[6668] in Perl-Users-Digest
Perl-Users Digest, Issue: 293 Volume: 8
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Sun Apr 13 17:17:34 1997
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 97 14:00:22 -0700
From: Perl-Users Digest <Perl-Users-Request@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU>
To: Perl-Users@ruby.OCE.ORST.EDU (Perl-Users Digest)
Perl-Users Digest Sun, 13 Apr 1997 Volume: 8 Number: 293
Today's topics:
Re: Environment Variables (A. Deckers)
How to create a C extension with Win32 Perl? (McWilliams)
Re: How to get key from value in a %VAR (A. Deckers)
Re: Kudos to Tom Christiansen and problems with OO (Billy Chambless)
Re: Last modified on files: HELP NEEDED URGENTLY (A. Deckers)
Re: Ousterhout and Tcl lost the plot with latest paper <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
perl bytecode generator??? <mobile@visi.com>
PERL C compiler & portability <otisg@panther.middlebury.edu>
Re: Perl NT problems <...petri.backstrom@icl.fi>
Re: Reply to Ousterhout's reply (was Re: Ousterhout and (Paul Wilson)
Re: security *with* a secure server <sanford@halcyon.com>
SLEEP (.5) ??? <lonewolf@driveway1.com>
Re: SLEEP (.5) ??? (A. Deckers)
Re: Unique Filename <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...) <tim@a-sis.com>
Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...) <tim@a-sis.com>
Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...) <tim@a-sis.com>
Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...) (Timothy Watson)
Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...) <tim@a-sis.com>
Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 8 Mar 97) (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 20:56:00 GMT
From: Alain.Deckers@man.ac.uk (A. Deckers)
Subject: Re: Environment Variables
Message-Id: <slrn5l2i30.jke.Alain.Deckers@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
In <5i2ede$l4p@newstoo.ericsson.se>,
John Allen XD/BZ 832 4812 <etljhan@etlxdmx.ericsson.se> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I have a problem that must have been seen lots of times, so apologies if
>it has been asked before...
Well, you could have searched DejaNews... I'm sure you read all the
relevant FAqs, didn't you?
>I am trying to write a web based toolset using perl for the CGI scripts.
>Unfortunately, the set of environment variables passed to perl by the
>html script is rather sparse and does not include $HOME, $USER etc.
Why on Earth do you need that? In most cases CGI scripts run
under the uid of the httpd server, so I doubt you'd get any usefull info
out of those env vars even if they existed.
>Is there any way to get at these variables?
Any environment variable that's available to your script will be in the
%ENV hash. Try loopiong though that:
foreach (keys %ENV) {
print "$key: $ENV{$key}\n";
}
HTH,
Alain
--
Perl information: <URL:http://www.perl.com/perl/>
Perl FAQ: <URL:http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/>
Perl software: <URL:http://www.perl.com/CPAN/>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> NB: comp.lang.perl.misc is NOT a CGI group <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 16:44:03 GMT
From: len@clark.net (McWilliams)
Subject: How to create a C extension with Win32 Perl?
Message-Id: <5ir29u$iv3@clarknet.clark.net>
I'd like to create a small C extension to a Win32 Perl script. The
Perl doc, Perlxstut, walks you through the procedure but uses h2xs
(which is not available with the Win32 port).
My configuration is as follows: NT 4.0 Server, Perl 5.003_7 build 303,
Visual C++ 4.0, gnu-win32.
Could someone tell me, or direct me to, an outline of steps I need to
follow to build an extension.
Thanks,
Len McWilliams
Frederick, MD
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 20:26:23 GMT
From: Alain.Deckers@man.ac.uk (A. Deckers)
Subject: Re: How to get key from value in a %VAR
Message-Id: <slrn5l2gbf.jke.Alain.Deckers@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
In <5i2lp5$67c$1@news0.xs4all.nl>,
basj <basj@xs1.xs4all.nl> wrote:
>I need to get the key that belongs to a value in a %VAR. How do I do that ?
>I can get the value if I have a key but I need to do the reverse lookup.
We meet again. :-)
$some_val = 12345;
while (($key, $val) = each %VAR) {
if ($val == $some_val) {
$wanted_key = $key;
last;
}
}
There may be a faster, cooler way of doing this using map and grep, but
my example should work.
