Re: the fate of a euphorian
A serious window$ lover wrote to us:
>What should you all that do have ideas do with them? Write them down
>on a piece of paper and staple it to your forehead. <snip>
Hilarious!
Another bright spark from the same camp suggested I was living in a
hole just because I wrote a program or two for dos. The poor sods do
not even realize they are up to their necks in it and paying Micro$oft
for the treatment.
Dos is dead, they say. Why? Because Bill Gate$ said so? He would say
that, wouldn't he, his livelihood depends on it!
Unfortunately, guys, I am not buying this crap. I am old enough to
remember similar silly claims made ten, twenty, thirty years ago: we
would have no books, magazines, newspapers and cinemas because we
would have television, we would have paperless offices because of
computers, etc, etc.
Micro$oft window$ is, historically, a technological *anomaly* created
by stupid IBM that gave Micro$oft an exclusive licence to establish a
virtual monopoly and proceed to blackmail the rest of the world for
decades.
Dos and any sort of gui are not mutually exclusive. The latter is just
a particular, hopefully pretty and useful, extension of the other.
That's why I think dos will be still around long after window$ become
fading, unpleasant memory.
Let me, briefly, return to Robert's reply to my provocation. He wrote:
>>The real issues have not been tackled. There are not that many of
>>them currently on my list, just two:
>>(1) more sophisticated namespace handling, and
>I intend to improve the namespace situation. Most people on this list
>probably don't even know what a "namespace" is.
Mushrooms. Keep them in the dark...
>Others are building up the namespace improvement like it's going to
>solve all the world's problems. In fact, it will prove to be a minor
>convenience for those who are integrating large libraries written by
>others.
It depends how clever you really are. The minor convenience for a few
might turn into a major inconvenience for all of us if you leave too
long.
>>(2) better, smarter tools and/or structures for interfacing
>>with the outside world.
>As a DOS-only Euphoria programmer, what "outside world"
>are you talking about here?
DOS-only programmer. I like that, a cute label, Rob. But forget the
labels for a moment, dos, windows, linux. You know I am not talking
just about a built-in port access, or a low level support for records
or structures and things like that. They would be nice too, but I
really want high level routines that would allow me to communicate
literally with the rest of world, even from dos. For example, I want
to be able to read and write to and from the clipboard, send email to
David Cuny, ftp some files from home to work, etc, etc, preferably
with just a line or two of code. Also, if I need a simple form with a
couple of buttons, I do not want to include 40,000 lines, I want to do
it with half-a-dozen lines, because I know it can be done.
If you do not believe me, have look at REBOL. It can do all that and
much more in a space not much bigger that Euphoria's.
Rob, I love Euphoria. It was a cute baby not that long ago. She's a
young lady now, clever and pretty, but the way you dress her is
reprehensible. A distinctly early eighties look.
jiri
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