Windows better than Linux research

[alexander]

Ok, i just saw one very rediculous article that i will ridicule right here because at least of the second sentence of the aticle, speaking about the devil, here it is:

An analyst firm claims that Windows offers equal or better TCO than Linux, but open source companies say the survey has ignored some of the advantages of Linux

The majority of enterprises deploying Microsoft Windows Server 2003 believe it is as good, if not better, than Linux in terms of quality, performance and reliability, according to a survey published this week.

 

But various open source companies disagree, and claim there are various areas where Linux is superior to Windows.

 

Laura DiDio, an analyst at the Yankee Group who carried out the survey, told ZDNet UK on Wednesday that it is a myth that the total cost of ownership (TCO) for Linux is lower than that for Windows. "Over the past three years people have said 'Linux is so much cheaper than Windows'," said DiDio. "In some instances this will be true, but as a general blanket statement you cannot say that."

 

She said there is a significant cost associated with maintaining and supporting Linux, and for migrating third party applications to Linux.

 

The Linux-Windows 2005 TCO Comparison Survey, found that network administrators can restore a Windows server 30 percent faster than a Linux server. But DiDio said that in the "overwhelming majority of cases" this was not caused by the core Linux operating system, but by insufficient documentation.

 

It tends to be easier to find security information on Windows than on Linux, she said, as this information can be found in the same place.

 

"There is a fractured community around Linux," said DiDio. "One of the problems you have with [security] attacks is that there are very few aggregate sites where all the known vulnerabilities are listed across different platforms and applications. Microsoft has a better infrastructure for that."

 

The survey asked respondents to evaluate both Linux and Windows against a number of criteria, on a scale of one to ten. Overall, Linux servers scored higher for security than Windows servers, according to the survey, with Linux scoring 8.3 out of 10 and Windows Server 2003 scoring 7.6. This is a significant improvement on last year's score, said DiDio.

 

"Last year we gave Microsoft a big, big black eye in security," said DiDio. "Last year they scored three or four out of 10, this year they scored 7.6."

 

But she said the assumption that Linux is more secure than Windows can lead to problems. "The biggest security threat facing the Linux environment is complacency — the community has focused too much attention on being more secure than Windows," said DiDio.

 

But Eddie Bleasdale, the director of open source consultancy Netproject, said the report does not sufficiently consider the importance of desktop security.

 

"The main concern is the lack of security if Microsoft is on the desktop," said Bleasdale. "These security problems have resulted in the growth of e-business and e-government halting."

 

"There are a growing number of initiatives on secure messaging. Secure messaging requires secure end to end computing — including having a trusted desktop."

 

DiDio admitted that Windows desktops are less secure than Linux, but claimed that Windows offers better patching. "Certainly Windows desktops are more porous and more vulnerable," said DiDio. "We found that Windows desktops had an average rating of 6.9 compared with a rating of well over eight for Linux. But what happens if there is an attack and no patch available [for Linux]?"

 

Michael Meskes, the managing director of open source services company Credativ, said the report does not sufficiently consider the problems associated in migrating from one version of Windows to another.

 

"In calculating TCO, the protection of investment is often not sufficiently considered," said Meskes. "To use new technologies with Windows, you sometimes need to swap the complete system. That leads to the need to set up a server from scratch, migrate data, and individual applications may no longer work."

 

"For example, if you want to attach USB devices to a Windows NT server, as USB is not supported on a Windows NT server the whole operating system must be swapped. With Linux you only have to update the kernel, which would take an expert about 15 minutes."

 

DiDio agreed that some components of a Windows migration may take longer, but that there are other disadvantages to Linux, such as the limited number of third party applications that have been certified on Linux, which means that during a Linux migration a customer may need to spend extra time working out interoperability issues.

 

Mandrakesoft cofounder Gael Duval agreed that Linux has a lower minimal cost than Windows, but the overall TCO depends on what applications and services you are paying for.

 

"Well-informed IT services are aware of the fact that they can have Linux run for a cost near zero, including software acquisition, deployment and maintenance," said Duval. "On the other hand, starting from this zero, you have a large range of offerings that can make Linux' TCO higher. On the other hand, the Windows TCO can't be lowered below the cost of the software, unless you enter into some piracy."

