Computer

In article ,
Rita Ä Berkowitz ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote:

Shawn Hirn wrote:

That's what I say, but it's always good to have the knowledge to pop
the hood and get some grease under your fingernails should the need
arise. The sad part about most Mac users is they are dead in the
water when a minimal problem arises.

Don't be so sure about that. And in terms of popping the hood, I
honestly don't know how you Windows users get along without grep. If I
was forced to do work at the command line in Windows, I would install
cygwin just to get the grep utility.

It's totally irrelevant since basic command line should be learned by every
Windows and *nix user.

The basic command like in Windows lacks grep. Do you know what grep is?

In article ,
ASAAR wrote:

On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:34:41 -0400, Shawn Hirn wrote:

Don't be so sure about that. And in terms of popping the hood, I
honestly don't know how you Windows users get along without grep. If I
was forced to do work at the command line in Windows, I would install
cygwin just to get the grep utility.

Why have you assumed that? I used grep almost a dozen times
earlier this morning, and have been using it long before Windows
poked its nose under the PC tent. The version used was actually
Chris Dunford's fgrep (for DOS), and I'd probably be still be using
the MKS toolkit's grep that I purchased long ago if a friend hadn't
"borrowed" it and then disappeared.

Right, but out of the box Windows, has no grep feature at all. Unix has
it built-in.

Ron Hunter wrote:

C J Campbell wrote:

On 2007-03-14 16:06:22 -0700, "J. F. Cornwall" said:

Pat O'Connell wrote:

C J Campbell wrote:

On 2007-03-13 17:57:01 -0700, Paul J Gans said:

C J Campbell wrote:

Anyway, I use Macs because they seem to me to be more trouble
free and they
are prettier. I cannot speak for others.



Does the fact that the base operating system is
unix make any difference?

;-)



Hey, I'm not that old!

Yeah, the beard and sandals crowd love to get into Terminal and work
with arcane command lines. All the Unix commands are there.

I don't care about the base operating system. I care about the
interface. I like the Mac interface better than the Windows interface.



I like the interface to be simple, and to get out of the way _now_
when I'm not using it. I like the Win2k style UI (but not the XP or
Aero "flashy" interfaces), the old Mac interface (not OSX), and Unix
Motif and similar UIs for Linux. I don't like animations on mouse
pointers, menus and windows that slowly display and hide
(Aero/OSX/WinXP if you don't disable that crap), and things like
semi-transparent windows which act like a bug, not a feature. I do
use the command line on Windows and Unix, Linux and BSD (aka OSX)
but am not tied to it.


A-frickin'-MEN!!! First thing I do on an XP box is make it revert to
Win2K appearance & behaviour as much as possible.

Jim (raised on Univac mainframes, 90% of my work is on Solaris now)


Whereas the first thing I did with Vista on the Mac was make it look
like OS X.

Animated mouse pointers? Who uses those. I set my interfaces to be
quick and instant.

I use animated mouse pointers, as they make it easier to locate the
things on the screen. Merely a matter of personal preference. I also
like the XP type display, but understand how some people may not like
it. I rather suspect that some would still be using the old DOS and
command lines, if it were convenient. I find businesses using old DOS
programs in a DOS box, on WinXP Pro. sigh. Luddites never die!

We have a few programs that our field techs use (to download from our
dataloggers on site visits) that are still DOS or Win 98 modes. When
the vendor doesn't update their programs, we do what we gotta do...

For some things, yes I do use a DOS command line. For others, I use the
GUI, but I want a small, fast GUI. Not a bunch of eye-candy. Hell,
most of the time I've got a half-dozen or more xterm windows open to our
development system, writing my Fortran code using vi... :-)


Jim

On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:42:35 -0700, C J Campbell wrote:

How is that limit manifested? Refusal to start the MOVE, partial
completion of the MOVE, eventual crash during the MOVE, or ???

Refusal to start the MOVE.

Thanks. I never saw that, but then I never attempted to move too
many files at a time. Many hundreds, perhaps over 1,000. Whenever
I've had to move tens of thousands of files I've been cautious,
copying first and deleting after the dust settled. But on an older
computer that was otherwise reliable for all operations, including
copying, I had Win9x crash a small percentage of the time when using
Windows Explorer to move hundreds of files at once. The usual
result was either no damage or a couple of "moved" files were moved
to parts unknown. But once, even though all of the "move"
operations were on a different physical hard drive, the crash took
out enough of the system files on the C: drive that most programs
wouldn't run. Fortunately, my tape backup/restore software was one
of the few programs still operable.

