12 ms·

Sure, but were you learning how to program? At the time I didn't know what a compiler was, let alone the nuts and bolts of installing one and getting it runnin

by jfarmer 17y ago

Sure, but were you learning how to program? At the time I didn't know what a compiler was, let alone the nuts and bolts of installing one and getting it running. I was a self-taught 15-year-old and the only one in my hometown interested in this stuff. Making that happen on Windows was very difficult, IMO. I remember using something called LCC-Win32? Moving to *ix made a world of difference for me from a programming and sysadmin perspective. Everything works "out of the box" and the space is less fragmented because everyone uses gcc/g++. There are a million tutorials explaining step-by-step how to write a C/C++ program and compile it. Installing a printer on the other hand... :)

joe_the_user 17y ago
For command-line workability, I suppose there have been many levels of problems in the nix and the PC world. Going way back to when I was learning to program, I couldn't get Unix working at all. The folks at the college who understood it loved to make that understanding a mark of their superior condition rather than helping in any way. This was well before Linux. Unix terminal configuration is pretty much the most screwed-up, evil thing in the world. At the college where I was learning to program, most of the terminals were irrevocably mis-configured at the server level (or at least some level we had no control over) but the admins pretended it was the student's fault. And the present screwed-up configuration of the various flavors of desktop Linux can be traced to their support of the various archaic terminal flavors as a default. And it really shouldn't be assumed that Unix was step forward from UI's that existed in the really old systems. I learned my hatred of vi from a truly old school programmer who went back to far before Unix existed and could verify that there was no excuse for it's pathological absurdity - it wasn't a "step forward" from the editors that existed before - rather, it's popularity has to do with accidents of markets and college sysadmin culture. Here DOS (not Windows) was great. I just got a simple compiler and did a did of command-line stuff. The Borland c++ ide was great back in that day...
- jfarmer 17y ago
  I don't think Unix was a step forward in terms of a UI, but as a programming environment it's a lot easier to go from zero to something than Windows (IMO). That's all I'm saying. Now I use a Mac and have the best of both worlds!

by jfarmer 17y ago

joe_the_user 17y ago

For command-line workability, I suppose there have been many levels of problems in the nix and the PC world. Going way back to when I was learning to program, I couldn't get Unix working at all. The folks at the college who understood it loved to make that understanding a mark of their superior condition rather than helping in any way. This was well before Linux. Unix terminal configuration is pretty much the most screwed-up, evil thing in the world. At the college where I was learning to program, most of the terminals were irrevocably mis-configured at the server level (or at least some level we had no control over) but the admins pretended it was the student's fault. And the present screwed-up configuration of the various flavors of desktop Linux can be traced to their support of the various archaic terminal flavors as a default. And it really shouldn't be assumed that Unix was step forward from UI's that existed in the really old systems. I learned my hatred of vi from a truly old school programmer who went back to far before Unix existed and could verify that there was no excuse for it's pathological absurdity - it wasn't a "step forward" from the editors that existed before - rather, it's popularity has to do with accidents of markets and college sysadmin culture. Here DOS (not Windows) was great. I just got a simple compiler and did a did of command-line stuff. The Borland c++ ide was great back in that day...

jfarmer 17y ago
I don't think Unix was a step forward in terms of a UI, but as a programming environment it's a lot easier to go from zero to something than Windows (IMO). That's all I'm saying. Now I use a Mac and have the best of both worlds!