gmd@pulsar.UUCP (George MacDonald) (08/14/89)
On 13 Aug, (Deven T. Corzine) uttered forth the following wisdom: >You're a bit late responding. I thought this thread was dead. Some of us are busy working all week and don't get much time to wade through to torrents of idle chit chat in comp.sys.amiga until the weekend. > A large list of reliable public domain tools > >[who cares?] I mearly wished to show the quantity of tools that I use on my amiga on a regular basis. I guess one could say I was trying to prove my point with an example. > George> Most of these are very reliable public domain programs that > George> make life on the Amiga a joy!!! > Not always so reliable. Maybe you've been lucky. My point is that those tools are reliable to the extent that I have used them(a reasonable amount). This is INFORMATION which is USEFUL to others who read comp.sys.amiga and not unsubstantiated opinions which is of limited value. I was also complimenting many of the fine public domain authors who have taken the time and trouble to share their efforts with all of us. It is true that not all public domain programs for the amiga are reliable, but many of them are. We all owe these authors a debt of gratitude and it does little good to chastise their efforts. > Deven> First, I think AmigaDOS's UI sucks. But that depends to a > Deven> degree on what you're used to. I'm used to Unix, and I find > Deven> AmigaDOS annoying and clumsy, and often frustratingly limiting. > George> What a load of absolute drivel!! AmigaDOS is not that much > George> different than unix sh, CLI is even better in some way's. > Get a clue. The AmigaDOS CLI is worthless. It does virtually > nothing. The Bourne shell is a language in its own right. The CLI > isn't even a scripting language, much as you may think it is. ALL > commands are external to the CLI, including script commands like if, > else, endif, _endcli_ and even simple commands like echo. The stock > Amiga CLI simply doesn't compare to Unix sh, csh, ksh, tcsh, or just > about any other Unix shell you might run across. My comment relates to the broader scope of User Interfaces, text orientated command entry being just one class of those. This being the case the CLI, and I should have mentioned SHELL, do not differ that much from the shell interfaces of unix. They are both text entry with a wide variety of cryptic and inconsistent syntactical and semantical constructs. Neither interface is intuitive or friendly. I was not commenting on the CLI as a language. I whole heatedly agree with your comments about the unix shells as being full languages with rich and powerful constructs. The case where the CLI/SHELL wins is the trivial history and editing case. It is very natural to hit the up arrow to go back through ones history. "!!, !-1, <esc>-, Ctrl P ...", just are not natural at least not for me. Another area of great inconsistency with unix is the command arguments. The amiga commands are more consistent although just as cryptic. > That's not the point. The point was that the AmigaDOS _CLI_ was poor, > along with the command names and syntax. The fact that there's csh > clones (somewhat limited when compared to the real C-Shell, but far > far superior to the AmigaDOS CLI) doesn't change my opinion that the > AmigaDOS UI sucks. It's the gravity of your opinion that get's me, your definition "if it's not a unix shell it doesn't amass to much" seems quite eccentric. Talking about csh > George> I use it all the time now, it's reliable and I don't have to > George> think about which machine I'm on. > If you don't notice a difference between Dillon's (et al) csh and the > real csh, then you're using a small subset of its features. I dropped the csh in favor of ksh over six years ago, guess who can't wait for Sys Vr4. > George> Your point is well taken, your language is not!! Read > George> NETTIQUETE AGAIN!! > It's known as *emphasis*... or can't you understand that? I understand that obscenity is no more required to emphasize a point than is violence. The USENET protocol is well defined and abusing it does little good. > Deven> I don't see that Minix/Unix on an Amiga need be any more of a > Deven> headache for system maintenance and administration than > Deven> AmigaDOS itself is. Yes, Unix is multiuser, but that doesn't > Deven> need to complicate things much. Managing an AmigaDOS system > Deven> well can be a lot of work as well. [unless you LIKE using only > Deven> the stock configuration...] > > George> Having just repaired my hard drive on the amiga and debugging > George> a new disk installation on some sun systems I would say the > George> amiga is A LOT easier to deal with!! It is much better at > George> fixing the file system, diskdoctor is easier to use than > George> fsck/fsdb. > Try paying attention to what I say once in a while. I wasn't saying > most Unix systems aren't more complicated than AmigaDOS. I was saying > that a Unix