HTH,
Alain
--
Perl information: <URL:http://www.perl.com/perl/>
Perl FAQ: <URL:http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/>
Perl software: <URL:http://www.perl.com/CPAN/>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> NB: comp.lang.perl.misc is NOT a CGI group <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 20:28:34 GMT
From: billy@cast.msstate.edu (Billy Chambless)
Subject: Re: Kudos to Tom Christiansen and problems with OO
Message-Id: <5irfli$sv1$2@NNTP.MsState.Edu>
In article <fl_aggie-ya02408000R1104970941310001@news.fsu.edu>, fl_aggie@hotmail.com (I R A Aggie) writes:
|> I'm neither, ergo why I didn't answer. He wanted a correct answer, yes?
You know, I don't think he specified. Damn, we could have referred the
question to the Bogud Answer Diviosn! They always give such fast
service, too!
|> + All of you, go sit in the corner and write csh scripts until you've
|> + learned to behave!
|> James - go take your csh scripts and shove 'em...where they won't see
|> the light of day...
Well, generally, of somebody's writing csh scripts, their HEAD is
already there...
--
* "We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on
* when it's necessary to compromise."
* --Larry Wall in <1991Nov13.194420.28091@netlabs.com>
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 20:47:27 GMT
From: Alain.Deckers@man.ac.uk (A. Deckers)
Subject: Re: Last modified on files: HELP NEEDED URGENTLY
Message-Id: <slrn5l2hj1.jke.Alain.Deckers@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
In <5i32i2$cav$1@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>,
Andreas Schmidt <schmidt@misun13.iai.fzk.de> wrote:
>there exists some tests for files you can perform.
>
>the tests are:
> -M filename # age of file in days
Nope. This is a commonly held misconception. -M returns the number of
days since the file was last *modified*, not since it was created.
HTH,
Alain
--
Perl information: <URL:http://www.perl.com/perl/>
Perl FAQ: <URL:http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/>
Perl software: <URL:http://www.perl.com/CPAN/>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> NB: comp.lang.perl.misc is NOT a CGI group <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 18:56:12 GMT
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: Ousterhout and Tcl lost the plot with latest paper
Message-Id: <5ira8c$pei$1@csnews.cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting sent to cited author via email]
In comp.lang.perl.misc,
Chris Trimble <trimble@walrus.com> writes:
:
: I'm sorry, Perl is not a jack of all trades. It is an abhorrent
:language for large projects that demand maintainability, and even LW and
:TC would agree with that statement.
Not always. Depends on "large". I've seen plenty of successful
Perl projects clocking in a N*10**3 lines of code, and some at N*10**4;
ie, 50000-line programs. These of course require more programming
rigor than 50-line programs do, but this is irrespective of langauge.
:I have three programmers right now
:trying to rid our company of thousands of lines of unmaintainable Perl
:code.
Many shops are saddled with bad code. Try to deal with several
thousand lines of C code that wasn't designed for maintability
and modularity, and you'll get the same problem.
:The scariest part is, some of that code is my own, and I am one
:of the most anal style programmers at the company (30 character function
:names are not uncommon). The problem is, Perl does not scale.
As a blanket statement, this is more false than true. In fact, Perl
has far more scalability than C does in most realistic senses related
to software design principles. Namespaces, imports, objects, exceptions,
failsoft characteristics, etc.
:You can
:write great small programs in it, and I still do, but you cannot grow
:the code in any maintainable fashion. One of the programmers is a Perl
:fan, but even he agrees that attempting to write this system in Perl was
:a mistake.
Perhaps your system shoudln't have been written in Perl. Some shouldn't:
I wouldn't want gcc written in Perl. But you're painting with too
wide a brush here.
--tom
--
Tom Christiansen tchrist@jhereg.perl.com
Now and then an innocent person is sent to the legislature.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 14:33:10 -0500
From: mark rostron <mobile@visi.com>
Subject: perl bytecode generator???
Message-Id: <335134F6.F85@visi.com>
Hi,
does anyone have any plans to extend perl to generate bytecodes? this
would be a very interesting project I think.
mr
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 17:30:22 GMT
From: "Otis Gospodnetic" <otisg@panther.middlebury.edu>
Subject: PERL C compiler & portability
Message-Id: <01bc482f$e5d2ee00$add1e98c@ns.middlebury.edu>
Keywords: C compiler perl portability
Hi,
I was wondering what kind of code PERL C compiler (Malcolm's) produces?
