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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Jeremy H. Sproat writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Todd Lehman writes:
> > I'm already grossed out
> > enough that there are a couple ports of perl to MS platforms. IMHO, Perl
> > belongs in Unix (and offshots like OSX) and Microshaft OS's should die
> > horrible deaths.
>
> I take it you have little respect for people who develop on MS platforms
> for a living...? I'm not sure I should be offended.
No, not at all! First, I support someone's choice of platform they have
chosen to develop for. Second, I understand that MS platforms are the
chief money makers in the microcomputer software industry, and that there's
a lot to be said for that. Third, I developed on MS platforms for I-can't-
even-count-how-many-years, and I remember the good times as well as the bad.
(Of course they're all relative.)
Whether or not I respect someone has absolutely nothing to do with what
platform they develop on for a living.
I just hate MS platforms, that's all. I wish they didn't exist and I wish
MS had never existed; I believe the world may have been a better place.
It's like hating guns, but not hating people who own guns. Or like hating
slide-rules, but not hating people who still choose to use them. Or (this
is the best example) like hating seafood, but not hating people who eat
seafood. That's all.
> It can also be argued that Perl on a Mac is equally evil: the OS doesn't
> even offer a shell, and its file system is incredibly -- no, radically --
> different from that of UNIX. Thus, should Macs die a horrible death also?
It's funny you should mention Macs. :) I actually posted that message from
a Mac. :)
In my mind, Macs are simply hard to use, but not evil. Microsoft and all
of its products are evil, but not hard to use. I *much* prefer to use
Windows products over Mac products (because they have far superior keyboard
interfaces), but I still hate Windows and I don't hate Macs. (That probably
all sounds like a massive sequence of contradictions. :-)
I hope Apple has a very good next few years, and I hope that OSX ends up
being usable. Macs also can run a version of Linux called MkLinux. Suzanne
has that on her machine, and it's pretty nice, but I haven't used it much.
To clarify: I hate the way Macs *work*, but I don't hate Macs themselves,
and I certainly don't hate Apple. I like the way many Windows applications
work, but I hate Windows itself (even though I still use it almost daily
for certain things).
> I think not. Macs bring in their own set of benefits over UNIX -- as does
> Windows. If it weren't for both of these platforms, the computing world
> would still be dominated by UNIX mainframes reached mainly via dumb
> terminals. GUI would not have had such a success.
I disagree. If Microsoft and Apple hadn't "stolen" all the PARC work from
Xerox, someone else would have. And not only would we have everything we
have today, it would be better if Microsoft had never been in the picture.
(My opinion. Of course some other evil giant could always have come up in
MS's place, and maybe it even would be worse! :-)
Some believe that Microsoft and Intel have dual-handledly set back the
entire microcomputing industry approximately ten years. Having worked with
Wintel products for nearly 20 years, I find this assertion difficult to
dispute.
> The rapid growth of the Internet would have never happened.
Doesn't that assume that nothing else would have filled in the demand if
those two players hadn't been there?
> All of these things have, arguably, had a positive effect on society.
Good for society, bad for the long-term of the computer industry. Look at
how much stuff was pioneered in the 60's and 70's and only now being re-
discovered (the mouse, the GUI, OOP, string-based programming languages,
the list goes on and on). A whole generation of hacks grew up around the
microcomputer and stunted everything. Intel's idiotic segmented
architecture was also one of the terrible things for the industry in the
early 80's. Can't blame them, though -- they did it for backward
compatibility so it was easier to port 8080 and Z80 code to the 8086, and
that made them more money, which is what they're in business to do, after
all.
> And let's not forget LDraw -- written for a MS platform. This one app has
> done much to bring together many Internet Legomaniacs.
I'm sure James could've written LDraw on any platform if DOS hadn't been
around. (What if there had been a Turbo Pascal for Linux at that time?
Would LEdit have limits like 1000 parts and 8-character filenames and small
screen resolutions?) I certainly don't mean that as a Jab toward James --
only as a Jab toward DOS.
> > The Perl advocates are funny folks -- they all hate MS
> > (basically) but they're happy seeing Perl ported to MS platforms because
> > they see it as good for Perl. And maybe it is good for Perl.
>
> It's very very very good for Perl.
I agree that it's good for Perl in the short-term. I hope the Python folks
are paying close attention to what's happening to Perl. I think Python
hasn't begun to be polluted yet.