implementation for the Amiga doesn't _need_ to be so > complicated. I have proposed writing something similar to Unix V7, > which is MUCH simpler than SysV or BSD systems nowadays. I made a point and followed with a concrete example. Fixing a V7 file system is more complicated than fixing an AmigaDOS file system, with stock tools. Even a simple version of unix is more complicated than AmigaDOS in some cases. Of course you could make it LESS unix like. > A Unix-like > system on the Amiga could well be written to fix the filesystem far > better than AmigaDOS does, as well. The old V7 file system is much more susceptible to errors than AmigaDOS. Of course one could use the newer Berkeley file system, but that is more complicated than AmigaDOS. > I stated that there are advantages and drawbacks. Whether they are > good design decisions or not is context-dependent. Did the designers achieve the goals they set out too? About memory protection, >No, when you need protection from YOURSELF. I don't, DO YOU! >If a process crashes, on >the Amiga, it can trash all sorts of stuff before the system catches >it and brings down the machine along with everything else running. A >memory-protected system will continue running happily. Memory >protection is not an outgrowth of paranoia. RIGHT!! HA HA HA HA. I have written several programs that manage to crash various flavors of unix. It's not so difficult, just push the limits of the system for a while and you will break all sorts of stuff in unix. I'll grant you it is a lot more difficult than crashing an amiga. On the other hand, once a program is debugged on the amiga it run's just as well as on a unix system. > George> The Amiga has done a very good job at this, my 2500 FEELS very > George> fast and very smooth. I never run out of memory an IF the > George> machine crashes I know instantly who caused it, ME not some > George> one else hacking on a device driver. > Yeah, well try asking someone on a one FLOPPY drive system with 512K > or even 1Meg of ram who wants to run a dozen things at once. And you > often don't know what task caused a crash. Who cares who ran it? > It's a single user system; of course you ran it. I bought my Amiga 1000 on Oct 3 1985 and ran it with one floppy and 512k for a couple of years before expanding it to 2.5M. I never had any trouble figuring out which programs were buggy. Once I did I stopped using them and switched to more reliable ones. I sort of miss the old gronking drive and the nifty keyboard garage. What price we pay for speed 8-)! > George> with the basic model of file system structure. And FFS is not > George> THAT different than the original file system. > Yes, FFS *is* THAT different from the old file system. And the old > file system is what I was referring to. It is an abomination. Ok they took off some extra bytes from the file data blocks which were not really required. How does that make it such a radical change? The old file system may be a little slow at some operations but it is quite reliable. It took three years and over four hundred disks before I needed diskdoctor, and then it restored all my files intact! > George> Finally a meaningful comment!! But then spoiled by foul > George> language again!! > You seem be really hung up on language. Don't take it out on the net. Sorry, I guess I got fiesty after wading through so much noise. Still the rules are clear and they exist for all of us to abide by, including me. > Bernie> Life is not worth living if I can't come in early in the > Bernie> morning and grep a few files to start my day. With make, > Bernie> diff, awk, etc. etc. etc. life is so much easier. > George> Oh you mean like the make, diff, egrep, sed, tee, ... on MY > George> amiga Of course I just need to click on that cute little box > George> in the upper right and pop up my vt100 window which > George> automatically logged into the Sun just as I got up. Geesh and > George> I haven't even finished eating breakfast yet!!! > Great, that proves nothing. Eh! I just pointed out that the metric used above applies below! I can, and often do make, grep, diff, sed on my amiga before I go to work! In fact going to work is just moving the mouse to the upper right corner, and clicking a button. Sure beats fighting traffic to find out last nights overnight run failed! I can kick off another run before I go in. >>So you can use your Amiga as a terminal You mean Xterminal right? And the answer is yes. And ico runs as fast on my amiga as the 4/110 at work. >to a Unix machine and get all those wonderful utilities. That doesn't >give you that functionality ON THE AMIGA. True I don't have ALL the unix functionality on my amiga under amiga OS but as time goes by I get closer all the time. And of course there are all the other things the amiga does quite nicely. > Deven> Yes. > George> See you knew I was right 8-). > Wow, clever. Thanks, > Go ahead... make my sandwich. Bologna on Rye OK?
