I don't know if a snippet of IRC shows it being simple. The colons are quite mysterious, especially to anyone who's seen HTTP/POP/SMTP. They look out of place with whitespace before rather than after, and are used for two separate things...
Simplicity of IRC
161–170 of 250 posts
Re: Simplicity of IRC
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
I couldn't disagree more, I think bash is a horrifically bad programming language. Honestly I'm incredibly surprised anyone could compare PowerShell and bash and think that PowerShell is the arcane one.
> I couldn't disagree more, I think bash is a horrifically bad programming language. Bash is described as a "command language" and not a programming language per se. Bash is what you use to type in commands, and automate said commands if you need to whip out a quick script that runs what you would otherwise run manually. Bash, scripting-wise, is command line glue. If all you want to do is run commands with some logic…
Again, I disagree and regularly use PowerShell as a command language --as do many Windows admins-- and much prefer its object-based pipelining and relatively sensible and consistent command and argument naming to bash's error-prone text pipeline and mixture of 2-letter abbreviations and complete nonsense names. But whatever, to each their own.
This subthread was specifically about programming languages being available out of the box in OSs, so when you brought up bash my natural assumption was that meant as a programming language.
Re: Simplicity of IRC
#163It’s a real shame how difficult programming is. I don’t mean that it is difficult to write difficult things, but that it is difficult to write simple things. Once upon a time, one could download visual studio, click about to make a new project in (e.g.) Visual Basic, draw a gui in the gui editor, and click the run button. One could then start adding simple functionality (e.g. working through a book). Or even longer a…
Reminds me of this visualization[1]. The amount of code it takes to simply draw a triangle in OpenGL 1.x, OpenGL 3+, and Vulcan The learning curve has been sacrificed. It's now a learning cliff for everything. We've used to have computers that make it simple to do simple things and hard to do complex things. Now, just so it can be slightly less hard to do complex things, we've made it hard to learn and do simple thin…
I have never written for Vulkan and have only done bits and pieces of OpenGL but this can't possibly be an honest representation can it?
Re: Simplicity of IRC
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usenet too. Getting news and discuss stuff "offline" and fetching/sending the messages once a week it's magical and resting.
The fall of Usenet more and more looks like a mistake. I’d love to have hyper-localized newsgroups, in place of Facebook. Often local stuff like: “Why does is smell like somethings on fire”, “Has the water been turned of” or is “Is soccer cancelled this week?” is only posted on Facebook. So if you don’t have Facebook, you can’t get those information. Then again the Facebook algorithm will hide it for three weeks befo…
On Usenet, MUDs, and IRC, look what could be achieved back in the day by tweaking the source code of a MUD: they converted it into a full groupware tool thanks to TCL/TK and some glue here and there.
https://paparisa.unpatti.ac.id/linux_journal_archive_1994_20...
Re: Simplicity of IRC
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty nice indeed. I like the use of keywords for sizes "thin", "large", and the shorthand hex for colors, and the fact that there's zero boilerplate and only styling what's actually used.
Agreed, but I hate this: a:link, a:visited { color: #00e; } Why do this?
Thank you for pointing this out. I have fixed it now. You should no longer see this issue after a hard refresh.
Re: Simplicity of IRC
#166IRC might be designed around a simple protocol, but it is not simple in operation. The plethora of command line options explains why IRC is only loved by (some) developers and nobody else. I suspect some IRC users like the high barrier to entry (but would never admit to it): it keeps out all those clueless 'non-technical' users.
There are GUI clients for IRC that don’t need any “command line options” (some don’t even support them).
And there are (and certainly were) plenty of people on IRC who aren’t very technical. Seriously, around 20 years ago it was often used as a "dating app" by regular users, or for radio listeners & DJs to chat, etc.
Re: Simplicity of IRC
#167It’s a real shame how difficult programming is. I don’t mean that it is difficult to write difficult things, but that it is difficult to write simple things. Once upon a time, one could download visual studio, click about to make a new project in (e.g.) Visual Basic, draw a gui in the gui editor, and click the run button. One could then start adding simple functionality (e.g. working through a book). Or even longer a…
> on windows This is the mistake. Linux and, I believe, OSX come with several tools pre-installed including python.
Which creates more problems than solutions.
If the Python version that comes with your OS is not the one you want (e.g. it's outdated), then you'll have to:
1. Install the version you want anyway, and all the tools required (that usually don't come preinstalled in the OS)
2. Try to not make them collide, which, last time I tried, was a PITA, because the OS depends on original version of Python being in the the $PATH or something.
Python on Ubuntu is notoriously misleading for newbies, because even if you apt install python3 and it tells you that it's already installed, it's not fully installed. For example, venv is not installed, you have to `sudo apt install python3-venv` and do that for every Python module that's not installed by default.
It would be easier if Linux didn't come with Python, and then people simply installed the actual, full version of Python they wanted.
Re: Simplicity of IRC
#168Could someone with more insight summarise how this compares to xmpp as an open chat protocol?
Re: Simplicity of IRC
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reminds me of this visualization[1]. The amount of code it takes to simply draw a triangle in OpenGL 1.x, OpenGL 3+, and Vulcan The learning curve has been sacrificed. It's now a learning cliff for everything. We've used to have computers that make it simple to do simple things and hard to do complex things. Now, just so it can be slightly less hard to do complex things, we've made it hard to learn and do simple thin…
I have never written for Vulkan and have only done bits and pieces of OpenGL but this can't possibly be an honest representation can it?
No, not entirely. Each version does progressively more error checking / debug output. Also the first two output a static single color triangle, while the Vulkan sample outputs a rotating triangle with different colors for each vertex.
Re: Simplicity of IRC
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
I couldn't disagree more, I think bash is a horrifically bad programming language. Honestly I'm incredibly surprised anyone could compare PowerShell and bash and think that PowerShell is the arcane one.
The problem is that you think bash is a programming language.
The person who you're responding to is engaging with the person who they're responding to in the terms chosen by the latter. If the original commenter hadn't written, "PowerShell feels outright developer-hostile even when compared to Bash", then we might have some reason to find fault with the person who replied. Considering that's what did happen, however, this comment of yours—which is both snarky and implicitly demands the wrong person to take responsibility for the comparison—just comes across as annoying.