 

The total cost of Linux or Windows is dependent on the environment, agreed DiDio. She said that during this survey she came across a software vendor that saved $3.5m in licensing fees by moving from Microsoft SQL Server running on Windows to an open source database running on Linux. But, they were only able to make these cost savings as they were not adding third party tools, said DiDio.

 

In contrast, a law firm involved in the survey did a TCO analysis to decide whether to migrate from a predominantly Windows environment to Linux and found that as certain legal applications were not available on Linux, the costs of migration would be prohibitive.

 

DiDio has been nicknamed DiDiot by some in the Linux community who claim that she unfairly favours Microsoft. She hit back against this claim on Wednesday, slamming the "extremist fringe of Linux loonies" who she claimed were disrespectful and insulting to those they disagreed with.

 

 

ok, excuse me, but i have to get a few things off my chest before i actually discuss this.

A simple question:

"What kind of a m#%^&r f#%$*r woud f#%$*&g white such a f#%$*d up, s#$%%y a$$, piece of c$%p propoganda about microsoft piece of s$*t anyways?":rant:

 

ok, sorry for the language, but i just could not hold it, and that lightly describes what i said when i started reading the article, so please dont edit it out...

 

as for the rest of it, we'll lets discuss it, here are some of my thoughts:

The majority of enterprises deploying Microsoft Windows Server 2003 believe it is as good, if not better, than Linux in terms of quality, performance and reliability, according to a survey published this week.

Notice it says enterprise deploying MWS2k3, the people who deploy 2k3 servers really dont know any better. Reliable my (well you know what) there's more and more volnurabilities found in Server every day, it is very much secceptible to arp and dns poisoning on switched networks, and are still volnurable to the old LAND attacks, they lack logging, run GUI all the time, hence the performance loss over Linux, and are in fact less reliable, because crashes in software can bring your entire system down in a snap (software crashes can not bring down a linux box 99.9% of the time.

She said there is a significant cost associated with maintaining and supporting Linux, and for migrating third party applications to Linux.

Ok, who can tell me how migrating software deals with cost of running Linux again? Plus, hell yeah the cost of maintaining Linux is higher than cost of maintaining windowz, because you have a professional that actually knows exactly what he/she is doing, has a lot of experience in the security field, and knows how to get answers in any situation, windows you are paying some guy what knows where to click, well, thus the pay difference between the 2 professionals, but bying support from windows vs linux is different, i know the firewall guy for the state of connecticut, this is his take:

you call windows with your problem, and it is only one problem of one person out of 1000nds of requests, so it might be resolved, eventually. He says after switching to linux, he had one problem, he was able to get in touch with an actual developer, he had a patch 2 hours later, and it was officially released next morning on the RedHat website.

 

--be back after class to finish--

[UncleAl]

The Linux-Windows 2005 TCO Comparison Survey, found that network administrators can restore a Windows server 30 percent faster than a Linux server.

 

That is a huge advantage to Windows! Windows servers routinely crash. A Linux server simply runs. One imagines Linux Sysops would need special training to keep rested, tanned, and ready to restore their system every couple or three years.

 

Uncle Al does some severe number crunching. Given the same C++ source code, Linux runs 40% faster than Windows in the same hardware. AMD runs 40% faster than Intel with the same executable. A run that required just under seven CPU-days in a Xeon did it in under five days in an Opteron-244.

 

Uncle Al's new box is an AMD 64 Athlon 55-FX with 2 GB of Corsair Xtreme low latency RAM and other goodies from

 

http://www.abscomputers.com/

 

If I want 64-bit computing I can boot from a (iLnux) Knoppix64 LIVE! CD. AMD is 32-bit, 64-bit, and x86 compatible all at once. Run flat out 99% for hours the CPU sits at 50 C. Since the case has a window over the CPU fan, I bought a 4" 120 V 100 cfm muffin fan to put over it if I see 51 C. Keep it cool, let it hum.

 

Windows/Intel? Only as a last resort.