shadow@pawl.rpi.edu (Deven T. Corzine) (08/15/89)
On 14 Aug 89 04:16:00 GMT, gmd@pulsar.UUCP (George MacDonald) said:
George> On 13 Aug, (Deven T. Corzine) uttered forth the following wisdom:
Deven> You're a bit late responding. I thought this thread was dead.
George> Some of us are busy working all week and don't get much time
George> to wade through to torrents of idle chit chat in
George> comp.sys.amiga until the weekend.
Perhaps I should rephrase that. I *hoped* this thread was dead. It
started with flames, so of course the responses were mostly in kind.
Enough, already.
Deven> Not always so reliable. Maybe you've been lucky.
George> My point is that those tools are reliable to the extent that I
George> have used them(a reasonable amount). This is INFORMATION which
George> is USEFUL to others who read comp.sys.amiga and not
George> unsubstantiated opinions which is of limited value. I was also
George> complimenting many of the fine public domain authors who have
George> taken the time and trouble to share their efforts with all of
George> us. It is true that not all public domain programs for the
George> amiga are reliable, but many of them are. We all owe these
George> authors a debt of gratitude and it does little good to
George> chastise their efforts.
There is a lot of excellent PD and shareware stuff out there, and
there is a lot of garbage as well. ["hey, wanna try out my superduper
new program to strip CR's from the end of lines??? It's great, and
it's only $25!! (This is PD, and can't be used for profit.)" etc.]
[:-)]
George> My comment relates to the broader scope of User Interfaces,
[...]
George> The case where the CLI/SHELL wins is the trivial history and
George> editing case. It is very natural to hit the up arrow to go
George> back through ones history.
Ignoring the fact the the CLI supports nothing of the sort, that sort
of history editing I find useful primarily to correct typographical
errors and redo a command. To take full advantage of the history
mechanism, you need more control, which csh's '!' history
substitutions give you. History editing can't take its place.
George> "!!, !-1, <esc>-, Ctrl P ...", just are not natural at least
George> not for me.
Depends entirely on what you're used to.
George> Another area of great inconsistency with unix is the command
George> arguments. The amiga commands are more consistent although
George> just as cryptic.
The AmigaDOS are *less* consistent, not to mention more verbose. The
AmigaDOS style of handling command arguments is slightly quicker to
pick up and understand, but no easier to extrapolate, as they aren't
very consistent.
Deven> That's not the point. The point was that the AmigaDOS _CLI_
Deven> was poor, along with the command names and syntax. The fact
Deven> that there's csh clones (somewhat limited when compared to the
Deven> real C-Shell, but far far superior to the AmigaDOS CLI) doesn't
Deven> change my opinion that the AmigaDOS UI sucks.
George> It's the gravity of your opinion that get's me, your
George> definition "if it's not a unix shell it doesn't amass to much"
George> seems quite eccentric.
The stock AmigaDOS (text) UI is the CLI. (forget about workbench;
that's an entirely different issue.) And the CLI is pretty user and
programmer hostile. Unix is only user hostile. (not that it needs to
be, really.)
George> I dropped the csh in favor of ksh over six years ago, guess
George> who can't wait for Sys Vr4.
SysV.4 should be decent, though a bit bloated. Better than SysV.3, at
least.
George> I understand that obscenity is no more required to emphasize a
George> point than is violence. The USENET protocol is well defined
George> and abusing it does little good.
