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Cool but obscure X11 tools

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Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#131
post #94
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered about this sentiment about software you are free to use or not. Or is it the fact that a majority of others, or those that have the power, choose for you by making life harder if you deviate? Shouldn't you curse those people, instead of the creators of the software?

A lot of software can feel like a bait and switch. To keep compatibility you have to use windows, but the quality goes up and down. Bundled IE, windows ME, then XP which people loved, then Vista, then windows 7 which people loved again, then windows 10. There isn't nearly as much freedom of choice when it is an all or nothing game and things are changing underneath you. Windows 10 reverts your settings after doing fo…

Bait and switch is a good reason for animosity, agreed.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#132
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the myth of the UNIX way, never followed upon commercial UNIXes and somehow became a cargo cult on FOSS community only thank to a book of UNIX idols?

Right, the only true Unix philosophy which ever described reality was "worse is better." Just look at the GNU coding guidelines, it explicitly mentions that GNU tools are not to use static buffers and silently truncate long lines. Why? Because that's what proprietary Unix implementations were doing at the time! Silent truncation of long input lines! Is that "doing one thing and doing it well" (DOTADIW)? Hell no! DOTA…

As I'm new to this could you give a reference to those very gnu guidelines so I could see for myself?

And also where those guidelines say that silent truncation of long lines should occur?

thanks

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Code which, for most people, does work. That doesn't mean other stuff couldn't have been better. Here's the problem the systemd argument: it's motte-and-bailey. Systemd is a huge collection of tools, not just an init system: it's got resolved, journald, logind, tmpfiles, bootctl, networkd, and more. However, whenever it's criticized, proponents fall back on "but it's a great init system!" I agree that the unit file…

> Oh, and Lennart Poettering is also a jerk. Not an "I'm brash" kind of jerk (like Linus can be), but an "I'm an insecure person; don't critique my code" kind of way. Also, he thinks he's smarter than every one. I think it's largely due to how the community has treated him. It's frankly disgusting.

He should take a lead from Drew DeVault. Drew frequently says things people (including myself) disagree with and is working on software a lot of people (including myself) are very skeptical of. Yet if you try to interact with him (as I have), he's a totally reasonable and pleasant dude.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget to thank him for `avahi' too. Avahi is a fun whack-a-mole game where your computer hides the network connection. You win the game by remembering to kill processes and setting up stuff manually, like most games produced by LP studios. edit: Other popular games include: SystemD: hack your way through a blob of intractability. Try it on Nightmare mode, where you're only given access to a empty bootscreen, f…

Lennart Poettering is a dev who has contributed massive amounts of code most people in this thread use every hour of every day. Code which, for most people, does work. It's not like free software has a shortage of talented contributors that people hate for a variety of reasons. At some point you have to actually point out the issues productively, rather than the boring character assassination, or just randomly saying…

This aspect of the community is one of the biggest turnoffs to me. There are a lot of people who formulate these really over the top narratives about everything, which lead to (for example) writing long seething angry personal rants about people like Lennart (Miguel de Icaza was another lightning rod back in the day). The sheer emotion expressed invalidates whatever point they're trying to make, but at the end of the day nobody forces anyone to use anyone's software, and nowhere is that more true than in the Linux world.

I hate to use the possibly overloaded term 'virtue signaling', but I definitely see a lot of this as a form of virtue signaling within the communities that posters sometime imagine exist, or imagine that they're part of. I've seen so much of it over the years that it almost has a smell to it. A very vocal and bitter personal hatred towards Lennart and Lennart-related projects is sometimes a leading indicator, especially when it's presented not in the context of meaningful discussion of technology, but simply as "init was perfect and never needed to change and people who think otherwise don't understand what makes Linux Linux", stated as a truism.