[alexander]

ok, back, ready to finish hopefully:

The Linux-Windows 2005 TCO Comparison Survey, found that network administrators can restore a Windows server 30 percent faster than a Linux server. But DiDio said that in the "overwhelming majority of cases" this was not caused by the core Linux operating system, but by insufficient documentation.

and they call it a servey after that? what kind of a scientiffic research compares 2 things based on with different condition, its like comparing 2 types of steal for their corosiveness and placing one in fresh water and the other in salt... And what kind of an argument are they looking at, they are saying that windoze is better than Linux by stating the research results that compared the speed of recovery of the system where there was sufficient documentation for the win box, and not sufficient documentation on the linux one, and at the end state that it has nothing to do with the OS at all? I dont know, but thats just screwed up...

It tends to be easier to find security information on Windows than on Linux, she said, as this information can be found in the same place.

lol they are definately not referring to the microsoft website are they, because one, its impossible to find anything on the microsoft website, two their documentation is really nowhere near sufficient and three i swear my friends were looking up some information on the microsoft site about active directory, they found an answer that said that if you have a problem that they were experiencing you can do this, and it might work... Seriously, trying to find anything in help, is more than a hassle, and if you found a problem with something not working just as you'd like it to, there is no way you can fix it, cuz its a black box, linux on the other hand provides very easy to understand man pages, and all software manufacturers have project websites as well as there are linux security websites that will tell you how to secure your linux box, no matter the distro, and if you dont understand linux, you should not be running it on your server!

"There is a fractured community around Linux," said DiDio. "One of the problems you have with [security] attacks is that there are very few aggregate sites where all the known vulnerabilities are listed across different platforms and applications. Microsoft has a better infrastructure for that."

they must be on crack... http://secunia.com/ is way better than microsoft security section and a simple google search will reveal

Results 1 - 10 of about 56,000,000 for linux security. (0.77 seconds)

they should really get off whatever it is that they are smoking.

The survey asked respondents to evaluate both Linux and Windows against a number of criteria, on a scale of one to ten. Overall, Linux servers scored higher for security than Windows servers, according to the survey, with Linux scoring 8.3 out of 10 and Windows Server 2003 scoring 7.6. This is a significant improvement on last year's score, said DiDio.

that score would be higher for linux if they have serveyed people who actually know how to setup real linux boxes, not the point and click administrators, although they still know more about security than wondows point and click administrators.

But she said the assumption that Linux is more secure than Windows can lead to problems. "The biggest security threat facing the Linux environment is complacency — the community has focused too much attention on being more secure than Windows," said DiDio.

that is really a long oxymoron, just like secure windows, or protected telnet communication, now, how is the community focus on security a largest SECURITY threat to the OS? How is it the assumption again if a sentance ago they have produced hard core evidence that Linux is more secure?

"In calculating TCO, the protection of investment is often not sufficiently considered," said Meskes. "To use new technologies with Windows, you sometimes need to swap the complete system. That leads to the need to set up a server from scratch, migrate data, and individual applications may no longer work."

 

"For example, if you want to attach USB devices to a Windows NT server, as USB is not supported on a Windows NT server the whole operating system must be swapped. With Linux you only have to update the kernel, which would take an expert about 15 minutes."

To that, how stupid is it to have to reboot an os when you install a program, and only microsoft does it. My friend owns a G4 laptop with OSX running on it, the system does great and suspend to ram works really fine, so his box had a huge uptime, he decided to install some microsoft program on it (cant remember whether it was map point or something else), and upon the finish the box needed to be rebooted, thats where we knew that microsoft software was almost as bad as their OS...

Oh, and how does it take a professional 15 minutes to setup a USB device? so ok, first of all a good linux admin would make usb at least a module, from there its the time it takes to install usb hotplugging and that doesnt take 15 minutes. From there insert the device and mount it, voila you are up and operational in minutes, ok, so you dont have the support for usb in the kernel, you cd into /usr/src/linux and do make menuconfig, then go to device drivers and USB, module all the suppot, save and exit, execute make modules_install and do modules-update, from there hotplugging and mounting and you should be up in less than 10-12 minutes...

DiDio admitted that Windows desktops are less secure than Linux, but claimed that Windows offers better patching. "Certainly Windows desktops are more porous and more vulnerable," said DiDio. "We found that Windows desktops had an average rating of 6.9 compared with a rating of well over eight for Linux. But what happens if there is an attack and no patch available [for Linux]?"

Wait a second, wasnt she just assuming that just 4 sentences ago? and what kind of bull is the rest of that? windows patching is better than linux, there's more of windows patches that's true, but the patches themselves are better in Linux then they are in windows, they dont present new volnurabilities, also they are better and come out faster than windows are, on average you need a few hundred people with some problem to get microsoft to act, if a linux admin finds out that there is a volnurability in his system, he'd write a patch for it in a moment, send a copy to linux distro devs, and the patch will be released to the public (being read through a few times so its not a virus. There have been virus updates in windows before, and remember to reboot for your patch to take effect lol.

The rest of that hoplah is even more stupid, if any os is attacked and there is no patch available to stop the attack, and you dont know you are attacked, and your ids doesnt catch it, no matter what OS, you are screwed no matter what.

She hit back against this claim on Wednesday, slamming the "extremist fringe of Linux loonies" who she claimed were disrespectful and insulting to those they disagreed with.

They are disrespectful for a good reason, people who only know what they were paid to tell you can not be convinced back, people that sit there with their armes crossed saying that they are right even though everything they have said is proven backwards to them by their own evidence... sorry gotta go these were the main points that i had problems with, the rest can be easily thrown into that pile too, but i dont have the time. Maybe the linux loonies are right for calling her DiDiot ;)

 

Excuse me for the language again, thank you.

[Buffy]

Okay, calm down alexander. I actually know Laura, and she's a pretty smart cookie. Moreover, I used to do what she does for a living at a different analyst company. The key to being a good industry analyst is to be controversial, and she can do it in spades. Although someone obviously got under her skin (bad move in this business), some of your key points are just as selective in portraying the truth as hers are.

 

The problem in this debate--as unfortunately is the case in most "my apple is better than your orange (to mix my metaphors)--is that the various conflicting views in fact are all equally valid. I actually buy into the basic bottom line of Windows having a lower TCO, simply because there are more resources out there for it. It can crash twice as often and still have less down time than Linux, according to the numbers above, maybe even more. I'll buy that! I know lots of IT heads who get *very* nervous without heavy duty support about anything that has a whiff of open source. Linux would be nowhere today without IBM according to most of my industry analyst friends. Whoa! Hows that for "software wants to be free?"

 

No question things are evolving, but my bottom line is that you've got to use the right tool in the right situation. Windows is a hammer and Linux is a wrench. Don't use hammers on bolts or wrenches on nails....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[alexander]

Hey, Buffy's back :)

Okay, calm down alexander. I actually know Laura, and she's a pretty smart cookie. Moreover, I used to do what she does for a living at a different analyst company.

No offense to anyone, ps, are you supposed to favor things that you get paid for and be totally against things that you are not when you are writing an article?

The key to being a good industry analyst is to be controversial, and she can do it in spades. Although someone obviously got under her skin (bad move in this business), some of your key points are just as selective in portraying the truth as hers are.

Well, the thing is that the points i state are the major points that i had problems with in the article, i couldnt even start writing such an article, i used to be a windows guru for a while, started with 2.0 to 3.11 to 95, 98, me (for 2 hours, may i just add that that was the worst OS ever produced), nt, 2000 pro and finally to XP, oh and server in the server room. Anyways its been less than a year since i've switched to Linux 100% and the thing is, you can do things that you could not imagine doing in an operating system when running windows in Linux, the power of the command line is truly many times greater than that of any menu as you are unrestricted in any way, and you can do whatever your imagination can come up with. (i remember yesterday my friend was demonstrating for loops in bash to another friend of mine, so he catted make.conf in a 150 or so character command line for loop, it was amazingly funny, command line obfuscation lol :)) anyways i could expand on anything i've posted above, and again no offense meant to anyone.

The problem in this debate--as unfortunately is the case in most "my apple is better than your orange (to mix my metaphors)--is that the various conflicting views in fact are all equally valid.