Ah, but what do you expect when you've been up too long and post? A
lack of judgement precludes using that missing judgement to delay
posting...
Deven> A Unix-like system on the Amiga could well be written to fix
Deven> the filesystem far better than AmigaDOS does, as well.
George> The old V7 file system is much more susceptible to errors than
George> AmigaDOS. Of course one could use the newer Berkeley file
George> system, but that is more complicated than AmigaDOS.
Who says you have to use either model? I define Unix-like by the
programming interface, primarily. And, to a degree, the utilities.
The filesystem could be any of many types.
Deven> I stated that there are advantages and drawbacks. Whether they
Deven> are good design decisions or not is context-dependent.
George> Did the designers achieve the goals they set out too?
No. They didn't have time to finish the in-house dos, so they had
someone port TRIPOS and AmigaDOS was born. (which was not the goal,
originally.)
George> About memory protection,
Deven> No, when you need protection from YOURSELF.
George> I don't, DO YOU!
*I* write clean code. MANY others don't.
Deven> If a process crashes, on the Amiga, it can trash all sorts of
Deven> stuff before the system catches it and brings down the machine
Deven> along with everything else running. A memory-protected system
Deven> will continue running happily. Memory protection is not an
Deven> outgrowth of paranoia.
George> RIGHT!! HA HA HA HA. I have written several programs that
George> manage to crash various flavors of unix. It's not so
George> difficult, just push the limits of the system for a while and
George> you will break all sorts of stuff in unix. I'll grant you it
George> is a lot more difficult than crashing an amiga. On the other
George> hand, once a program is debugged on the amiga it run's just as
George> well as on a unix system.
main(){while(1)fork;}
The point was that with memory protection, it is much harder to
*accidentally* trash the system. Maliciousness is another matter.
[re: which program did it]
If you install lots of new, unknown stuff at once, (which I have found
common, and random housekeeping intervals) it's hard to tell at times
what is causing strange behavior. (often, it isn't so simple as a
GURU.)
George> And FFS is not THAT different than the original file system.
Deven> Yes, FFS *is* THAT different from the old file system. And the
Deven> old file system is what I was referring to. It is an
Deven> abomination.
George> Ok they took off some extra bytes from the file data blocks
George> which were not really required. How does that make it such a
George> radical change? The old file system may be a little slow at
George> some operations but it is quite reliable. It took three years
George> and over four hundred disks before I needed diskdoctor, and
George> then it restored all my files intact!
Reliable, usually... Unless you take out the disk at the wrong
time... it can trash it while *reading* the disk... But the most
important difference (well, among them) is the more intelligent layout
of directories so you don't fall asleep waiting for a directory to
scan. I singled out directory scans, because they are so hideously
slow under the Old File System, and such an extremely common
operation, from a user perspective...
George> Sorry, I guess I got fiesty after wading through so much noise.
Noise? But comp.sys.amiga is 80% noise! *sigh*
Deven> So you can use your Amiga as a terminal
George> You mean Xterminal right? And the answer is yes. And ico runs
George> as fast on my amiga as the 4/110 at work.
(a nice feature, but completely beside the entire discussion.)
Deven> to a Unix machine and get all those wonderful utilities. That
Deven> doesn't give you that functionality ON THE AMIGA.
George> True I don't have ALL the unix functionality on my amiga under
George> amiga OS but as time goes by I get closer all the time. And of
George> course there are all the other things the amiga does quite
George> nicely.
Yes, more pd/shareware stuff comes out to being it closer, but it's
haphazard and by no means consistent. But, better than nothing.
Deven> Go ahead... make my sandwich.
George> Bologna on Rye OK?
Deal!
Deven
--
Deven T. Corzine Internet: deven@rpi.edu, shadow@pawl.rpi.edu
Snail: 2214 12th Street, Troy, NY 12180 Phone: (518) 271-0750
Bitnet: deven@rpitsmts, userfxb6@rpitsmts UUCP: uunet!rpi!deven
Simple things should be simple and complex things should be possible.