On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 19:29:30 -0400, Shawn Hirn wrote:

Why have you assumed that? I used grep almost a dozen times
earlier this morning, and have been using it long before Windows
poked its nose under the PC tent. The version used was actually
Chris Dunford's fgrep (for DOS), and I'd probably be still be using
the MKS toolkit's grep that I purchased long ago if a friend hadn't
"borrowed" it and then disappeared.

Right, but out of the box Windows, has no grep feature at all. Unix has
it built-in.

Right out of the box Windows is missing significant apps that many
or most users will soon add. But I see your point, and most will
buy a Windows app., either by knowing what they need or by browsing
in a computer store. If they don't know of grep it's not very
likely that they'll find any stores carrying it, unless it comes in
a penguin friendly box.

Shawn Hirn wrote:
In article ,
Rita Ä Berkowitz ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote:

Shawn Hirn wrote:

That's what I say, but it's always good to have the knowledge to pop
the hood and get some grease under your fingernails should the need
arise. The sad part about most Mac users is they are dead in the
water when a minimal problem arises.
Don't be so sure about that. And in terms of popping the hood, I
honestly don't know how you Windows users get along without grep. If I
was forced to do work at the command line in Windows, I would install
cygwin just to get the grep utility.
It's totally irrelevant since basic command line should be learned by every
Windows and *nix user.

The basic command like in Windows lacks grep. Do you know what grep is?

What is wrong with using the built in findstr dos command? While the
syntax is not the same as grep, it certainly performs grep and egrep
abilities.

--

Len

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2007-03-15 16:58:16 -0700, "J. F. Cornwall" said:

Ron Hunter wrote:

C J Campbell wrote:

On 2007-03-14 16:06:22 -0700, "J. F. Cornwall"
said:

Pat O'Connell wrote:

C J Campbell wrote:

On 2007-03-13 17:57:01 -0700, Paul J Gans said:

C J Campbell wrote:

Anyway, I use Macs because they seem to me to be more trouble
free and they
are prettier. I cannot speak for others.




Does the fact that the base operating system is
unix make any difference?

;-)




Hey, I'm not that old!

Yeah, the beard and sandals crowd love to get into Terminal and work
with arcane command lines. All the Unix commands are there.

I don't care about the base operating system. I care about the
interface. I like the Mac interface better than the Windows
interface.




I like the interface to be simple, and to get out of the way _now_
when I'm not using it. I like the Win2k style UI (but not the XP
or Aero "flashy" interfaces), the old Mac interface (not OSX), and
Unix Motif and similar UIs for Linux. I don't like animations on
mouse pointers, menus and windows that slowly display and hide
(Aero/OSX/WinXP if you don't disable that crap), and things like
semi-transparent windows which act like a bug, not a feature. I do
use the command line on Windows and Unix, Linux and BSD (aka OSX)
but am not tied to it.


A-frickin'-MEN!!! First thing I do on an XP box is make it revert
to Win2K appearance & behaviour as much as possible.

Jim (raised on Univac mainframes, 90% of my work is on Solaris now)



Whereas the first thing I did with Vista on the Mac was make it look
like OS X.

Animated mouse pointers? Who uses those. I set my interfaces to be
quick and instant.

I use animated mouse pointers, as they make it easier to locate the
things on the screen. Merely a matter of personal preference. I
also like the XP type display, but understand how some people may not
like it. I rather suspect that some would still be using the old DOS
and command lines, if it were convenient. I find businesses using
old DOS programs in a DOS box, on WinXP Pro. sigh. Luddites never die!


We have a few programs that our field techs use (to download from our
dataloggers on site visits) that are still DOS or Win 98 modes. When
the vendor doesn't update their programs, we do what we gotta do...

For some things, yes I do use a DOS command line. For others, I use
the GUI, but I want a small, fast GUI. Not a bunch of eye-candy.
Hell, most of the time I've got a half-dozen or more xterm windows
open to our development system, writing my Fortran code using vi... :-)


Jim


And for maintenance like that, DOS may still be the best solution.
However, DOS is a terrible interface for doing anything with a computer
other than, um, tinkering isn't the word I was looking for, but close.


I just prefer to leave it at "I like using a command line app for some
things, and I also like using GUI apps for some things, and the only
system I consider acceptable is one where you can have access to both of
them, as needed." And since Unix, Linux, OS/X, and Winders all provide
that functionality, everything beyond that is personal preferences and
whether or not the applications you wish to run have been ported to your
preferred platform.

Most people actually expect computers to produce something. Like
documents or movies or balance sheets. Who'd a-thunk-it? For actually
doing something useful -- the raison d'etre for computers and their
support teams -- the GUI is king. Most people want a word processor
somewhat more powerful than EDLIN. And they don't like having dangerous
commands like RECOVER just hanging around the disk, waiting to bite
them. They don't want to use DEBUG, couldn't care less about it.