But this debate is a bit different from my apple is better than your orange, its not a matter of taste or color or smell, it says that my orage will not only not rot, it will grow faster, be sweeter and is capable of doing backflips on a snowmobile if you wanted it to...

I actually buy into the basic bottom line of Windows having a lower TCO, simply because there are more resources out there for it.

Disagree, you cant find that many windows communities, you go to any linux distro site forum, and you see tens if not hundreds of thousands of people that are like yourself (or even more obsessed), any problem, well chances are that someone else had a problem that you are having, and will be able to help, if not the developers also drop by these forums, or bying your support from Suse or Novel or RedHat, you can get on the phone with one of the developers, not with MS though, you ever try getting any info from them, you have to get bumped up to like the 20th level to get anyone smart enough to know where user options are?

It can crash twice as often and still have less down time than Linux, according to the numbers above, maybe even more.

it could be just me, but i can not see where you get your point of view here, could you perhaps explain that, i just cant see it, so it could be my missconseption of linux, or yours, just get it more clear for myself, if it crashes and linux doesnt how can it have less down time?

I'll buy that! I know lots of IT heads who get *very* nervous without heavy duty support about anything that has a whiff of open source.

well, no offense again, but IT heads != knowledgeble people, if they had hired a decent linux guy, one or two people would be enough to make them be able to get the cheapest support for any open-source thing, it was not in their culture, they probably never ran Unix... Again no disrespect, but the IT guys at my school are exactly like that, their only Linux box ran redhat, and everyone in IT was(and is) afraid of it, i remember we did an nmap scan of the box, and something like 1200 ports were open, we figured that some script kiddie owned the box, so we wrote a letter to the it, 2 months later we wrote another letter to the IT, because the problem was still there, and a few months later the box got finaly closed (new IT guy)

Linux would be nowhere today without IBM according to most of my industry analyst friends. Whoa! Hows that for "software wants to be free?"

Linux would be nowhere without Linus, or GNU and Stallman, Novell and RedHat and Suse, and Debian and Slackware and Gentoo and Apache and PHP and the WWWeb, and the hacker community and even the cracker community, yes, IBM has helped, but linux is the worlds biggest hack it never depended on a single thing, and at the same time always did... similarly microsoft would be nowhere today without IBM and Apple and Xerox and Intel and many other companies that helped it on its way so...

[Qfwfq]

Don't use hammers on bolts or wrenches on nails....

Now, that's a good one Buffy!!! :)

 

I can say that in the past five years, which means since I returned to sw, I've been switching between things as different as from VB6+Sybase to J2EE+Oracle, client-server, web and what you will, so I've always had to acquire familiarity with new stuff on the fly and with some customers that growl like famished tigers and never say you've been too quick. Working on a complex enterprise web app isn't simple, even when you have sophisticated tools to use especially for repeating some long tasks such as deployment. Right now I'm hurrying to get my past six week's work ready for tomorrow's release, since yesterday I've been swearing because of some little windoze hitches and just now I got over a seemingly incomprehensible hitch on the SunOS 5.7 server here by having a Zen enlightenment.

 

In my job, all on PCs, I've been using mostly Windoze. I would like to have more familiarity with Unix/Linux and so on but I currently couldn't be nearly as productive on them and likewise many colleagues I know. I do know people who prefer working on Linux and would swear a lot more on Windoze. There are usually some experts in every place I've been, yet most of these places have PCs with Windoze including many servers.

 

What I mean is that it depends on what you're used to and they don't always find people that can perform surgical tasks on Linux source in an emergency. I haven't even time to learn all the mnemonic Unix commands with all the options, I could never get the most out of grep either. I especially realized the gap after a brief stay at a customer where the boss was the only other Windoze user and I had hoped to grab a chance to acquire more familiarity on Linux.

 

I can understand the money dealers still being wary of using only Posix systems. Uncle Bill still monopolizes the PC world and more people are able to be productive using Windoze and the many sophisticated tools around.

[Qfwfq]

the power of the command line is truly many times greater than that of any menu as you are unrestricted in any way, and you can do whatever your imagination can come up with.