If I have a PERL script and I use this PERL C compiler to convert PERL to C
code, will I be able to just take this C code and compile it with
(cc/xlc,gcc) on anyother UNIX machine, or will I have to convert the PERL
code to C on each machine separately?
In other words, is the C code produced by this compiler 'portable' (will
compile on any normal UNIX) ?
Thanks,
Otis
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 21:51:22 +0200
From: Petri =?iso-8859-1?Q?B=E4ckstr=F6m?= <...petri.backstrom@icl.fi>
Subject: Re: Perl NT problems
Message-Id: <3351393A.3A4C@icl.fi>
Devin Ben-Hur wrote:
>
> [mail&post]
> Yuri Shtil wrote:
> > I have downloaded and installed the latest Perl for Windows NT (it is
> > something 004 as I recall).
> >
> > I am confused because it does not seem to work. For examplethe command:
> >
> > perl -e 'print "foo\n"' fails with error message like:
> >
> > cannot see "'" before EOF (I have the exact message on an another site).
>
> This not so much a perl problem as a shell problem.
>
> The NT DOS-compatibility box runs a very primitive command
> shell. The default shell doesn't understand that 'print "foo\n"'
> is supposed to be one argument, so what perl tries to execute is
> just the first space-delimited token from that command line:
> 'print
> and so it complains about not finding a "'" before the
> end of the program. The DOS command shell does understand
> that "..." is one argument, but has no mechanism for
> escaping embedded double-quotes.
Well, actually, you can embed double-quotes on Windows NT by doubling
them. E.g., as follows:
perl -e "print ""$$"""
The same approach applies to VMS.
FWIW,
...petri.backstrom@icl.fi
ICL Data Oy
Finland
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 13:49:08 -0500
From: wilson@cs.utexas.edu (Paul Wilson)
Subject: Re: Reply to Ousterhout's reply (was Re: Ousterhout and Tcl ...)
Message-Id: <5ir9r4$hrr@roar.cs.utexas.edu>
In article <slrn5krts1.8c.danh@danpc.cris.com>,
Dan Haskell <danh@danpc.cris.com> wrote:
>In article <3069617830783259@naggum.no>, Erik Naggum wrote:
>[snip]
>
>>the Distinguished Professor of Computer Science has turned into a Marketing
>>Droid. how incredibly sad.
>>
>>| If you want to know the truth, I think you need to stop making
>>| superficial excuses and ask deeper semantic questions.
>>
>>the way I read this debate, people are asking deep, semantic questions of
>>Tcl and they get superficial excuses for answers.
>[snip]
>How sad for you if you think that ad homonym arguments and insults
>constitute deep semantic questions.
>
>Can we skip the attacks on Dr Ousterhout and discuss the issue at hand?
I think that would be great. But in defense of the Tcl skeptics,
I have to say that my take on this thread is quite different.
Like any usenet thread, there's a mix of good posts and bad posts. But
many of the postings here HAVE asked deeper semantic questions, and they
have generally gone unanswered.
Critizing someone's writing as superficial, simplistic, and misleading is
NOT an ad hominem argument, if you make a decent case that it's true.
Certainly on both sides some of the rhetoric has been unnecessarily
inflammatory, but I wouldn't say that the Tcl skeptics have been
particularly bad on average. Dr. Ousterhout has the right to write
papers that seem to flatter Tcl, and others have the right to question
his claims.
Unfortunately, Dr. Ousterhout has not yet taken the opportunity to
reply constructively to the serious technical questions that have
been raised. Of course he can't be expected to reply to every
question or criticism in such a torrent, but it doesn't look good that
so far he's chosen the easy way out. In one instance, he selected the
most ill-considered posting to reply to---the one saying that Tcl was
a success mainly due to corporate backing, which is of course ludicrous.
(It's good that he made that very clear, but he's ignored the serious
questions that have been asked.)
And in his most recent posting, he apparently tried to end the discussion
by likening his critics to a bunch of lunatic-fringe paranoids who simply
cannot be reasoned with. In fact, most of them appear to be sincere and
well-informed skeptics asking serious questions. Some are even heavy
Tcl users who simply wonder why they can't have a little more cake and eat
a bit more of it too.