I think a lot of people really like the community aspect of Linux, reading and posting to forums all the time, and latch on to certain mindsets as being the mindsets of who they imagine the insiders to be- you're supposed to love this person unconditionally, you're supposed to hate this person unconditionally, this company is good, that company is evil, this software is good, that software is evil, and if you're a true insider in the community you'll parrot all the same lines as everyone else. But when I see it, no one involved appears to be an insider. It comes across more as teenagers arguing on Reddit about iOS vs. Android, where basically they've decided that whatever phone their mom got them is the best thing ever, and the other thing is terrible, and it's their duty to go online and spew vitriol about it. They think they're arguing stuff that's much much deeper and more technical than what they're actually arguing about, and no one involved has any actual understanding of the technology or industries or communities or histories of the things they're screaming at each other about. It's almost like vitriol for the sake of vitriol, and people just let it seep out as a demonstration of their in-groupness.

Which is not to say that there are plenty of valid reasons and places and ways to argue about the merits of Lennart and his software, as one example. I'm really not talking about Lennart in particular though. I'm not talking about people having valid arguments about valid issues. What I'm talking about the FLOSS equivalent of those teenagers and their "the phone my mom got me is better than the phone your mom got me, and that makes me a good person and you a bad person" sorts of arguments. It just all seems very petty and immature sometimes, and that is not a positive aspect of the community.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#135
Let me add my own cool but obscure project KDocker. You can use kdocker to move any app to the system tray :) These days it's maintained by john at https://github.com/user-none/KDocker

Edit: oh wow, I actually tried it again now and it actually works! Crazy, this was a tool I wrote like 12-13 years ago. I also found the initial sourceforge page - http://kdocker.sourceforge.net/

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the only true Unix philosophy which ever described reality was "worse is better." Just look at the GNU coding guidelines, it explicitly mentions that GNU tools are not to use static buffers and silently truncate long lines. Why? Because that's what proprietary Unix implementations were doing at the time! Silent truncation of long input lines! Is that "doing one thing and doing it well" (DOTADIW)? Hell no! DOTA…

As I'm new to this could you give a reference to those very gnu guidelines so I could see for myself? And also where those guidelines say that silent truncation of long lines should occur? thanks

Sure, no problem:

>"Avoid arbitrary limits on the length or number of any data structure, including file names, lines, files, and symbols, by allocating all data structures dynamically. In most Unix utilities, “long lines are silently truncated”. This is not acceptable in a GNU utility."

https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Semantics

So perhaps DOTADIW is a GNU philosophy, because it's one of the reasons GNU became so popular. Proprietary unix tools often did one thing and did it poorly, making GNU tools a breath of fresh air.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the only true Unix philosophy which ever described reality was "worse is better." Just look at the GNU coding guidelines, it explicitly mentions that GNU tools are not to use static buffers and silently truncate long lines. Why? Because that's what proprietary Unix implementations were doing at the time! Silent truncation of long input lines! Is that "doing one thing and doing it well" (DOTADIW)? Hell no! DOTA…

As I'm new to this could you give a reference to those very gnu guidelines so I could see for myself? And also where those guidelines say that silent truncation of long lines should occur? thanks

https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Semantics

I think you misinterpreted parent’s statement, though, and/or they mistyped. The GNU Coding Standards says to not use static buffers, nor should GNU programs silently truncate long lines.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#140
post #110

Free42 is also available for iOS and Android. It's very handy, especially when I can keep my real 42S safe in a drawer at home. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/free42/id337692629 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thomasokke...

The rendering on that 42s is close enough that I can almost feel the buttons. Never thought I'd describe a calculator as sensual, but HP's of that era had such a distinct look and feel.

This is a great find. I used a 42S heavily through high school and college. I was surprised at how some of the muscle memory of how I did certain things came back. Seeing the dot matrix answer after doing some calculations brought back the feeling of being bored in math class, when I would just play with all the functions and write little programs. I didn't have a phone or even a laptop to turn to in those days.

Even now though, it will be useful to do calculations in RPN. Even the ability to swap X and Y, and store intermediate results in order to avoid parentheses or M buttons is nice.

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