True to an extent, though some well designed GUI features can be nifty. In past years I was quite at home with VMS command lines. I also enjoy hacking in C/C++ in which you can do things that Coffee would never allow you to do, but I'm not enamoured with Posix notation and I think an OS command language should be clear and easy to remember.

 

Personally, I get impatient with having to consult man pages time and time again.

 

well, no offense again, but IT heads != knowledgeble people, if they had hired a decent linux guy, one or two people would be enough to make them be able to get the cheapest support for any open-source thing, it was not in their culture, they probably never ran Unix...

I was typing just as you were posting, I mentioned having been in several places where they had a few experts of the Unix/Linux camp and yet used Windoze even for many servers.

[alexander]

Yup sir will definately does monopolise the industry, but with more governments and government offices switching to Linux (its a fact that NSA runs Linux everywhere on their network (probably their own, some kind of SELinux based distro))

[Buffy]

its a fact that NSA runs Linux everywhere on their network (probably their own, some kind of SELinux based distro

No one can know exactly what NSA is doing and talk about it publicly without worrying seriously about being sent to Gitmo in a private jet. I do know from a friend of a friend of a friend, that NSA has ALWAYS self-compiled their own OS's (prior to Linux it was Solaris, SunOS, BSD, VMS, and every OS IBM ever produced) and other software, for all the obvious paranoid reasons....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Qfwfq]

No one can know exactly what NSA is doing and talk about it publicly without worrying seriously about being sent to Gitmo in a private jet.

I'm not sure they could do that to me!!! :)

 

Still, maybe I shouldn't get into their bad books. :) :)

[alexander]

No one can know exactly what NSA is doing and talk about it publicly without worrying seriously about being sent to Gitmo in a private jet.

 

NSA's been putting lot of interest in SELinux though, some SE patches have even been written or more asked for by the agency, here's an article off of nsa.gov (http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/)

The thing is that SE has the potential to be the most secure, the permissions that you can set on there are crazily crazy, there was a box available online that you can telnet and ssh into as root, but you could not do squat, but you were root the permission set was insane, i think it never got cracked even after it got slashdotted and everything, it was kinda cool, my friends spent a few hours everyday for a few weeks trying to find a loopwhole, there were people who were even more obsessed, but natta, nothing to my knowledge noone was able to do anything signifficant...

And it does not mean that the NSA runs SE boxes everywhere, but it is safe to assume that they at least have a few, however it can be argued. (P.S. they probably run OpenBSD on some routers, it would make sense, OpenBSD is the safest OS on the market, its security measures cause unnecessary overhead, but on a decent box that is just supposed to be a router, its not that big of a deal. I admire OpenBSD, they have been progressing to provide a functionality of any Cisco device or software on your own system, you can already do things like load ballancing between nics, routing, firewall(full blown filtering by anything), IDS and some other nifty features that will allow you to turn a box into an awesome, smart and fast router for free.)

True to an extent, though some well designed GUI features can be nifty. In past years I was quite at home with VMS command lines. I also enjoy hacking in C/C++ in which you can do things that Coffee would never allow you to do, but I'm not enamoured with Posix notation and I think an OS command language should be clear and easy to remember.

well, let me put it this way, a programmer explanation, you can write a program to do anything you want in a text editor, and although it might take you a few more key presses to create windows and generate menus, it is all doable, so C++ compiler and a text editor is the most powerful tool you can have (yes you can argue that you can write in binary or assembly, but for the time matter, i'm just relating). Well, that would be your command line, bash is insanely powerful and useful, but you can also do what they refer to as Visual programming. You can drag things into places, right click on it and assign them actions and names, and yes if you are short on time and dont care about performance, sure there are some nifty features of Visual programming, but is it anywhere as powerful as a programming in a text editor?

