[Gambas-user] C Code character manipulation - alternatives

[Doriano Blengino]

Benoît Minisini ha scritto:
>> In some message some day ago, KhurramM proposed a single package of
>> gambas for linux, and someone else replied that a source distribution is
>> the more practical one. It is true - sadly. I think this situation is
>> bad - remember, Unix means "unique, one for all". As long as the
>> architecture does not change, it would be very practical to have binary
>> packages for all the distributions - instead, linux on PC is a mess. I
>> used to compile my kernel every time, on every new machine. Then, I
>> discovered that there was nothing to gain for my average desktop machine
>> - it was exactly the same to compile my customized kernel or to use the
>> full bloated one which came with the distibution. If it works for the
>> kernel, it could work any other application. But every distribution
>> creator think he is doing better than the other, and the more it does
>> different, better it is. Simply wrong. The author of the message than
>> spoke about windows '98, XP, 2000. Well, they are different operating
>> system. But 99% of applications developed by me with delphi run smoothly
>> on every windows machine I tried; the remaining 1% were secondary quirks
>> easily solved. I think this is the target of Unix/Linux world. This is
>> freedom, without having to mess around with makefiles and configure
>> scripts that get bigger than the original source itself. I suspect that
>> Benoit spends a lot of time to adapt the sources to all the different
>> distributions, which all share the same kernel, same libraries, and all
>> have a packaging system that keeps track of dependencies...
>>
>> Best regards,
>>     
>
> Nowadays, distributions mainly differ by their packaging system, the way they 
> run services only. The file system organization and many other things that 
> were different in the past seem to converge.
>
> I had a bug once in SuSE that I solved by implementing the shared library 
> preloading feature, but I guess that this feature is not needed anymore.
>
> As for the way program are packaged, you have to let a distribution manage the 
> packages, because:
>
> - They sign them: nobody can easily insert some trojan inside without notice.
>
> - They update them.
>
> - They manage dependencies. If a security hole is found in a library, all 
> programs using that library will be fixed.
>
> On the contrary, for me, Windows is a nightmare: each program must take care 
> of being updated itself, by going to the network, checking that an update is 
> available, downloading it, and so on. What about all the programs installed by 
> your OEM? Do they have holes? Are they updated? And when you have to reinstall 
> your Windows?
>   
There are few persons on The Earth who hate windows like I do. That 
said, we must admit that windows has some pros too, and linux some cons 
either. If the average windows user had the average linux user maturity, 
even windows would have less problems. From DOS 2.11 onward, through 
windows 95, 98, 2000, and now XP, I never used an antivirus on my 
machine, and I never reinstalled my operating system. Why? Because I am 
not the average windows user - I always look critically at windows, and 
I am careful about everything happens to my computers. I repeat - I hate 
windows. But windows has automatic updates like linux, windows has an 
installer like linux, and so on. There are very few things linux can do 
that can not be made on windows - the problem is elsewhere, in the 
background philosophy: closed sources, the idea that computer 
technologies must bring money. Everything that must bring money, that 
becomes a businness, suffers from dark sides.

But we should take a look at some linux problems. First of all, the 
quality of applications; average windows apps are better than average 
linux ones. It is true that linux software is normally free but, apart 
from few exceptions, there is a lot to do. I am very satisfied of Open 
Office, The Gimp, Gambas, KiCad, Firefox and companions, Synaptic. But 
try to find something like Dreamweaver, Corel draw, Delphi, Orcad (an 
electronics CAD like KiCAD), Cakewalk and others I can't remember now. 
Think this: I still have to find a text editor which does not annoy me. 
I even poked Gambas to add some feature in the editor.
The other problems of linux are the same of windows - sometimes you 
install something, and it screws up something else. No news here. Last 
time I upgraded xorg, I spent about half a day to correct the problems.

I dream a Linux world where things are more unified, like windows, but 
keeping the open source basis, the underlaying community and the freedom 
of choice. But freedom does not mean that everything must be compiled 
from sources. Freedom means that if I find something I don't like, I can 
change it. Or, if I want to see how things are made, I can take a look 
at the sources. This also spreads knowledge in the strategic field of 
software.

> On Linux everything is centralized and you can manage your system in a few 
> clicks.
>   
Are you really really sure you never used "you favorite text editor" in 
/etc/...?
You are true about the package system, which does not exist in windows 
(who knows why? perhaps because you have to pay...).
This is an important point, ok, but you will not find in your packages 
everything you need. In fact, in this thread we are discussing about 
distribuiting software by sources...
> On the contrary, the work is more difficult for the packager. I tried in the 
> Gambas IDE to make a packager easy to use, and it was not easy to do! I had to 
> deal with the difference between rpm, deb, tgz, and the little details between 
> distributions using the same package format.
>
> Having a common package format need to know all the differences in the 
> organization of all distributions. You cannot force that, because you will 
> destroy the diversity. Just wait, things are slowly converging.
>
> As for the GNU autoconf/automake system, I admit it was a nightmare for me 
> too. I think now that all distributions have the concept of "development 
> packages", a configure script should be able to tell the system the libraries 
> it needs, and the system should install them automagically. That's all. No 
> thousands of long tests to run before starting compiling.
>
> Regards,
>
>   
You are right, things are slowly converging - a little too slowly I 
think. A superior commission (GNU perhaps?) dictating some good 
standard, and much more good behaviour of the whole community would 
help. You talk about development packages where the package tells the 
system what it needs, and the system provides it. Well, this is 
fantastic for cross-platform but, for a single architecture (say, 
i386?), why use this complication? The final result of such a 
compilation would not differ so much from a computer to another. Several 
times I compiled a program on a computer and ran the executable on 
another, even crossing from debian to slackware to fedora. As long as 
the right libraries are in place, it works. If the right libraries are 
not there, even the compilation normally fails (gtk > 2.0.25 required, 
signature libc xxx not found, libqt3-mt blah blah blah) and the process 
of compiling introduces even more difficulties (this source expects a 
gcc prior than 4.0, this one instead wants gcc > 4.1, not tested with 
4.02 but should work... and so on).

Where are those big differences from a distribution to another? RPM vs 
APT, KDE vs GNOME (and hence QT vs GTK), latest kernel instead of the 
pre-latest. Full stop. So in my machine I have both RPM and APT, both 
GTK and QT, and so do many many users like me. I use KDE but, to install 
certain programs, I should install almost the whole gnome system. If all 
the distributions could take an eye on each other compatibility, having 
"libc6.0.rpm" instead of "libc-6.0mdk.rpm" for example, all we users had 
an easier life.

Sorry for this long email, best regards.

-- 
Doriano Blengino

"Listen twice before you speak.
This is why we have two ears, but only one mouth."