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Trying to generalise and extract a lesson from this... It was a quick DOS shareware app in the 1980s. There are better file-compression solutions now, for mode

Trying to generalise and extract a lesson from this... It was a quick DOS shareware app in the 1980s. There are better file-compression solutions now, for modern multicore processors on multitasking cross-platform OSes, but this one caught on, because it was shareware, and now has critical mass so we have to deal. Generalising a lot, going a century back: QWERTY was a handy keyboard format back when typewriters were catching on. There are better layouts now, but because QWERTY had a big win that led to another big win (it was designed to stop type levers jamming, so it was designed to make English users continually alternate left and right hands, and that happens to be quite ergonomically efficient), it caught on and now has critical mass so we have to deal with it. Generalising just a little, just a couple of decades back from PKZip, and recursing 1 step: UNIX was a quick hack of a text-terminal-driven minicomputer OS in the late 1960s, based on some ideas from mainstream OS R&D back then. Then they ported it to other text-only minicomputers, so they came up with a quick hack of a language to do it (C). There are better solutions now, including what the UNIX creators went on to do in the 1980s (an OS for LANs of homogenous graphical single-user workstations, Plan 9), and in the 1990s (a similar OS for heterogenous LANs of workstations some running other OSes, Inferno), and better languages (Limbo, Oberon) but Unix and direct copies of Unix (Linux, xBSD) got critical mass, so we have to deal.

benj111 3y ago
Or nearly any programming language that is actually in wide spread use. Any protocol, standard, markup language........ Iprovens law. A) Anything in widespread use will be used for things it isn't intended for, and thus won't be suitable for those things. The more widespread the use, the greater the proportion of its use is for things it isn't intended for. B) Anything in widespread use won't be able to change because it will break existing things. (I wasn't sure if you were intending both or one of these)
- lproven 3y ago
  It's an L. I would say those generalise way too far, but that doesn't make the observation entirely invalid. But the thing is that in some fields and in some areas of software, the industry has proved willing to drop older stuff and make breaking changes where it works out necessary. A 10Y old web browser barely works now. A 20Y old web browser doesn't. Despite its inadequacies, a huge number of people and machines have moved to IPv6. Javascript now isn't the quick hack that it was 25Y ago. We dropped DOS and Win9x and most other OSes with roots in the 1980s. When it proved impossible to extend them any more, the industry let them die and moved on.
Semaphor 3y ago
> Contrary to popular belief, the QWERTY layout was not designed to slow the typist down, but rather to speed up typing. Indeed, there is evidence that, aside from the issue of jamming, placing often-used keys farther apart increases typing speed, because it encourages alternation between the hands -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Properties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Properties So you took the common urban legend and altered it with some half-truths ;)
- lproven 3y ago
  Hang on, what? You prefix "Contrary to..." with a > which usually indicates quoting... But that's not a quote. I didn't say that. I didn't say anything at all about that. I didn't say anything about slowing anyone down or speeding up typing. So you are replying to my comment by questioning what someone else said. I have nothing to say about what you're talking about.
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    > a > which usually indicates quoting And followed by -- and a link, which usually indicated the source of the quote.
    - lproven 3y ago
      Not to me it doesn't, no. Never heard of that convention before, and I've been online since 1985, but hey. I did not refer to that Wikipedia page, or any Wikipedia page. I can't argue with something I never said or meant. I don't see the relevance. I did not mention typing speed at all.

benj111 3y ago

Or nearly any programming language that is actually in wide spread use. Any protocol, standard, markup language........ Iprovens law. A) Anything in widespread use will be used for things it isn't intended for, and thus won't be suitable for those things. The more widespread the use, the greater the proportion of its use is for things it isn't intended for. B) Anything in widespread use won't be able to change because it will break existing things. (I wasn't sure if you were intending both or one of these)

lproven 3y ago
It's an L. I would say those generalise way too far, but that doesn't make the observation entirely invalid. But the thing is that in some fields and in some areas of software, the industry has proved willing to drop older stuff and make breaking changes where it works out necessary. A 10Y old web browser barely works now. A 20Y old web browser doesn't. Despite its inadequacies, a huge number of people and machines have moved to IPv6. Javascript now isn't the quick hack that it was 25Y ago. We dropped DOS and Win9x and most other OSes with roots in the 1980s. When it proved impossible to extend them any more, the industry let them die and moved on.

Semaphor 3y ago

> Contrary to popular belief, the QWERTY layout was not designed to slow the typist down, but rather to speed up typing. Indeed, there is evidence that, aside from the issue of jamming, placing often-used keys farther apart increases typing speed, because it encourages alternation between the hands -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Properties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Properties So you took the common urban legend and altered it with some half-truths ;)

lproven 3y ago
Hang on, what? You prefix "Contrary to..." with a > which usually indicates quoting... But that's not a quote. I didn't say that. I didn't say anything at all about that. I didn't say anything about slowing anyone down or speeding up typing. So you are replying to my comment by questioning what someone else said. I have nothing to say about what you're talking about.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  > a > which usually indicates quoting And followed by -- and a link, which usually indicated the source of the quote.
  - lproven 3y ago
    Not to me it doesn't, no. Never heard of that convention before, and I've been online since 1985, but hey. I did not refer to that Wikipedia page, or any Wikipedia page. I can't argue with something I never said or meant. I don't see the relevance. I did not mention typing speed at all.