Sure, Dr. Ousterhout tried to avoid seeming like a bad guy, by presenting
his it in as a joking manner, but I think the implications are quite
clear---his critics are just a bunch of fanatical losers who aren't worth
talking to.
Now remind us, what's an ad hominem argument again?
And what are those who are on the fence supposed to think of all this?
--
| Paul R. Wilson, Comp. Sci. Dept., U of Texas @ Austin (wilson@cs.utexas.edu)
| Papers on memory allocators, garbage collection, memory hierarchies,
| persistence and Scheme interpreters and compilers available via ftp from
| ftp.cs.utexas.edu, in pub/garbage (or http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/wilson/)
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 11:23:12 -0700
From: Sanford Morton <sanford@halcyon.com>
Subject: Re: security *with* a secure server
Message-Id: <m3pvvyrddb.fsf_-_@darkstar.frop.org>
Suppose you do have a secure (eg, SSL) server. How would you maintain
security in your transaction processing after the data has reached the
server? Typically, you'll want to store or forward the data, for
example, mailing credit card or order information to the merchant for
authorization and order processing.
I've seen relatively little discussion of how to secure these later
steps in transaction processing. Steps which SSL doesn't address but
seem very common.
One possibility uses public key encryption on the server, which
requires only a public key, not a private key, so there's no chance of
compromising a private key. Perhaps something like
$pgp = 'env PGPPATH=/home/somebody/.pgp pgp';
$pgp_options = "-feat +verbose=0 +batchmode";
$encrypted_file = "/tmp/$^T$$";
open (PGP, "|$pgp $pgp_options her_public_id - > $encrypted_file");
print PGP $message;
close PGP;
(I haven't tried this guess, which may not work or may not be
secure. And of course, pgp is not free for commercial use.)
Are there better ways of maintaining data security in a Perl script on
a more or less public machine?
--------
Sanford Morton, Ph.D. CGI Resources
sanford@halcyon.com http://www.halcyon.com/sanford/cgi/
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 12:43:37 -0400
From: Larry Honig <lonewolf@driveway1.com>
Subject: SLEEP (.5) ???
Message-Id: <33510D39.194@driveway1.com>
Yup, this is probably real easy.. Howtheheck can I make a perl script
sleep for , let's say, half a second, or in the WINTEL world, one tick
(1/18.2 seconds) ??
Can't seem to find this anywhere..
Thanks
/Larry Honig
larhonig@hdex.com
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 17:08:11 GMT
From: Alain.Deckers@man.ac.uk (A. Deckers)
Subject: Re: SLEEP (.5) ???
Message-Id: <slrn5l24nr.h4f.Alain.Deckers@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
In <33510D39.194@driveway1.com>,
Larry Honig <lonewolf@driveway1.com> wrote:
>Yup, this is probably real easy.. Howtheheck can I make a perl script
>sleep for , let's say, half a second, or in the WINTEL world, one tick
>(1/18.2 seconds) ??
>
>Can't seem to find this anywhere..
I guess that means you didn't consult the FAQ. Search for the four
argument version of undef.
undef 0, 0, 0, $sleep_time
Cheers,
--
Alain.Deckers@man.ac.uk <URL:http://www.man.ac.uk/%7Embzalgd/>
Perl information: <URL:http://www.perl.com/perl/>
Perl FAQ: <URL:http://www.perl.com/perl/faq/>
Perl software: <URL:http://www.perl.com/CPAN/>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> NB: comp.lang.perl.misc is NOT a CGI group <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 19:43:55 GMT
From: Tom Christiansen <tchrist@mox.perl.com>
Subject: Re: Unique Filename
Message-Id: <5ird1r$sr8$1@csnews.cs.colorado.edu>
[courtesy cc of this posting sent to cited author via email]
In comp.lang.perl.misc, gbacon@CS.UAH.Edu (Greg Bacon) writes:
:: How about something like this:
:: do { $filename = int(rand(99999999)) . ".txt" }
:: until !-e $filename;
:
:*sirens and flashing lights* Race condition alert! Any time there is
:a gap between checking for the existence of something and actually
:using it, you have a possible race condition.
Exactly -- so use O_CREAT|O_EXCL and tell NFS to get lost. :-)
--tom
--
Tom Christiansen tchrist@jhereg.perl.com
"Sometimes I wish I could put an expiration date on my quotes." --Larry Wall
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 15:00:21 GMT
From: "Tim Behrendsen" <tim@a-sis.com>
Subject: Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...)
