C and even the PHP plugin. It's a solid tool. A lot of vendors are basing their IDE's on the Eclipse framework. I have not really investigated any plugins for "visual web development", which sounds to me like what you are looking for. I'm sure Microsoft spent well into the eight figures to produce VS 2005...you are just not going to find that level of investment into the development of a similar tool for Linux...especially one that is Open Source. I was doing some .NET last year in VS 2005 and was infatuated with it for a while, but now that I have been away from it I don't miss it at all...I even formatted the partition it was on with ReiserFS. I think you will need to learn to adjust and use some different tools/technologies if you want to develop on Linux. The MS promise of freeing you up is also their method of locking you in. |
| tracyanne Mar 13, 2007 7:17 PM EDT |
quote::
I'm sure Microsoft spent well into the eight figures to produce VS 2005.. ::quote more than likely quote:: you are just not going to find that level of investment into the development of a similar tool for Linux... ::quote That's probably why I can't find one that leaves me free to concentrate on the business objectives, rather than the boiler plate stuff. quote:: I think you will need to learn to adjust and use some different tools/technologies if you want to develop on Linux. The MS promise of freeing you up is also their method of locking you in. ::quote Personally I think that's just a way of excusing FOSS from not providing a really decent tool set. I'm locked in because there is nothing in FOSS that i've come across that the usability that need. All FOSS developers need do is copy and extend, instead there seems to me that there is an elitist not invented here attitude. On the other hand I think that the Mono/MonoDevelop teams will deliver something that meets my requirements, simply because they are copying. Mind you they also cop a lot of flack for their insistence on developing Mono and it's associated projects. |
| dcparris Mar 13, 2007 7:28 PM EDT |
> As much as I hate to admit it, development work with VS is so much easier and it fulfills it's promise of freeing me up to worry about higher level stuff like the business logic. Oh the irony! The only person I've ever known that has anything nice to say about VS is a GNU/Linux gal. The heavily pro-MS IT staff on my full-time gig seem to like VS about like they like using oysters for bath sponges. Indeed, they might prefer the latter. |
| tracyanne Mar 13, 2007 8:37 PM EDT |
quote:: Oh the irony! The only person I've ever known that has anything nice to say about VS is a GNU/Linux gal..... ::quote Life's full of contradictions. ;) |
| tuxtom Mar 13, 2007 9:46 PM EDT |
elitist? Do you mean "colour me underwhelmed" elitist, or "they arn't quite good enough to rate alongside Visual Studio" elitist? Perhaps you should "concentrate on the business objectives" by hiring a software developer to do the programming for you. How's that for 1337? |
| tracyanne Mar 13, 2007 10:21 PM EDT |
quote:: elitist? Do you mean "colour me underwhelmed" elitist, or "they arn't quite good enough to rate alongside Visual Studio" elitist? ::quote No elitist as in "we're Free and Open Source, so even though we don't have anything as good, we're still better" How's that for 1337? How's that for elitist. Personally I'd love to give up programming, but at the moment I can't afford it, I need to eat. What I'd really love to be doing is working full time promoting Desktop Linux. I know from experience, and my own canvassing, that Linux will work just fine, as it is, for a large proportion of windows users. |
| tuxtom Mar 13, 2007 11:37 PM EDT |
@tracyanne: You are more than welcome to stay with MS Windows and Visual Studio. You brought the issue up, and people here have tried to be helpful and point you to alternative resources. They have also shown considerable restraint, given the forum. Trust me, they have shown my Inner Troll far less restraint. Apparently this is not satisfactory to you. Perhaps your efforts would be better served by directly contacting the developers of the tools that you are dissatisfied with...and putting your money where your mouth is by helping fund the development of the projects that you hope to see the most benefit from, like Mono. You might also explore commercial offerings pertaining to the type of development you are doing that are available for Linux. (Someone else will have to help you there. I have only investigated embedded development tools that are built on the Eclipse framework, tools that cost $10,000+ per seat annually.) Many of the benefits that you have mentioned you would get by using Linux, most notably file/window management and virtual desktops, can be accomplished by learning how to use and configure the Windows operating system and/or downloading third-party tools/add-ons. So, I'm not sure what you hope to gain from using Linux, given your disdain for the FOSS community and their contributed offerings. Life is too short to be unhappy...use what you are happy with. Is your Inner Troll just expressing himself? If so, I understand. Trust me, I have one, too. The folks around here like to keep their trolls house trained. I find it's more fun to let mine loose on Digg. ----- BTW: It's not fair to edit in conciliatory closing paragraghs while someone is typing up a heated response to your post! 8^) |