> Cross-platform is a *good* thing.
It is? Always?
I don't know. Hmm. Me, I think it's only a good thing when the platforms
being supported are all worth supporting. I think it's great if someone can
run unmodified Perl code on a Mac as well as Windows, but the minute that the
OS checks start happening in libraries (rather than in #include files
compiled in), then that's the beginning of the end of the language. What I
mean is, if you start seeing code that goes,
if ($^O =~ m/Windows/) { $dirsep = "\\"; }
elsif ($^O =~ m/Mac/) { $dirsep = ":"; }
else { $dirsep = "/"; }
then that's Pure Evil. Those types of things should happen 100%
transparently in the compiler/interpreter; you should be able to say
open FOO, "<bar/blat/gonk" or die;
on any platform (Unix, Mac, Windows, VMS, you name it) without having to
write
open FOO, "<bar\\blat\\gonk" or die;
for Windows or
open FOO, "<bar:blat:gonk" or die;
for MacOS. I *think* it's perfectly transparent for Windows, but I seem to
remember hearing about some problem with the Mac ports (I could be wrong).
But in either case, even if the arguments to standard functions accept "/"
universally, what about the results of standard functions? Will they all
report back "/" and *NEVER* report back "\\" or ":" for directory separators?
What does File::Find return? (I'm afraid to look. :-)
Those are some of the things that start ruining portability and then in the
long-run, the language itself -- if they're not watched closely. From there,
it only gets worse, like checking the OS and accessing CreateProcess()
directly instead of emulating fork(), etc. Yeuck.
> For open source, about the best thing you can ever do is widen your
> audience while maintaining control over source code check-in.
I agree with that. But I think some tough decisions need to be made
sometimes when deciding what to accept and what to reject. If the original
authors are cool with MS-specific stuff being checked in, then good for
them. But if that grosses them out, then I hope they can continue to keep
it out.
> Something running on MS == bad? I can't see it that way. I've paid for a
> bare minimum of MS software -- mainly the NT OS and Office for semi-
> obvious reasons -- and I haven't given $K's to MS for development tools
> which I can get for much lower costs from another vendor.
I meant that it's bad for Perl even if it's good for you. It's good for you
because you get to use Perl on your platform of choice, and that's good. :-)
I've used Perl on Win32 and I was happy about that too.
But it's bad for Perl because it helps make MS look that much more like a
reasonable OS choice for someone who's still deciding whether to go with NT
or, say, Linux for, say, their webserver.
If Perl didn't run on MS platforms, it would be harder for MS to claim that
NT was a serious platform for web development. Later this year or next year
MS will release some bogo MS-Perl piece of garbage and really start ruining
it. I think I'll cry when that day comes. Again, that'll still probably be
better for propagation per se of Perl, but not (in my mind) for the language
itself.
Maybe I want foofy hair some day and I decide that aerosol hairspray is the
best way to get foofy hair. Then that's great for me, because it increases
my self-image (let's say). But it's probably still bad for the planet,
even if it's legal. So it bums me out when people use hairspray, even if
it's their right to do so. I don't think less of them (probably) for using
hairspray, but I can still passively hate the companies who sell it, even
if I can't blame them.
> It did split into two camps, around 5.004x, and was brought back together
> into one camp for 5.005x. This has had a benefit of initiating a project
> to bring Macintosh (and other OS) compatability into the product as well.
Well, I have to have faith that the project leaders there know what they're
doing. The good thing is (I think) that they all hate Microsoft, so they
certainly won't do anything blatantly bad for Perl.
> As for Win32 ports being bad for Perl in the long run, I don't see how
> that can be. That argument sound like, "playing with http would be bad
> because it will spell the demise of gopher; and don't ever visit
> akebono.stanford.edu , 'cause archie is here to stay."
Anything for Win32 is bad for anything non-MS is the long run.
> Sorry, but things change, man. They change because something muddied the
> waters, and eventually, it's even a Good Thing.
I suppose I could agree that Perl on Win32 is better for the world than
Visual BASIC on Win32 (for certain types of tasks, of course)...even if it
may not be good for the continued purity of Perl itself. (sigh)
> (To interject into an unrelated debate living in the same thread)
>
> That really bad programmer either learns the art of suck-up, or loses his
> or her job. The latter case is okay, but if the first case is a
> co-worker, and his boss accepts it, then you're probably in a go-nowhere
> job anyway unless you start mastering the art of suck-up as well.