Message-Id: <01bc481b$9a797820$32ee6fcf@timhome2>
Tom Wheeley <tomw@tsys.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<860806148snz@tsys.demon.co.uk>...
> In article <01bc4681$20d9c740$87ee6fce@timpent.a-sis.com>
> tim@a-sis.com "Tim Behrendsen" writes:
>
> > Timothy Watson <tmwatson@umich.edu> wrote in article
> > <TMWATSON.97Apr10184314@lukyduk!.umich.edu>...
> > > In article <01bc45c0$691ee100$87ee6fce@timpent.a-sis.com> "Tim
> > > Behrendsen" <tim@a-sis.com> writes:
> > > > Perl4 is 33800 LOC (including comments, blank lines, etc), and
Perl5
> > > > is 51718.
> > >
> > > How about GRASS GIS (Geographical Information System) by the US Army
> > > Corp of Engineers? That's HUGE.
> >
> > I don't think you can call software developed by US Army "free"
> > software, even if it's freely distributed, since the people who
> > developed it were paid to do it.
>
> Thus gcc is not free software? The FSF employ a good few people now.
Money
> has absolutely nothing to do with the free-ness of software, save as a
way
> of preventing its programmers from starving.
It's a question of resources. Unless FSF is getting a flood of
donations, I somehow doubt that have the resources of the US
army, or most other companies.
--
=========================================================================|
| Tim Behrendsen (tim@a-sis.com) | http://www.cerfnet.com/~timb |
| "Judge all, and be prepared to be judged by all." |
=========================================================================|
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 14:58:10 GMT
From: "Tim Behrendsen" <tim@a-sis.com>
Subject: Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...)
Message-Id: <01bc481b$16abb580$32ee6fcf@timhome2>
Steve Mading <madings@earth.execpc.com> wrote in article
<5imin5$7g2$1@earth.execpc.com>...
> Tim Behrendsen (tim@a-sis.com) wrote:
>
> : 3) Motif is semi-commercial, IOW it has to be licensed from OSF.
> : In any case, yes -- before you all start with me -- Motif has
> : some nice features that aren't found elsewhere, but it is
> : primarily dominant with Unix for the simple reason that there
> : isn't anything else. It is far inferior to most of the other
> : commercial Window systems, and in fact, many thought it was
> : inferior to OpenLook. Don't even mention CDE.
>
> You contradict yourself here. First you say that Motif is popular
> only because there is no alternative, then you go on to say that
> it was worse than its alternatives (OpenLook, for example).
Well, OpenLook is dead, so it's not much of an option. In any case,
I said *some* say it was superior; I don't know much about it.
The primary reason OpenLook never caught on was that it was
proprietary to Sun, and they never pushed to have it as a standard.
--
=========================================================================|
| Tim Behrendsen (tim@a-sis.com) | http://www.cerfnet.com/~timb |
| "Judge all, and be prepared to be judged by all." |
=========================================================================|
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 18:06:33 GMT
From: "Tim Behrendsen" <tim@a-sis.com>
Subject: Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...)
Message-Id: <01bc4835$513314e0$87ee6fce@timpent.a-sis.com>
Peter Seebach <seebs@solutions.solon.com> wrote in article
<5igjho$2e5@solutions.solon.com>...
> In article <01bc4477$bfb15c40$87ee6fce@timpent.a-sis.com>,
> Tim Behrendsen <tim@a-sis.com> wrote:
> >Peter Seebach <seebs@solutions.solon.com> wrote in article
> ><5idpbv$kdf@solutions.solon.com>...
> >> This is an assertion you have made frequently, but it contradicts the best
> >> information we have about himan motivation.
>
> >I would say it's perfectly in line with the information we have
> >about human motivation. It's why Capitalism succeeds where Socialism
> >fails. If humans were more motivated by abstractions such as "wanting
> >to do a good job", Socialism would succeed.
>
> Several logical flaws:
>
> 1. You cannot correctly assume that human motivations are a global constant.
> There are differences. Some people are more motivated by money, some more
> motivated by a desire to do the right thing.
I agree, which is why I state that anecdotal evidence tells you
nothing. I base this on history.