| tracyanne Mar 14, 2007 2:45 AM EDT |
quote:: You are more than welcome to stay with MS Windows and Visual Studio. ::quote I have no desire to stay with Windows. quote:: You brought the issue up, and people here have tried to be helpful and point you to alternative resources. ::quote Be that as it may, those alternative sources are unsatisfactory for reasons I've already stated. quote:: They have also shown considerable restraint, given the forum. ::quote While it's appreciated, I haven't set out to insult anyone, and it is their choice. But if anyone wants to get upset with me that also is their choice. I only wanted to point out some facts as I understand them. quote:: Perhaps your efforts would be better served by directly contacting the developers of the tools that you are dissatisfied with...and putting your money where your mouth is by helping fund the development of the projects that you hope to see the most benefit from, like Mono. ::quote I was fairly actively involved on the Mono mailing lists during the early alpha stages, and made a few bug reports, as time permitted, I have made the odd post from time to time since then, but haven't had the time to really to make any constructive comments, I am still on the mailing list and follow the project. The project is developing pretty much as I would have wanted, if I had any real say in it, in any case. If I had the money I would most certainly contribute a lot more than I do. The best I can do at the moment is pay for my copy of Linux by using the commercial version rather than the free download version, to that end I'm a fully paid up Silver level Mandriva Club member, I think my Linspire Membership expired last month. quote:: Many of the benefits that you have mentioned you would get by using Linux..use what you are happy with. ::quote I started experimenting with Linux in 2000, after a colleague demonstrated his Debian system to me. On his advice I didn't try Debian, I found Mandrake and liked it. My reason for trying Linux, Viruses, and poor security in general on Windows, and the promise by Microsoft to introduce WGA. My reason for staying, Viruses, easy security, the reasons expressed above, Freedom, no WGA, no DRM, and a damn better GUI out of the box. I gave up using Windows for personal use in 2002, and have used Linux exclusively on my home systems ever since. Unfortunately I like to eat, and the only work I can get around here is developing web applications on Windows. quote:: Is your Inner Troll just expressing himself? ::quote I have no interest in Trolling, no matter what anyone might think. I am dead set serious. I happen to believe in Linux as a great Desktop system. On the other hand I'm not blind to it's weaknesses. Also I've put a lot of my personal time into looking at what your Ma and Pa Kettle types who buy a computer at Harvey Norman (or whatever superstore you have where you are) are after and what they do with their computer. I've also tried selling Linux based systems to small business in this area (at least finding out what their needs are and if they can be met in a way that won't send me or them broke, so far the sticking points are things like Quicken and Quickbooks - and i'm afraid it's not satisfactory to expect these people to shell out for Codeweaavers or understand WINE in the hope that the version of Quickbooks that's available in the retail store will work. They don't need geek or leet solutions, they need a solution that works the same way as the solution does on windows, it has to be completely transparent, and Linux is not there yet.. unfortunately. As good as Linux is, in my opinion, there are still areas, and important areas where it is let down by lack of tools that are comparable with what Microsoft has - Visual Studio is one, and an important one as far as i am concerned. Other people who would change have other applications/tools. In many way Linux has got to be not just perceived as, as good as Windows, buy the general public, but perceived as better, and at the moment I don't think it's perceived as anything like as good. That might change if DELL sells pre installed Linux. I think, as unpleasant as it is, that rather than dissing Microsoft all the time, we need to face the unpleasant facts about Linux, and instead of simply turning a bind eye to them actively work to improve on them. Your suggestions as to what I should do are suggestions that we all should take to heart. ----- quote:: BTW: It's not fair to edit in conciliatory closing paragraghs while someone is typing up a heated response to your post! 8^) ::quote I sorry about that, but it occurred to me that the bit about getting another programmer to do my job needed answering, and as no one had posted yet I took a punt. |
