Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

From: Christopher Smith <csmith_at_amdocs.com>
Date: Mon Apr 22 11:52:50 2002

> -----Original Message-----
> From: R. D. Davis [mailto:rdd_at_rddavis.org]

> How can anyone do anything useful with a computer without the
> following? Emacs, TeX/LaTeX, dvips, the Bourne shell for scripts,

Ok then, how about using the VMS LSE for text editing? I believe
TeX is not required for a computer to be "useful," since I don't
produce much hardcopy anyway -- same with dvips. Bourne is useful,
but so is DCL, TCL, Python, you-name-it, and there's nothing that
bourne will do that one of the others won't.

> ghostview, gimp, xv, PostgreSQL or Oracle, Perl, C, various useful

ghostview is nice to have, but I've actually used just ghostscript,
myself, and I've seen utilities that use straight DPS to accomplish
the same kind of thing. Gimp is nice, but there are a few other
graphics editors that will do the job -- I'm thinking photoshop or
Corel's offerings here. XV is indispensable for me, but I don't
think it's a requirement for everyone. PostgreSQL is certainly a
fine tool, but again, there are many similar offerings, no less
capable. Perl is very useful, but there are other choices. C is
arguably a decent an more portable replacement for an assembler in
many cases, but Modula-3 is nice. ;)

> UNIX utilities (e.g. tar, awk, nawk, grep, sed, dc, ed, diff, cal, at,
> bc, od, lint, etc.), to name a very few of the extremely useful
> programs that run on UNIX systems.

I won't address these things, but it should suffice to say that if
any system didn't come with these, and you found them indispensable,
you could write them yourself.

I find that applications alone are hardly a good argument for the use
or non-use of any system, and the much better argument is in the design
of the system itself. Applications can be had, one way or another.

Of course, this view won't make me very popular :)

Chris


Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL

/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
 
Received on Mon Apr 22 2002 - 11:52:50 BST