Aah, Posix, why are you using posix again? there are better unix interfaces than straight up posix, try Bash, tab completion is your friend, plus bash scripting is many times more intuitive and if you are a scripter, you'll find many similarities between bash scripting and perl, actually more of perl/python mixeroo. I personally have nothing against looking stuff up in man pages, you need to know basic less commands and it becomes a whole lot easier as now you can search for whatever it is you needed, if i'm working on something i constantly have one to 2 (many times while programming in python i'll have 3-4, but those would be referencing pydoc) teminals with opened up man pages that way i can reference to them on the fly, and you have to remember, the man pages are 100% more informative, make much more sense, are written by the developers and turn out to be exact 999 put of 1000 times, and the 1 time left is when the program is still a beta and had recent impovements, but man pages have not been updated, then Windows help, and tutorials and wikis for linux are many times more easier to follow and figure out what's what then microsofts FAQ, oh and there is no "it sometimes works" that my frieds found on the M$ site while seaching for information about active direcory i think, I'll have to ask again, but it was hilarious :)

[Qfwfq]

We seem to have a few misunderstandings

well, let me put it this way, a programmer explanation, you can write a program to do anything you want in a text editor, and although it might take you a few more key presses to create windows and generate menus, it is all doable, so C++ compiler and a text editor is the most powerful tool you can have

I won't argue that you can write in binary or assembly, although I used to do it around '80. I wasn't talking only about programming and programmers, what I said about developping included complex web development. Try doing maintenace on an Enterprise webapp like the one I'm currently on.

 

The author of one Wrox book writes that, when the PC-journalists ask him which IDE he uses, he smiles and answers "Visual Notepad" but I think he was doing only JavaScript, I can't remember for sure but he wasn't doing EJB, servlet and also the whole chain down to the HTTP response.

 

but you can also do what they refer to as Visual programming. You can drag things into places, right click on it and assign them actions and names, and yes if you are short on time and dont care about performance, sure there are some nifty features of Visual programming, but is it anywhere as powerful as a programming in a text editor?

I've tried out direct use of Win32 for windowing, just to gain better knowledge and understanding of what's under the bonnet. Surely you wouldn't reccomend developping an actual management project for a customer without using some app framework or another?

 

Performance is hardly an issue for the bare GUI itslef. If the execution on a user's click can take noticeable times you might need or want to optimize it, but this isn't really a matter of the actual GUI. Unless part of the trouble is interacting with controls, but even the overhead of this can't be improved much by use of Visual Notepad or Visual VI.

 

If execution upon a user's click takes no more than a 10th of a second, how much sense does it make to reduce that time? Even if you bring it down to a few microseconds or less, no customer will be glad to pay you more for such a feat. One customer was hopping with content because, when he ask me to improve a functionality that was monthly used by accountants to produce bunches of Excel worksheets according to data on DB2, a worksheet for each product, I also reduced the execution time which was measureable in hours and minutes. I brought it down by perhaps half or a third. That's a different matter.

 

Aah, Posix, why are you using posix again? there are better unix interfaces than straight up posix, try Bash

I said Posix meaning the whole Posix compatible category. I have tried bash and I like it better than the other shells, though it is limited to its purpose and it certainly isn't C! Bash would be better, even just if you could define a function to return more than a byte, and use the return value in a more direct and comfy way. When I read that functions can be called recursively I thought, OK, let's try it, classic exercise: factorial(n). What a nightmare! It takes getting used to but, even when I got it straight, the limitations are obvious. I guess I'm just a C/C++ guy and I'm discontent enough with Coffee too. I've heard Perl is great, I'd probably like it if I took the time.

 

if i'm working on something i constantly have one to 2 (many times while programming in python i'll have 3-4, but those would be referencing pydoc) teminals with opened up man pages that way i can reference to them on the fly

I take it you're not working on VTXYZ terminals but console emulator windows. If so, you are nevertheless exploiting a GUI feature! :)

 

there is no "it sometimes works" that my frieds found on the M$ site while seaching for information about active direcory i think, I'll have to ask again, but it was hilarious

Yeah, I've seen and heard hilarious things. Have you ever heard the rumour about the back door in some versions of IIS?

[alexander]

I take it you're not working on VTXYZ terminals but console emulator windows. If so, you are nevertheless exploiting a GUI feature!

i do run a gui, Fluxbox, why, because this is a laptop, and performance is not that big of issue and its not a server, a small gui, with semitransparent everything does a good job at impressing friends one of which already switched to linux, so its for the good. But many times if i'm coding on my friends box over ssh, screen does a splendid job at creating as many virtual terminals as i need, so, no, not necessarily exploiting gui features... (I'm actually working on a good configuration of fvwm, there are a few problems still, but eventually i want to be able to press a key combo, and see all my windows move and hide at the nearest edge, oh and i love transparency :))

Have you ever heard the rumour about the back door in some versions of IIS?

Which one lol, there were quite a few :)

I said Posix meaning the whole Posix compatible category. I have tried bash and I like it better than the other shells, though it is limited to its purpose and it certainly isn't C! Bash would be better, even just if you could define a function to return more than a byte, and use the return value in a more direct and comfy way. When I read that functions can be called recursively I thought, OK, let's try it, classic exercise: factorial(n). What a nightmare! It takes getting used to but, even when I got it straight, the limitations are obvious. I guess I'm just a C/C++ guy and I'm discontent enough with Coffee too. I've heard Perl is great, I'd probably like it if I took the time.

there is are packages that allows you to script C in which case you win no matter what :)

Perl is great for text edditing anything, although as programmer i think that Python is a better language as a whole, I'm waiting for the new perl to come out, then i'll learn it, it will be object oriented and have a whole bunch of cool new features worth my time. but perl does have the best libraries for dealing with strings in general, their regexp library so good that it is used in PHPs engine, they decided not to screw with the best regular expression engine ther is :)

I dont know whether you'd like perl, the syntax can be very discombobulating like the attatchments:

code1 - insane perl program, just open it up, if you see a picture of a guy, you're golden

code2 - gives a new meaning to hello world (should see globe)

code3 - a little some something for science (sould see e)

code4 - a little something for hypo (H)

(no none of this code is mine, it is however from my collection of code so i dont know the authors, but most of it is from perlmonks.org... (actually think that all of it appeared on perlmonks))

[Qfwfq]

Thanks for the files, I'll have a look shortly.

I dont know whether you'd like perl, the syntax can be very discombobulating like the attatchments:

code1 - insane perl program, just open it up, if you see a picture of a guy, you're golden

code2 - gives a new meaning to hello world (should see globe)

code3 - a little some something for science (sould see e)

code4 - a little something for hypo (H)

(no none of this code is mine, it is however from my collection of code so i dont know the authors, but most of it is from perlmonks.org... (actually think that all of it appeared on perlmonks))

C/C++ can also be discombobulating, if properly used! ;)

 

I got TeleMad, your old firend, fuming. I posted something that can be a help with factoring, on that thread, hoping things had calmed down enough, but he came back in a rage. I'll be seeing what sort of a mood he's in, when I get round to it.

[Qfwfq]

I saw they guy, despite thinking I was opening n° 4 and having to scroll!

 

Do these actually execute and do something? I don't have perl installed here and I'm not sure I can try them.

[paultrr]

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Is what is come out to in text.

[alexander]

C/C++ can also be discombobulating, if properly used!

aah, job security

here's a good one: http://www1.us.ioccc.org/2004/newbern.c

 

I got TeleMad, your old firend, fuming. I posted something that can be a help with factoring, on that thread, hoping things had calmed down enough, but he came back in a rage. I'll be seeing what sort of a mood he's in, when I get round to it.

thats so easy to do though. I am trying to learn to take it easy with him, if he posts something that enrages you, ignore it, just post your thoughts in peace. Oh, and by the way, i"ve rewritten that source, it ended up being in a class with 2 overloaded functions, one allows you to do the recusrion method, while the other one would allow you to do it all the fast way. The thing is i really didnt feel like posting that code, i dont know what the fuss is, its not that i dont want to write bad code, its that i really dont care for a program like that for a datastructures class, although i do understand the point of factoring. I'm currently working on my final project for that class, but i've also been writing a large number class that would easily allow me to do math with large inegers, so far adding 2 10000 digit positive numbers with their generation takes less than 1/2 a second, but my multiplication process is crapping out, some logic flaw that's bothered me for a while, so i've been avoiding it hoping to get a revealing idea about how to do it all better...