| jdixon Mar 14, 2007 3:09 AM EDT |
> Be that as it may, those alternative sources are unsatisfactory for reasons I've already stated. I'm not sure if it's still available or not, but did you ever look at Borland's Kylix? |
| mjjohansen Mar 14, 2007 5:50 AM EDT |
I always thought an Ncurses version of WordPerfect 5.1 would be the coolest. Word processing is the one thing I can't do without X. |
| DarrenR114 Mar 14, 2007 5:55 AM EDT |
I've used VS for some really indepth projects dealing with Speech to Text applications, Data Feeds, and Business Intelligence Reporting. I've also found that Eclipse 3.2 has been more than suitable as a replacement for VS - including VS.Net. Here's something for you to try with VS - create three if statements in C++: 1. if (evaluate something) { do something 1; do something 2; } else { do something 3; do something 4; } 2. if (evaluate something) do something 1; else do something 2; 3. if (evaluate something) do something 1; else { do something 2; do something 3; } You should recognize all three as being valid structures within standard C++. In fact, all three will compile just fine within VS. But if it still works like it did in 2005, statement #3 will always fall through to the else. There are many other quirks with the compiler we found that make VS really unsuitable as a development tool. |
| dcparris Mar 14, 2007 6:32 AM EDT |
Tuxtom: I don't believe traceyanne is trolling. She might be annoying at times, but I think she mostly just has a different perspective. Judging by what I know of her beyond LXer, I think you would find her quite feisty in a real flame war. The gal's got spirit - no doubt about it. I also suspect she's a bit younger than some here, but some things can only be gained by age and experience. I think Darren's response is a little more 'on beat'. My $0.02. |
| tuxtom Mar 14, 2007 10:40 AM EDT |
dc: I agree wholeheartedly. I was using the term "Inner Troll" only to express that part of us (which I know of myself) that continues to beat the dead horse, so to speak. Perhaps I was too adamant in my responses. If anyone can be annoying at times it is me. tracyanne: My comment about editing the closing paragraph was intended to be conciliatory. I know you are a sincere advocate of Linux. That being said, the world is not a perfect place and FOSS isn't perfect any more than Microsoft is. I can't speak for everyone, but I gravitate to FOSS because I like it better, not because I want to prove it's better....it's already proven itself to me and that's good enough. It's an intuitive thing, not necessarily a logical one. Yes, I have grandstanded and diminished Microsoft at times, but that is not my agenda (in fact, I have complained that LXer had become more of a Microsoft bashing board than a Linux News site). You might be surprised that I still boot up my only NTFS partition on one of my laptops occasionally when I need to use Quickbooks (I'm salaried right now so I don't use it much). It installed under Crossover Office, but won't run. GNUCash "colours me underwhelmed". I also use it for certain vendor webcasts that just refuse to run in any browser under Linux...which is another bitter story. So please, Lass, take my comments with a grain of salt. |
| dcparris Mar 14, 2007 1:03 PM EDT |
It's entirely possible that I may have taken both of you the wrong way - assuming y'all were heading for a flame war when you weren't. |
| tracyanne Mar 14, 2007 1:47 PM EDT |
quote:: I'm not sure if it's still available or not, but did you ever look at Borland's Kylix? ::quote I haven't coded in Pascal since I was at Polytech doing computer studies, back in the 1980s, we used TurboPascal, it has a one pass compiler, so you had to code your lowest order functions first, never did get my head around that. quote:: I've also found that Eclipse 3.2 has been more than suitable as a replacement for VS - including VS.Net. ::quote If someone can point me in the right direction for setting up Eclipse for Web Development, I'd happily give it a real try, Java and C# (which I code in these days) are pretty close, so the transition shouldn't be all that hard, at least for a few simple apps as tryers. quote: I also suspect she's a bit younger than some here, ::quote Don, you're a sweetie. |
| dinotrac Mar 14, 2007 2:49 PM EDT |
>Don, you're a sweetie. Not all that sweet. Some of really are old and crusty. BTW -- Turbo Pascal was the first compiled language I bought for my first PC. Liked it a lot, even though I moved quickly on to C. If I recall, it cost 39.95 and fit on a single 360K floppy disk. FWIW, I purchased it at the original SoftWareHouse in Dallas. Name may not mean much to you these days, but SoftWareHouse grew and grew and grew. Today it's called CompUSA. |
