On 1/16/24 10:25, RabidPedagog wrote:
> On 2024-01-16 9:53 a.m., rbowman wrote:
>> On Tue, 16 Jan 2024 12:13:13 +0000, Farley Flud wrote:
>>
>>> What about Microslop Winblows?  Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!  By default,
>>> Microslop includes NOTHING.
>
>
> I don't make it a habit to reply to Larry Pietraskiewicz, but this one
> is worthwhile.
>
> Nothing of use, at the very least. If your standards are very low, the
> new Windows Media Player will satisfy you. As far as browsers go, Edge
> is pretty good as are the bundled Office web apps. By default though and
> without any charge whatsoever, what Linux offers is superior in terms of
> utility.

Yeah, I miss the days of finding little preinstalled goodies like the
old Media Player, default music, widgets, etc etc

>>> It is just a useless digital appliance that
>>> allows the user to receive personalized ads.
>
> < snip >

I wouldn't say it's useless, it definitely can do a lot. The ads are a
bit overwhelming nowadays.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

On 1/16/2024 3:16 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Tue, 16 Jan 2024 13:44:17 -0500, DFS wrote:
>
>
>> In the future it would be nice if they preinstalled at least Python,
>> Visual Studio Community Edition, Tiny C Compiler, Apache, and a decent
>> programmer's editor, like Visual Studio Code or Notepad++.
>
> Except for VisualStudio and Notepad++ all are available for Linux, free,
> in abundance, and minutes away. Ironic you should include TCC.

I've been using it for years. It's extremely fast and small. The
author, Fabrice Bellard, was an Obfuscated Code Contest winner.

Priya Pedamkar says TCC is one of the Top 5 C compilers:

https://www.educba.com/best-c-compilers/

She's Microsoft-certified, so you know she's a good judge of C compilers...

On 1/17/2024 10:21 PM, DFS wrote:
> The author, Fabrice Bellard,

I just read a bit about him. What a jewel of a programmer.

Well, first and foremost he's a Polytechnique graduate! Right there he's
ahead of millions of other programmers. But then, he not only achieved a
remarkable programming feat at some point, you know, like Torvalds or
others, but also he achieved them one after the other throughout
decades! Now that's rare. A jewel indeed.

On Wed, 17 Jan 2024 23:21:00 -0500, DFS wrote:

> I've been using it for years. It's extremely fast and small. The
> author, Fabrice Bellard, was an Obfuscated Code Contest winner.

"This compiler started its support for Windows in 2005."

It's a good thing someone created a Windows binary using a port of gcc to
Windows.

https://www.mingw-w64.org/

All I have to do is 'sudp apt install tcc' and voila:

$ tcc
Tiny C Compiler 0.9.27 - Copyright (C) 2001-2006 Fabrice Bellard
Usage: tcc [options...] [-o outfile] [-c] infile(s)...
tcc [options...] -run infile [arguments...]

Le 16-01-2024, DFS <nospam@dfs.com> a écrit :
>
> Linux is a piecemeal kit that includes absolutely NOTHING unless a
> distro developer decides to add it.

It's not exactly true.

> And each distro in the Linux hobbyware bizarro world includes a
> different desktop and apps

It's more interesting than that. There are a lot of desktop and apps
provided by every distro. Some of them choose which is the default,
others don't choose and let you make your own choice. None of them
require you to use the defaults.

And that's great. You want to install a Linux system without worrying
about the internals? You just pick a beginner's distro and every choice
will be made for you. You don't like the defaults because you know what
you do? Choose another distro.

> and versions.

Yes and no. There is some diversity in the way they choose to be stable
or up to date. But when they upgrade the version, they try to be as up
to date as possible considering the stability and the compatibility with
the rest of the system.

> So much for "standardization".

That's something a Windows user can't understand. Windows do everything
from the boot to the driver's management and they display of
applications. In Linux, you don't have that: Linux is only a kernel. You
need a tool to boot, a tool to display the windows, a tool to interact
with the system and everything like that.

So for Linux the standardisation is not about the version but about the
way the different programs are interacting together. And it works pretty
well. Lilo has been replaced effortless by grub, which can be removed to
let the system boot directly from the UEFI. You can choose your Window
manager. You can choose your terminal, your shell, and everything you
want. With Windows, if you don't like the look and fell, it's probably
possible to add a Windows Manager, but it's above Windows, it's not a
replacement.

If the version is different, it's often not a big deal. It's not like
Word or Excel whose document can be unable to open on a new version when
they are too old.

> Windows was built for and succeeded mightily with less technical
> end-users, but there was never any good reason for MS to not include at
> least a minimal set of dev tools for those that wanted to dabble.

Let say that Powershell is pretty recent. Microsoft tried very hard to
force people using the mouse instead of the shell.

--
Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
https://scarpet42.gitlab.io

On 19 Jan 2024 21:45:51 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:

> Let say that Powershell is pretty recent. Microsoft tried very hard to
> force people using the mouse instead of the shell.

I suppose 16 years is pretty recent on a geological time scale. Windows
Script Host was optional on Windows 95 and included in Windows 98 and
above. Originally it accepted JScript* and VBScript but has been extended
to other languages. You could automate apps with an exposed COM/OLE
interface. You could also script WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation)
with it.

* JScript is pretty much ECMAScript with a couple of added features but
Microsoft didn't want to deal with Sun. Oracle owns the trademark these
days but they haven't defended it. They'd already been sued by Sun over
Visual J++. (Java).

Microsoft made the tools available. Whether people used them or even knew
they existed is another matter.

rbowman wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:

> On 19 Jan 2024 21:45:51 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
>
>> Let say that Powershell is pretty recent. Microsoft tried very hard to
>> force people using the mouse instead of the shell.
>
> I suppose 16 years is pretty recent on a geological time scale. Windows
> Script Host was optional on Windows 95 and included in Windows 98 and
> above. Originally it accepted JScript* and VBScript but has been extended
> to other languages. You could automate apps with an exposed COM/OLE
> interface. You could also script WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation)
> with it.
>
> * JScript is pretty much ECMAScript with a couple of added features but
> Microsoft didn't want to deal with Sun. Oracle owns the trademark these
> days but they haven't defended it. They'd already been sued by Sun over
> Visual J++. (Java).
>
> Microsoft made the tools available. Whether people used them or even knew
> they existed is another matter.

I still encounter tiny text-edit areas in Microsoft GUIs. Even in GitHub, which
they bought.

To backtrack to DFS's whinging about "standardization"... There's a wide swath
of userland applications that one will find readily available on all Linux
distros. Distros mainly vary in system control and how components are packaged
and maintained, what window manager is default.

--
You have an ambitious nature and may make a name for yourself.

On 1/9/2024 7:09 AM, Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
> Joel wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>
>> DFS <nospam@dfs.com> wrote:
>>
>>> But once you learn
>>> enough python, you'll question having a purpose for C.
>>
>> A bold claim.
>
> They each have their sweet spots. Python in fact is written in C, for example.

CPython is the standard implementation, but there are many, eg PyPy is a
Python interpreter written in RPython, which is itself a subset of
Python. "RPython is a restricted subset of the Python language. It is
used for implementing dynamic language interpreters within the PyPy
toolchain."

It all sounds very inbred.

https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonImplementations