Re: Programming Language Productivity: The Stupidity of Programmers

From: Programmer Dude (Chris_at_Sonnack.com)
Date: 11/25/03 

Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 14:57:26 -0600

Richard Heathfield wrote:

>> Hmmm. "T" is ambiguous... Terrific UI? Terrible UI? Turbo UI?
>
> Text, actually.

Doh!!

>> When I moved from unix (HP-UX mostly with some Sun stuff) to a
>> solely Windows world, I mourned the loss of my Good And Dear
>> Pals, awk, sed, vi and grep.
>
> Cue Cygwin.

Not on my account. As I went on to say, I've passed through the
stages of grief and come out the other side. (-: I have no
need nor desire to change the leopard's spots (that is, to turn
Windows into Something Else).

> I find it almost impossible to persuade MSDN (the on-disk version,
> I mean) to tell me anything at all about anything remotely useful
> to me.

Apparently my experience with it has been better! It does help to
have explored it enough to know where the relevant bits are likely
to be for a given problem (you have no doubt seen me tender bits
of it in answer to RTFM questions posted here recently).

MOST of what I seek tends to be down the "Platform SDK" branch.
If you're going to be doing much Windows programming, it's worth
the time to explore that branch!

> ...are /not/ useful but happen to have my search keyword in them...

Ah. Keyword search is usually a last resort for me (in any resource).
Try the index. That's been very successful for me.

> But since mousing a selection is generally marginally quicker than
> keyboarding it (modulo obvious exceptions), I find it useful to be
> able to copy and paste using nothing more than click, drag, move,
> click.

Since your last post, I've been wondering if the selection==copy
concept would work well for me. At first, I though, "Cool!" But
then I thought about the times I select something to delete it
or modify it but *don't* want the copy buffer disturbed.

Never having worked with the concept I don't know, but I'm thinking
I wouldn't like it. (Sort of under the heading of, "Don't put
anything in the copy buffer without my explicit sayso.")

Do you have multiple copy buffers or is the selection buffer different
from the usual copy buffer? (The latter case *would* work, I think.)
((Work for me, I mean.))

> I'm not advancing this as a theory or anything - merely an
> observation. I find myself copy-and-pasting less on Linux than
> I did on Windows, and I attribute this primarily to the power
> of - well, vim, actually, rather than bash itself.

I use vim's graphic brother (gvim) as my primary text editor, so I
think there's something else going on in your observation. E.g., is
it possible the type of programming you do in the Linux world is
different enough from the type you do in Windows to make some sort of
difference?

For me, c'n'p is a serious tool *within* any document as well as
*across* documents, and I don't see any connection between the power
of our editor (considerable!!) and the need to move text around.

If anything, I wish (g)vim had the ability to exchange text between
windows *without* using the copy buffer. I find a vacillate a bit
between opening a lot of documents in a single gvim and using split
windows or visible buffer changes, OR using multiple instances of
gvim.

With a large screen, I like multiple edit windows because I like to
see as much text as possible. On my laptop, I find it easier to
use a single instance. Given my druthers, I think I do prefer
multiple instances--hence the desire to share text. (I've been
idly making a "notepad" replacement, and it will have that ability.)

>> "ls" to see the files in a directory. Oh, yeah, "seminatural"! (-:
>
> Surely it's no less natural to LiSt a directory than it is to list
> a DIRectory?

Nice try, but invalid argument. The statement was that unix is
"seminatural". That it may--or may not--be "no less natural" than
something else is irrelevant (pardon that grammar!).

But, for the sake of some fun, I'll say DIR *is* more natural than
LS for the simple reason that DIR is a natural (for some definition
of natural) abbreviation of DIRECTORY. Only a True Geek could love
LS. (-: Additionally, "list" could apply to anything.

(Don't get me wrong: I'm a dedicated True Geek and love unix! But
my favorite unix quote is so funny, because it's so true: "Unix IS
user-friendly....it's just picky about its friends.")

> Once your fingers are used to it, they're used to it.

True, but also irrelevant. (-: That applies to anything (regardless
of how natural it was originally).

> I find myself typing ls on Windows nowadays.

Heh! On the relatively rare occasions I drop into a unix box, I
find myself typing "dir". But then, in my unix days, I always had
"dir" aliased to "ls -al".

>> "grep" to find text in text files? (-: (-: (-: (-: (-: (-:
>
> Sure. My fingers know it well. I don't have to think about it.

None of which speaks to its "seminaturalness". (Unless, of course,
you meant something quite different by "natural". :-)

>> My point (which I know you're fully aware of) is that, vim is not
>> "integrated" with gcc or gdb, etc. etc. etc.
>
> The only integration I need is Alt-Tab, and that integration is
> provided.

Be that as it may, an operating system is NOT an "integrated"
development environment (sans some effort on the user's part) for
any usual definition of "integrated".

>> MMDV if for no other reason than the environment I produce for
>> is solely Windows.
>
> That makes a huge difference, obviously. If I only ever used
> Windows, I'd probably feel the same (not least because I would
> not have used Linux, I guess).

It's not ignorance about what you seem(?) to be implying is an
"obviously" superior system, but a simple practical matter.
My corporate environment is 100% Windows. Nothing else is
an option.

But are you saying that if I knew Linux, I'd forsake Windows in
an instant? Sorry, no, that is incorrect (even given the option).
I have considerable experience in unix, and that includes a very
nice X-Windows system (HP-UX).

There are things I can do in the MS world that--AFAIK--unix and
Linux CANNOT TOUCH. In fact, cannot even come close.

E.g. I have a production database (SQL Server) running on a remote
machine. I have a series of Excel spreadsheets that have hot queries
against that database and charts based on those queries. Merely
opening those spreadsheets updates the production data to reflect
what's going on Right Now. And I have PowerPoint document that hot
links to many of those charts and consolidates them into a single,
"Right Now" presentation. I also have an MS Access file that has
read-only access to the production database and that allows users
to safely query the live data using the GUI query developer.

Unless the unices world has changed A LOT in five or so years I've
been gone, it's not even in the same *town* as the ballpark I'm
playing in.

[Just to save an instance of back'n'forth: you may not need or want
 those things, but I do (and so do my clients).]

> I could write quite a long list here of things I wish I had in
> Windows, but I won't bother, since the only thing that stops me
> having them (via Cygwin) is my own laziness.

[bwg] Sounds like what you want in Windows is .... unix!

>> I do find some benefit in the consistancy of the "Windows Way" that
>> I recall lacking in the unices world. Graphics tools, for example,
>> seem much better...
>
> I think that's probably true, but then I don't spend a lot of time
> in graphical applications, so I don't really care very much.

Understood. I do, so I do.

Obviously I do have the option with my home systems, but I really
do have zero interest in Linux. For all its power and stability,
it doesn't offer me anything I really want or need. And while
I'm not very thrilled by the Microsoft Monopoly or the growing
pains of Windows (or all the buffer overrun security patches!),
Windows DOES have what I want and need.

Funny ol' world, ain't it. :-| 

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