| dcparris Mar 14, 2007 4:01 PM EDT |
> I haven't coded in Pascal since I was at Polytech doing computer studies, back in the 1980s, Well then, you've dated yourself. You're at least as old as me. Still, I don't know if anyone is as old as dino. ;-) You really do strike me as younger though. I was guessing you were fresh out of college. No question about it, you're a real character - no wonder you fit in here. Dino: Wasn't it one of your classmates that invented the sliderule? |
| jimf Mar 14, 2007 4:48 PM EDT |
> Still, I don't know if anyone is as old as dino. ;-) Just a young punk to me :D |
| tuxtom Mar 14, 2007 5:05 PM EDT |
Ahhhh, everything seems to be OK. @tracyanne: Here are a few Eclipse links that might be helpful...you may have already found them: http://www.eclipse.org/webtools/main.php http://www.myeclipseide.com/ContentExpress-display-ceid-54.h... http://www.improve-technologies.com/alpha/esharp/ ...Google for more. @ Dos D's: I still have my Pascal text and a DOS copy of Borland Turbo C++ Builder...but my first programming language was PL/1 on an IBM S/390 mainframe. I'm really not THAT old, but the equipment at my college was! These days you are old if you remember Netscape. |
| tracyanne Mar 14, 2007 6:50 PM EDT |
quote:: These days you are old if you remember Netscape. ::quote Crikey! I remember Netscape, used to use it. quote:: You really do strike me as younger though. ::quote I've been told many a time to act my age. I'm just not a good actor. |
| jdixon Mar 14, 2007 9:12 PM EDT |
> Dino: Wasn't it one of your classmates that invented the sliderule? Nah, that came later. Dino and company were still using abacuses. :) Edit: I should add that I did in fact learn to use a slide rule in high school, and have used one on occasion. I think we still have two floating around the house somewhere. I cut my teeth on the TI-30 though. |
| dinotrac Mar 14, 2007 9:21 PM EDT |
jdixon - Slide Rules. Ah, the good old days. Used to be everybody was required to learn the art of the good old logarithmic rule. Do you remember the giant wall-mounted slide rules classrooms used to have? One thing's for sure -- You never had to worry about the battery going out. |
| tuxtom Mar 14, 2007 9:26 PM EDT |
Welcome to LXer, Sr. |
| dinotrac Mar 14, 2007 9:28 PM EDT |
>Welcome to LXer, Sr. You got a problem with that, Bud? If you do, just stand still long enough for my eyes to sort of bring you into focus and I'll beat some sense into you. OK -- maybe not beat, but tap annoyingly at you. That'll show you, by gum. |
| tuxtom Mar 14, 2007 9:53 PM EDT |
No problem at all...I'm feeling younger already. |
| dcparris Mar 14, 2007 10:21 PM EDT |
I always tease my dad about having graduated in the same class with Moses. I can go back as far as the Apple IIe. Not sure I can go any further. We got an Intellivision game console as kids, and my cousin had Atari. |
| tuxtom Mar 14, 2007 10:55 PM EDT |
My dad is retired now, but he was a data processing manager for a major airline for many years. It's funny to watch him hunt-and-peck on his Mac these days. It's ironic that although he held that position, we never had a computer at home. We did get stacks and stacks of green and blue bar computer print out to draw on. He gave me his old slide rule, though I never learned how to use it....I'm a TI kid. Do you remember that handheld LED football game where you clicked the dashes to the finish line? I forgot what those were called...must be getting old. |
| jimf Mar 15, 2007 1:43 AM EDT |
> the giant wall-mounted slide rules classrooms used to have? Oh yes! A friend of mine has one tucked in his attic and I've been tryng to talk it out of him for years with no luck. |
| techiem2 Mar 15, 2007 6:15 AM EDT |
heh.
Guess I'm one of the younger ones hanging around.
My first comp was a 486 I got in '93.
Though we did have an Atari 800 for a while when I was real young (*sigh*. Wish we still had it.).
/me giggles at all the old people
;) |
| tuxtom Mar 15, 2007 8:53 AM EDT |
Yeah, well, when I was a kid, we had to walk 10 miles to go to school...barefoot...in the snow...uphill both ways. That didn't leave us much time to play with them fancy computers. |
| dinotrac Mar 15, 2007 9:00 AM EDT |
>Yeah, well, when I was a kid, we had to walk 10 miles to go to school...barefoot You had a school? And feet? I had to waddle along on my flppers until they finally evolved into feet. |
| tuxtom Mar 15, 2007 9:13 AM EDT |
Pong was a lot more fun with flippers, wasn't it? |
| dinotrac Mar 15, 2007 9:16 AM EDT |
>Pong was a lot more fun with flippers, wasn't it? Flipper Pong. Those were the days. |
| tracyanne Mar 15, 2007 1:45 PM EDT |
quote:: tracyanne: Here are a few Eclipse links that might be helpful...you may have already found them: ::quote I'm looking at these, as we speak.... so to speak. |
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