>
> I don't tolerate suck-ups. I've been fortunate, however, that the
> majority of my bosses don't either, so this may have skewed my view of
> things.
I had a boss once that tolerated suck-ups and goof-offs (because he was one
himself), so we had to get rid of him first before we could get rid of the
other suck-ups who were doing the real damage. Fortunately, upper management
was keenly aware of most of this already, so it didn't take too long. In
my experience (and this was in a brutally high-expectation environment, so
my view of things may be skewed as well), suck-ups and goof-offs eventually
hang themselves on their own if you leave them alone. But if the environment
and philosophy of upper management doesn't see the problems like that and fix
them, then there's probably little hope for improvements like that. The best
thing you can do then is make someone's life miserable until they quit. ;-)
> <REMARK type="SNIDE" type="FLIPPANT">
> How does this attitude work in Todd's Programmer Caste System?
> </REMARK>
Heh heh, not sure -- not sure exactly what the antecedent of "this" is there.
Anyway, I certainly don't mean to sound like I instantly judge people or
hold grudges or place people in castes. Mostly I'm just venting about past
experiences, and about how unfortunate it is sometimes when people are stuck
in jobs that don't suit them well (even if they enjoy them). Heck, I'd make
a terribly, terribly bad professional baseball player even though I might
enjoy it. If I tried to get on a team, I would certainly hope that I would
be treated with respect but cut loose the instant it was clear that I could
never live up to standard, no matter how hard I tried. I'd have to go to the
minors, or (more likely) ameteur baseball, because that would be my place.
It might hurt, but it would be for the best.
So although I have very high expectations for everyone I work with, I also
have very high tolerances when I know that someone is trying. I think it all
just boils down to personal attitudes, really. If someone commits themselves
to doing something well, and then does it well, that's great -- they deserve
lots and lots and lots of respect and more encouragement. OTOH, if someone
doesn't commit themselves to doing something well, then (in my book) that's
no good, even if they end up doing it well by accident. (Of course it could
always be my fault for not figuring out the right way to motivate them, but
let's assume that those cases are discernable from true lack of ambition,
which shows as a pattern usuually.) Finally, if someone commits themselves
to doing something well and doesn't end up doing it well, then they still
deserve respect (in my mind) for trying (if they really did) but if it starts
to happen a lot, then there's a problem somewhere in the communications or
expectations or maybe there was just an inappropriate "fit" between the
task and the person carrying out the task.
--Todd
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Message has 5 Replies:
 | | Re: Perl rules!
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| (...) Hey! I *like* seafood! What are you saying, Todd? :-D (...) I know. :-, That's why I chose the platform to pick on. (...) Okay, it's actually starting to make sense. You're morally opposed to the evilness of Windows, not its usefulness. I'm (...) (25 years ago, 17-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
| | | Re: Perl rules!
|
| (...) Please. Where would we be if we had nothing but Apple and Steve "I'm a megalomaniac" Jobs to depend on? I remember hearing YEARS ago how superior the Mac was to the PC because at the time all it took to "network" a couple of Macs together was (...) (25 years ago, 17-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
| | | Re: Perl rules!
|
| (...) The 1000-line limit in LEdit was a programming limitation. Nothing to do with anything evil in the OS, unless you consider lack of virtual memory evil (rather than just bad). Was the 8.3 file format originated with MS or DOS? I thought it was (...) (25 years ago, 20-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
| | | Re: Perl rules!
|
| (...) What demand? Intel and MS _created_ much of todays' demand for computing. They did this to make money. Why do you think another software company other than MS would have been any better? I know you're intelligent, so I'm not prepared to (...) (25 years ago, 22-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
| | | Re: Perl rules!
|
| Sorry I came in late on this, but I just had to make my mark on the uber-thread. :^) (...) I use MacPerl under Apple's Macinosh Programmer's Workshop, a shell environment available for free from Apple. I use Perl on my Mac to develop a couple (...) (25 years ago, 24-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Perl rules!
|
| (...) I take it you have little respect for people who develop on MS platforms for a living...? I'm not sure I should be offended. It can also be argued that Perl on a Mac is equally evil: the OS doesn't even offer a shell, and its file system is (...) (25 years ago, 17-Jul-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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