> 2. I posit that there is a general trend in these motivations, that
> brilliance and complicated motivation are correlated. The best work is done
> by brilliant people, not by mediocre people.
>[snip]
> If I can have a house and a car on my current income, more money may not be
> enough to make me work harder. More glory may. More sense of accomplishment
> may.
I agree, but again anecdotal evidence doesn't tell us much. History
does tell us that capitalistic countries clearly produce the most
innovation.
> >But I don't even need to go there. Name one freely available
> >*significant* product that is *clearly* better than *any* commercial
> >product, regardless of price. There are some good programs of limited
> >size that are not worth a commercial entity rewriting (some may
> >say Emacs, but I wouldn't...), but I mean products of significant
> >size and complexity.
>
> Tim, you're smarter than that.
>
> Name one *commercial* product that is "*clearly* better than *any* commercial
> product, regardless of price." (assume "any other ...)
>
> You can't. There's too much variance.
>
> Can you name *any* commercial compiler which is clearly better than gcc? Can
> you even name a commercial compiler which is clearly *as good as* gcc? I
> can't. I've been stuck with vendor compilers which, no matter what
> [snip]
We just had a thread on this not too long ago comparing gcc with
several other compilers as far as optimization! And gcc clearly
did not produce the best code.
Is gcc an excellent compiler? Yes. Does it have a few bells and
whistles that other compilers may not have? Yes.
Is it the best compiler in the world bar none? No.
> How many *C* compilers can you name that will automatically inline smallish
> functions? Ever wonder why there are still compilers that never do tail
> recursion elimination?
Well, I don't know about inlining (although some compilers do have it),
but other compilers don't have tail recursion elimination because it's
a useless feature. IMO depending on a compiler feature to protect
yourself from bad engineering is a bad idea. I can't think of *any*
subroutine that is better off using tail recursion over iteration.
> >Second, you can't judge average human behavior by specific examples
> >of anecdotal evidence. Historically, financial success as a goal
> >to a comfortable and safe life for you and your family has been the
> >most powerful incentive.
> *average* human behavior is not a driving force in the best of the best.
> We're talking about what makes the *best* software, not what makes vaguely
> acceptable software.
Correct. And the *best* software is generally commercial. You can
find a temporary blip here and there where a free product is good,
but what about the 1000s of product categories where commercial
software is clearly the best?
Anyway, average human behavior is what we're talking about here,
because there are only so many brilliant people in the world. The
people who *really* make the innovative extremely complex products
are the people who can take teams of average people and lead them to
doing extraordinary work. One guy cannot do it all, which is why
the examples of excellent free software are usually done by one or
a few brilliant guys.
> To get vaguely acceptable software, you hire managers and people with N years
> of experience using proven tools for a well known target platform. You do
> *not* make progress, you just try to carve out a niche in a target market you
> think has room. Innovation is done by individuals and visionaries, and is not
> done primarily for money.
But money is a powerful motivation. Look at the history of
capitalistic countries. Brilliant people like doing brilliant
things, but they like it even more when they get direct rewards.
> Free software is only starting to migrate towards applications. However, I
> can tell you that I've used a freeware X-based CD player that was better than
> the crappy one that came with Windows, and I've seen freeware X-based editors
> that outperformed *any* windowing text editor I've ever seen elsewhere.
The only area that free software of any complexity will succeed
is programmer tools, because programmers will do them for themselves.
We will never see "average user" level applications that beat
commercial offerings, because making something simple enough to
use for the masses is "not the fun part".
--
==========================================================================
| Tim Behrendsen (tim@a-sis.com) | http://www.cerfnet.com/~timb |
| "Judge all, and be prepared to be judged by all." |
==========================================================================
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 19:09:16 GMT
From: tmwatson@umich.edu (Timothy Watson)
Subject: Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...)
Message-Id: <TMWATSON.97Apr13150916@lukyduk!.umich.edu>
In article <5iquns$dk9@clarknet.clark.net> sinecto@[anti-spam coating,
remove before use]clark.net writes:
> We have a somewhat related question about marketing new software
> technology. We have developed a new type of client-server architecture,
> which we call reciprocal client-server architecture, which allows conversion
> of existing Windows or X11/Unix into network applications automatically
> without recoding. The resulting applications can be "published" to intranets
Sounds like Sun's "Wabi" used to run Windows programs under X, so they
can be run over the net. There is a Windows add-on that can do that
now, also. You have to argue why your application is better than
theirs, not rail against the companies that ALREADY HAVE similar stuff
out there. Or is this a call for (stupid and ignorant) investors?
