Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does one use a Mac without grep or piping? I bought a macbook thinking I'd learn how to use it... but after 3 years, all I can do on a Mac is open a web browser and terminal.
This book was written long before Mac OS X.
The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]
121–130 of 316 posts
Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]
#122While entertaining, I'm left with the following question: if not UNIX, then what? Are there any successful non-UNIX-y OSes that are worth checking out? I may embarrass myself here, but I was under the impression that BSD, Plan 9, Solaris and HP-UX were all UNIX-y ...
still worth checking out? or just worth checking out? The coherency of VMS (and the VAX platform) is quite amazing - Coherent command line interfaces, API's, documentation, hardware, and software, even down to coherent part numbering made by a single company, from small workstations up to larger scale minis, and nearly transparent clustering. I mention VAX specifically, since by the time Alpha arrived, DEC was compet…
The versioning filesystem is something I've waited for since I first used VMS (1991) and discovered such a thing existed. Though to be fair recent Windows and OSX versions have something like it, it's not the same.
Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone that dislikes Win32 should program directly with Xlib and Athena, and rejoice of the experience.
Win32 with function signatures that look like this: HWND WINAPI CreateWindowEx( _In_ DWORD dwExStyle, _In_opt_ LPCTSTR lpClassName, _In_opt_ LPCTSTR lpWindowName, _In_ DWORD dwStyle, _In_ int x, _In_ int y, _In_ int nWidth, _In_ int nHeight, _In_opt_ HWND hWndParent, _In_opt_ HMENU hMenu, _In_opt_ HINSTANCE hInstance, _In_opt_ LPVOID lpParam ); The only redeeming feature is the documentation.
Lmao. That's close to what I said when I first learned it. I was griping about how complicated window creation was vs some tools I had. "The MSDN docs are awesome, though!"
Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]
#124Yes, Garfinkel, et al., don't know what a "client" and "server" are.
Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone that dislikes Win32 should program directly with Xlib and Athena, and rejoice of the experience.
Win32 with function signatures that look like this: HWND WINAPI CreateWindowEx( _In_ DWORD dwExStyle, _In_opt_ LPCTSTR lpClassName, _In_opt_ LPCTSTR lpWindowName, _In_ DWORD dwStyle, _In_ int x, _In_ int y, _In_ int nWidth, _In_ int nHeight, _In_opt_ HWND hWndParent, _In_opt_ HMENU hMenu, _In_opt_ HINSTANCE hInstance, _In_opt_ LPVOID lpParam ); The only redeeming feature is the documentation.
Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]
#126" We have tried to avoid paragraph-length footnotes in this book, but X has defeated us by switching the meaning of client and server. In all other client/server relation- ships, the server is the remote machine that runs the application (i.e., the server pro- vides services, such a database service or computation service). For some perverse reason that’s better left to the imagination, X insists on calling the progr…
Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]
#127" We have tried to avoid paragraph-length footnotes in this book, but X has defeated us by switching the meaning of client and server. In all other client/server relation- ships, the server is the remote machine that runs the application (i.e., the server pro- vides services, such a database service or computation service). For some perverse reason that’s better left to the imagination, X insists on calling the progr…
It makes sense when one thinks about it, but it's still strange until one gets used to it.
Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most applications uses opengl these days. Now 'most' is a relative term, but I do not think that's true at all. There are very few applications that use OpenGL. Obviously games are an exception, but if you count in all GUIs I would say mostly target X11 (via Gnome or KDE).
GNOME and KDE can also use opengl for some tasks if it is available. But right, most applications doesn't directly use opengl. I believe if it weren't such a pita to integrate opengl in desktop appliations (thanks to X11's bad design), many more applications would be using it. To give you an example, think about desktop effects. On Windows, several applications such as Explorer makes parts of their windows semi-trans…
I don't think that this qualifies as "tons of hackery" given the fact that other contemporary UI systems with truly transparent windows implement it in same way (IIRC in pre-Vista Windows truly transparent windows are supported on the OS level but the implementation involves hacks with backing buffer and synthesized expose events).
Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
that's not necessarily true as much as you think. I worked in a Solaris shop that had gnu coreutils and packages installed everywhere with a prefix, and another place running openbsd which had the same. gecho, gcat, gln etc; I'm pretty sure gnu coreutils can be built on any Unix-like OS.
It depends on the IT guys, I have occasionally sshed into boxes where that wasn't the case and compiling wasn't an option.
- base64encode it
- paste the encoded text over ssh to a file
- base64decode it
- chmod +x the decoded file
- …
- profit
Re: The Unix-Haters Handbook (1994) [pdf]
#130Unix is weird because it evolved organically and without a unified direction. But it remains because power and familiarity beat user experience. Yes, the "pure" Unix tools are awful, GNU improved on their usability a lot. But they're still a simple command that does something. Except Autotools. Those should burn in eternal damnation.
"Autotools is the worst form of build system, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." -Churchill, probably In all seriousness, what's your preferred alternative? Seems like Autotools is a pain, but it gets the job done and is widely available. I haven't found a build system for C projects that is: - Less complicated - Available from default package repos so others who clone don't hav…
Autotools sucks. But everything else sucks more. There's a life lesson there, somewhere.