RE: [GD-General] Eiffel

[Idahosa E. <ida...@sw...>]

You tried that under like windows? Like 95? Maybe NT would give bette=
r
results? Or not, who cares use UNIX...

-----Original Message-----
=46rom: gam...@li...
[mailto:gam...@li...]On Behalf Of=
 J
C Lawrence
Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2001 8:41 PM
To: ph...@me...
Cc: gam...@li...
Subject: Re: [GD-General] Eiffel


On Sun, 23 Dec 2001 11:06:55 -0000
Philip Harris <ph...@me...> wrote:

> That's a great list of problems with Windows but the majority if
> not all of them only apply to 99.99% of users.

I'm fairly sure that's not what you meant.

> The fact that the kernel is untrustable and that is has an
> incomplete syscall interface makes no difference to my
> productivity and I spend roughly 75% of my time developing
> software.

<shrug> It depends on what you do.  What I don't have is a single
point, which if fixed, would instantly make everything better.  It
seems to be endemic.  Or more castigatingly, Windows seems to be
designed to make working in the manner I consider efficient and
effective deliberately difficult, so I don't.

Small trivial example, which is rather outside of my GUI preferences
(eg no icons).  My typical idle state has ~20 windows on my desktop.
When actively working that tends to rise quickly to 50+ with values
close to 100 not being unseen.  This is a side effect of a way of
working that I find very easy and efficient (and is FWVLIW what
initially drive me to Software Carousel from DOS, and thence to
DesqView, and thence to OS/2 and thence to the *nix world).  Its
also a work approach which Windows suffers under (eg I currently
have (counting) 28 browser windows open, 9 xterms, 18 XEmacs frames,
and 15 other odd/assorted applications).  This is work method, which
is in itself a tool, is something that my current toolset and
environment handles trivially.  I've attempted a couple times to
transplant it to Windows ('92, '95, and '99) to transplant that to
Windows, each time with glaring lack of success (much of which was
my fault).

Wander about the shorts (variously old) at for an idea:

  ftp://ftp.kanga.nu/pub/users/claw/screenshots/Desktop/

>> and ease of building new tools.  We're engineers -- that's what
>> we do: build and use tools.  Windows tends to assume

> That's not how I see it at all, yes we use tools, we probably
> build our own tools as well, but they are just tools. What matters
> is the results, specifically are they the results our customers
> want.

Yup.  In the end we solve problems.  There's a logical sequence
there starting with solving problems, then solving problems with
tools, then solving problems with tools we build and use, etc.  It
all rests on solving a problem with the latter step defining the job
of an engineer.  I skipped the lower foundations as assumable.

> I really don't care whether the cabinet maker has his own tools
> are simply uses his teeth, all I'm interested in is whether the
> cabinets are good and can he deliver what I've ordered when he
> says.

Bingo.

> Now if Windows actually stops you producing those results then
> that's a problem but for the majority of people that is not going
> to be the case.

Hehn.  Not a question of stopping, but a question of difficulty
versus reward for the sorts of problems I consider interesting for
me to solve.  Within that space Windows doesn't win, and most
specifically, seems to enforce unacceptable contortions without
delivering any increased productivity, value, insight,
effectiveness, or anything else of value (to me) for the trouble.

Yes, I can build a cabinet, yes I can build a cabinet with someone
else's tools, and yes I can build a cabinet with my own selection
and preference in tools.  Guess which set I'll be most effective,
productive, and efficient with?  Guess which set will distract me
least from the problem I'm actually working on?  Guess which set I'd
prefer to work with?

> The work I do (and I'm sure this applies to a lot of people, even
> if you aren=92t one of them) the vast majority of my time is
> centered around solving a problem.

<nod>

> At the moment it's behaviour AI and the solution does not depend
> on Windows and Windows has no effect on how efficiently I solve
> that problem.

Good design can be implemented anywhere.  Every platform at the
implementation level comes with certain compromises, usually labeled
under "architectual model" such as thread models, IPC models, memory
models, RPC models, VM models, etc.  90+% of my code and designs
could be fairly easily implemented under Plan9, *nix, Windows,
VAX/VMS, or OS9 (the rest being designed against a given platforms
intricacies).  Efficiency of the implementation is not in question.
Efficiency in _producing_ the final implementation is in question.

> Nor do the tools for that matter, C++ affects the implementation
> but actually solving the problem and getting the behaviour I want
> has nothing to do with OS or language or tools or RFC compliance.

Precisely.  Ignoring the fact that I tend to work in arenas where
RFC compliance is significant (ie multi-system and 'net related
stuff), the *ability* of an arbitrary OS to support or implement the
solutions I render is not in question, nor is the ability of the OS
to do such a thing efficiently.  My point rests solely on my
efficiency in producing those solutions -- an efficiency which I'm
paid for.

> I'm guessing that you do a lot of UNIX system level type stuff in
> which case Windows isn't going to provide what your looking for
> but then it isn't supposed to.

I do a fair bit of systems work.  Most of what I do sits between the
upper levels of the kernel and the lower levels of applications.  As
such I dally just above hardware drivers and skulk just under
user-application logic the majority of the time.  Not quite
middleware, as I don't tend to get involved in middleware rules and
logics.  I guess a lot of it would end up being called, "system
infrastructure", "libraries", "integration protocols" and the like.

> But that doesn't make Windows "excessively difficult to be
> productive under".

There's an implicit phrase there of, "for me and what I do."  I've
not said that the same evaluation applies to everyone, as it
manifestly doesn't.

Requoting my initial statement:

  I won't work under Windows.  Not worth my time.  Not worth my
  employer's time.  Can't see a reason to bother.  Not a religious
  thing -- its just an environment which I consider and find
  excessively difficult to be productive under, and without any
  return value for that difficulty.

It is implicitly a subjective thing.

--
J C Lawrence
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
cl...@ka...               He lived as a devil, eh?
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

_______________________________________________
Gamedevlists-general mailing list
Gam...@li...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general