RE: [ros-kernel] Forward: "ReactOS is too limited"

[Aidan K. <ke...@pa...>]

 Ar an 30ú lá de mí 5, scríobh Frohwalt Egerer :

 > Coming from a "pure" Linux world, I have soleley been using Windows
 > for the last three years and - what I would never have expected - I
 > really like some parts of Windoze. 

If that is the case, could you spell the thing properly, please? How
would you like it if the fine people at Microsoft started exclusively
using the term `Weenux' to describe something so many people put time
and effort into?

 > (While I still utterly despise other parts ...)
 > 
 > In these three years there was something very enlightening: My
 > coworkers - who are mostly really skilled software developers -
 > like to use the GUI. And they are amazed that I always use the
 > command line.
 > 
 > The bottom line is - there are "command line" people and there are
 > "GUI" people. What interface is superior is a matter of personal
 > taste. So we should all stop flaming each other and get
 > constructive.

Yup. Note, however, that (imho) X window as a GUI _implementation_ is
inferior to Windows NT as a GUI _implementation_ (network transparency
notwithstanding); and I think this has some relevance to the relative
proportions of `GUI people' and `command line' people among the two
camps. 

 > To start with, here is my personal list of "What I don't like about
 > Windows and how Reactos could make it better".
 > 
 > - Even if you are administrator you are not allowed to do
 > everything by default. (Opposed to "root" in Unix, who normally may
 > do everything). For example Administrator can not kill all
 > processes in Task manager. This is a *major* annoyance to Unix
 > power users working on Windows - and probably a minor issue to
 > fix. (It can even be configured in normal Windows by adding the
 > needed priviledges to the administrator account.)

Yes, absolutely. Also in this area of annoying niggles are `security'
measures like offering the administrator the option of disabling the
Display control panel, while leaving the programmatic interface to the
thing unchecked.

 > - The console window on Windows is really weak. Unix has gained a
 > lot from being able to write "terminal emulators" as normal user
 > mode programs. It is not too difficult to write a new terminal
 > emulator, so on Unix we nowadays have a plethora of really great
 > terminal emulators. Considering to do something "interesting" for
 > Windows I didn't find any good point to start, in NT the Console
 > seems to deeply interwoven with the rest of the system. Reactos
 > could improve on this by taking the "Unix Idea" of being able to
 > write "Terminal Emulators" in user mode. And whoops we'd have a
 > Win32 Reactos console, maybe one for X11 like xterm or whatever.

I honestly think that the DOS console model is too limited and broken
to make a decent terminal emulator program possible. The way to do it
would be to wrap it around the (greatly extended) POSIX subsystem, and
ignore the console entirely. 

 > - cmd.exe is REALLY REALLY REALLY weak compared with bash or zsh. I
 > know bash/zsh do run on Windows, but I'd like something "native"
 > with the same power (programmable command line completion, good
 > scripting, etc.) No big issue, just a lot of work to write a really
 > really cool cmd.exe.

Zsh runs native in win32; it can be configured to be
comfortable. Integrating it into the system is worth considering--it's
X11 licenced, as I recall, and less buggy than bash :-) . 

 > - Many things do not have a command line interface. For example,
 > the "disk defragmenter", a bundled version of DiskKeeper can not be
 > started via command line. This makes sense if you want to sell
 > commercial versions of DiskKeeper, but it recently annoyed the hell
 > out of Joe (*) who tried to add a defragmentation run to his
 > unattended install routine.

I don't think a lack of command line interfaces will really be a
problem :-) , given that the compiler of the system is gcc, not VC++. 

 > - I can't remember much more right now. When I'm on the phone with
 > Joe he always gripes about not being able to delete open files in
 > Windows.

Programs written for win32 rely on this; it's not something that
should be taken out. 

I'm only an observer at the moment, so I won't comment on the politics
and motivational factors :-) . 

-- 
I'm not a pheasant plucker / I'm a pheasant plucker's son.
I'm just a'plucking pheasants / 'Til the pheasant plucker comes.