-Tim Watson
------------------------------
Date: 13 Apr 1997 18:27:22 GMT
From: "Tim Behrendsen" <tim@a-sis.com>
Subject: Re: Unix and ease of use (WAS: Who makes more ...)
Message-Id: <01bc4838$3b0234a0$87ee6fce@timpent.a-sis.com>
Peter Seebach <seebs@solutions.solon.com> wrote in article
<5imumr$qtf@solutions.solon.com>...
> In article <01bc4680$d375c440$87ee6fce@timpent.a-sis.com>,
> Tim Behrendsen <tim@a-sis.com> wrote:
> >I didn't say it was better or worse than anything. It is a
> >marvelous, useful program. It is simply a marvelous, useful
> >program that is not tremendously complex. Or do you think any
> >program, of any complexity, can always be done in < 100,000 LOC?
>
> I've never seen a program over about 50KLOC that didn't have a lot
> of duplication, or, essentially, a lot of databasing built in.
How about say, FreeBSD, is that less than 50KLOC? Or is it
horribly bloated with lots of redundant stuff? But still, this
is a silly argument. Big programs can be well designed just
like small programs.
> >The brilliance of Perl is the syntax and design, not the
> >implementation. Perl4 and Perl5 are uncommented crap. Quite
> >frankly, (no offense intended, Larry Wall -- I love Perl), I
> >would be embarrassed to release code without any comments.
>
> Looking at it quickly, I see very little in it that, IMHO, calls
> for commenting. The higher level design documents are not
> in the code, but the raw code is mostly fairly readable. Of course,
> part of this is that I know a bit about the layout... but it's
> really not that bad.
Come on, Peter. Think about what you are defending.
I don't accept excuses for my employees, I don't accept excuses
for myself, and I don't accept them for Larry Wall. There is no
excuse for code without comments. Period.
> >As a program gets more complex, the number of areas that are not
> >optimal or not implemented at all is going to naturally increase,
> >which is why the more complex the product, the higher the chances
> >that a commercial version is going to be better overall, simply
> >because of opportunity, greater resources and profit motive.
>
> I disagree; as a program gets more complex, the chances that the very,
> very young free community will have gotten to it are smaller, but the
> chances improve that a free one will be dramatically better, because
> the target market can be a lot wider and a lot more skilled. Also,
> the marginal value to a commercial vendor of a bug fix is miniscule.
I think you dramatically overestimate the number of people who
are willing to give away their time.
> Why does Microsoft Word not support TIFF 6, which has been the TIFF standard
> since 1992? Because very *few* customers know or care. (The symptom that's
> most visible is that M$ word will read many B&W TIFF's as W&B, i.e., will
> invert the pixels.) They admit they don't support it; they don't
> care.
Well, it's hard to blame them when "few customers know or care".
What's stopping someone from writing a converter? IIRC, Windows
has generalized converter modules. I don't know if documentation
is given on how they work, but I would be surprised if it wasn't
know somewhere. This just proves that even the free community
doesn't care.
> >Programming tools is a special case within this, since programmers
> >often program them for themselves, so they're of the highest quality.
> >Free user-level applications, on the other hand, are usually far
> >inferior to commercial ones.
>
> However, as the industry matures, this does show signs of changing.
> Compression is a user-level function, and I think gzip is at least as good
> as just about any commercial compression utility I've seen.
Hm; compare PKZIP and gzip (PKZIP includes the gzip algorithm, I
believe). PKZIP includes support for multiple files, spanning
multiple floppies, and a zillion other features.
--
==========================================================================
| Tim Behrendsen (tim@a-sis.com) | http://www.cerfnet.com/~timb |
| "Judge all, and be prepared to be judged by all." |
==========================================================================
------------------------------
Date: 8 Mar 97 21:33:47 GMT (Last modified)
From: Perl-Request@ruby.oce.orst.edu (Perl-Users-Digest Admin)
Subject: Digest Administrivia (Last modified: 8 Mar 97)
Message-Id: <null>
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------------------------------
End of Perl-Users Digest V8 Issue 293
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