Our database runs under Solaris. We have one graphical data editor
program providing an X Motif GUI, everything else is character-based
screen entry and display applications. Works just fine, we actually do
real work on ths system. Again, there is room for more than just GUIs
in the computing world.

Jim

Our data

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2007-03-15 02:26:06 -0700, Ron Hunter said:

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2007-03-14 16:06:22 -0700, "J. F. Cornwall" said:

Pat O'Connell wrote:

C J Campbell wrote:

On 2007-03-13 17:57:01 -0700, Paul J Gans said:

C J Campbell wrote:

Anyway, I use Macs because they seem to me to be more trouble
free and they
are prettier. I cannot speak for others.


Does the fact that the base operating system is
unix make any difference?

;-)


Hey, I'm not that old!

Yeah, the beard and sandals crowd love to get into Terminal and work
with arcane command lines. All the Unix commands are there.

I don't care about the base operating system. I care about the
interface. I like the Mac interface better than the Windows
interface.


I like the interface to be simple, and to get out of the way _now_
when I'm not using it. I like the Win2k style UI (but not the XP or
Aero "flashy" interfaces), the old Mac interface (not OSX), and
Unix Motif and similar UIs for Linux. I don't like animations on
mouse pointers, menus and windows that slowly display and hide
(Aero/OSX/WinXP if you don't disable that crap), and things like
semi-transparent windows which act like a bug, not a feature. I do
use the command line on Windows and Unix, Linux and BSD (aka OSX)
but am not tied to it.


A-frickin'-MEN!!! First thing I do on an XP box is make it revert
to Win2K appearance & behaviour as much as possible.

Jim (raised on Univac mainframes, 90% of my work is on Solaris now)

Whereas the first thing I did with Vista on the Mac was make it look
like OS X.

Animated mouse pointers? Who uses those. I set my interfaces to be
quick and instant.

I use animated mouse pointers, as they make it easier to locate the
things on the screen. Merely a matter of personal preference. I also
like the XP type display, but understand how some people may not like
it. I rather suspect that some would still be using the old DOS and
command lines, if it were convenient. I find businesses using old DOS
programs in a DOS box, on WinXP Pro. sigh. Luddites never die!

There is a lot to recommend in DOS. Typing "del *.xyz" was a lot easier
than using a mouse to select a bunch of xyz files, drag them to the
trash, and then empty the trash.

Anyone who has tried to copy a lot of files using a windowed operating
system can surely appreciate the flexibility and power of a simple
command like XCOPY. Windows has a limit on the number of files you can
move at once. Not so, XCOPY.

A lot of people, including myself, don't like having to take their hands
off the keyboard in order to manipulate a mouse. Such people are called
typists. They can do things a lot faster if not forced to use a mouse.

No, I am a typist. Those who insist on using command lines for
everything are Luddites.

ASAAR wrote:
On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 09:29:43 -0700, C J Campbell wrote:

A lot of people, including myself, don't like having to take their
hands off the keyboard in order to manipulate a mouse. Such people are
called typists. They can do things a lot faster if not forced to use a
mouse.

Those are the touch typists, as opposed to the (hunt'n) peckers.
Those that don't make the one-time effort to learn keyboard
shortcuts end up wasting more time overall by operating their apps
less efficiently. I've found mice to be better for a few things and
interestingly, some of those probably required non-standard Windows
programming to achieve.


Anyone who has tried to copy a lot of files using a windowed
operating system can surely appreciate the flexibility and power
of a simple command like XCOPY. Windows has a limit on the
number of files you can move at once. Not so, XCOPY.

How is that limit manifested? Refusal to start the MOVE, partial
completion of the MOVE, eventual crash during the MOVE, or ???

I have never run into a limit on MOVE operations, and I have moved
thousands of files at a time. This is a common operation I have done
many times over the years, and never run into a limit.
So, what IS the limit?

Rita Ä Berkowitz wrote:
Shawn Hirn wrote:

That's what I say, but it's always good to have the knowledge to pop
the hood and get some grease under your fingernails should the need
arise. The sad part about most Mac users is they are dead in the
water when a minimal problem arises.

Don't be so sure about that. And in terms of popping the hood, I
honestly don't know how you Windows users get along without grep. If I
was forced to do work at the command line in Windows, I would install
cygwin just to get the grep utility.

It's totally irrelevant since basic command line should be learned by every
Windows and *nix user.







Rita

Why? Because YOU like to type complex, hardly mnemonic, strings of
characters? Some aren't good typists, and others just don't want to
have to type at all.