Re: OT: software plug, open-source planetarium

eugene@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Eugene Griessel) wrote:

:"Arved Sandstrom" <asandstrom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
:
:>
:>Part of the problem for many people on Linux/UNIX/BSD etc is the toolkit
:>mentality. That is, if I build such and such a program that has dependencies
:>on these other libraries or executables, why should I bundle them? So if a
:>user then downloads my program, he or she is expected to have all of that
:>other stuff handy.
:
:Programmers on Linux/UNIX/BSD tend to have an egotistic mentality that
:what exists on their machines should be on all machines. That's why
:they never bother bundling.
:

It comes down to just how much do you bundle? Unix isn't like
Windows. Everything isn't all fastened together with spaghetti. If
what I'm shipping needs A and B, and A needs C and D while B needs D
and E, and those need...

I'm sure you get the point. At some point you just have to say that
the person installing your stuff has a reasonable machine and you
don't have to ship every dependency to them.

:>I consider that to be OK if the dependency is something that a typical
:>Linux/UNIX system should have. Or more to the point, if the thing that the
:>person is building can reasonably be expected to require other support. That
:>is, someone compiling Perl from source shouldn't quibble when it becomes
:>necessary to update libc.
:>
:>Can't remember the last time I actually had to resort to vi. As in, deep
:>*** :-) It has happened, but not recently. I don't mind vi, and am good
:>with it, but I wouldn't call it my editor of choice.
:
:My colleague thinks that anybody that does not understand the
:faintest, vaguest nuance of vi capability should be shot at dawn.

I consider that anyone who uses vi is actually a masochist at heart.

:I
:once worked out that all the possible vi commands, combinations of
:commands etc. would fill 29 foolscap pages and most people just don't
:have that sort of memory - especially when they only use vi on the
:oddest of odd occasions. I use gedit 99% of the time and put up with
:his sneers and condemnation.
:

I use whatever version of Emacs I can find, both because it annoys the
vi purists and because I can get a copy of it that runs on pretty much
anything (I'm lazy and figure I should learn one editor well rather
than have to learn a different one for every OS).


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw
.