Subject: H E L P ! ! !

From: "Amir Abiri" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 06:46:02 +0200

I need serious help !

Listen guys, i just recently started working in administrating Linuks
servers in a servers farm. But i don't know anything about Linuks, or
servers, or TCP/IP, or networking or computers, since i'm not a lifeless
computer geek...

My boss asked me to write a script that will sort a list of files
alphabeticly. I don't know how to do it !

Please, can anyone send me a script that sorts a list of files alphabeticly
? If so i need it today pls, since otherwise they might suspect me and i
might loose my job !

SHOW ME HOW SMART YOU BUNCH OF LEENUX LIFELESS WOOSIES ARE ! YEAH !

P.S
Make it fast since i need it today...

--
http://abiri-e.com/
"God is a programmer".

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 07:35:46 +0300 (IDT)

Amir, is this a joke? Did somebody hack your computer? What's going on
here?

I am familiar with your record in GNUbies-IL, Hackers-IL, etc. In any case
the answer for your question is man sort (1) or just plain ls with some
arguments. I'll ignore the offending comments because I just can't
understand where they came from.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

On Thu, 9 May 2002, Amir Abiri wrote:

> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> [email-masked]
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish        [email-masked]
Home Page:         http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail:       [email-masked]

"Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups..."
"Wait a second - is n a natural number?"

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 11:20:28 +0300

> Amir, is this a joke? Did somebody hack your computer? What's going on

Shlomi, this was obviously a joke :)
It was a parody on the questions we've seen on this list lately, with all
the annoying elements (bad spelling, offending comments, beginner questions,
insistance of fast reply, etc.) mixed into one message...

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |      Thursday, May 9 2002, 27 Iyyar 5762
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |I put a dollar in one of those change
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |machines. Nothing changed.

---

From: Oleg Goldshmidt <[email-masked]>
Date: 09 May 2002 11:30:44 +0300

> insistance of fast reply, etc.) mixed into one message...

For completeness, it should have asked about listing files on a
CIA mainframe computer... ;-)

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | [email-masked] 
"We work by wit, and not by witchcraft,
 And wit depends on dilatory time..."

---

From: Arik Baratz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 15:31:33 +0200

> I need serious help !
Damn right you do.

> servers, or TCP/IP, or networking or computers, since i'm not a lifeless
Computer geeks are not lifeless. Their life is just... existantially - 
challanged.

> alphabeticly. I don't know how to do it !
You might want to ask your question in a different mailing list, such as 
[email-masked]

> ? If so i need it today pls, since otherwise they might suspect me and i
Maybe someone on that list will. Ind it serves you right for taking a 
job you cannot handle. Remember the rule in life: Learn - then implement.

> SHOW ME HOW SMART YOU BUNCH OF LEENUX LIFELESS WOOSIES ARE ! YEAH !
That's a sure-fire way to get help. Insult us all.

> Make it fast since i need it today...
Like heck.

-- Arik

---

From: Gilad Ben-Yossef <[email-masked]>
Date: 09 May 2002 16:16:50 +0300

> job you cannot handle. Remember the rule in life: Learn - then implement.

I couldn't agree less with anything you said. Every new job I ever
started required me to do things which I have never done before (Of
course I never claimed otherwise to my employers). implment - this is
how you learn. And when you know better you can write it all over again
the right way.

Gilad

-- 
Gilad Ben-Yossef <[email-masked]>
Code mangler, senior coffee drinker and VP SIGSEGV
Qlusters ltd.

"To err is human. To realy fsck up you need a computer. For
 those really large scale disastears, an SSI cluster is a must."

---

From: "Amir Abiri" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 18:05:00 +0200

From: "Oleg Goldshmidt" <[email-masked]>

> CIA mainframe computer... ;-)

Actually i spent 5 minutes trying to think about the assignment part. But i
couldn't come up with something nifty enough, so i just went for plain
simple.
In fact, it's generally not the best piece of cynicism that came out from
under my fingers. To my defence i can only say that it was 6:00 am after a
sleepless night. My apologies to everyone.

--
http://abiri-e.com/
"God is a programmer".

---

From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 18:27:35 +0300 (EET DST)

On Thu, 9 May 2002, Amir Abiri wrote:

> Actually i spent 5 minutes trying to think about the assignment part.But i

When I saw the sender's name, I expected him to congratulate himself for
parodying a request for help by a clueless newbie.

However, it seems that someone else will have to accept the mission of
being creative about this.  Amir was earnest about his request for help.
He also failed to possess 2nd personality trait of hackers - the ability
to have fun.
                                             --- Omer
The Deaf in Israel demand 100% captioning of Hebrew language TV and CATV
programs.
WARNING TO SPAMMERS:  at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html

---

From: Adeyemo oluseyi <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 18:44:03 -0700 (PDT)

Hi there,
      Please i need to become an hacker, and i didn't
have any programing techniques. How can you help me
out and let me be an hacker.
  I was about to start a programing class in which
everything about programing, c++, HTML, java script,
visual basis and all  the rest will be easy for me,and
to make this possible , imust make my payment of
$1,500 with credit card and which i cannot get unless
i contact you because you are the one that can have
such a thing in hand. Please help me so as to fulfill
my hacking vision.
   Thanks for co-oporation.
      OLUSEYI ADEYEMO

> "Wait a second - is n a natural number?"

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Mother's Day is May 12th!
http://shopping.yahoo.com

---

From: Adeyemo oluseyi <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 18:48:45 -0700 (PDT)

Hi there,

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 07:19:19 +0300 (IDT)

> out and let me be an hacker.

First of all becoming hacker (which I assume you don't mean a computer
intruder) is a process, not an act. Even the most experienced hackers
still learn new things all the time.

My suggestion for the methodology of becoming a relatively
inexperienced hacker is this:

1. Install Linux.
2. Learn how to use it. (KDE or GNOME + basic shell)
3. Learn Perl or Python or Ruby. (there are numerous resources on the web
that can help you including one of my own).
4. Learn HTML.
5. Learn Web-mastering (with LAMP[1]).
6. Learn C and C++ (with gcc, make and friends).

Afterwards, simply learn what you feel like or what you need to know, or
what other people tell you is cool. Like I said learning how to hack is a
process.

> such a thing in hand. Please help me so as to fulfill

I personally cannot afford paying such an amount of money to anyone, much
less a complete stranger. Other members of this mailing list may be more
well off, but I'm not sure they are willing to donate money to a complete
stranger either.

Besides, as long as you have a computer, you can learn how to become a
hacker without paying anything for anyone to teach you. I was quite an
experienced hacker before I started studying in the Technion (Electrical
Engineering, for that matter).

>       OLUSEYI ADEYEMO

Please post your messages only once, in the future.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

[1] - Linux, Apache, MySQL/PostrgreSQL, and Perl/Python/PHP or Ruby.

---

From: "Amir Abiri" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 12:49:41 +0200

From: "Shlomi Fish" <[email-masked]>

Shlomi, you are scaring me... are you really taking these messages seriously
? Or are you just REAL good in this game ?

--
http://abiri-e.com/
"God is a programmer".

---

From: Alexander Maryanovsky <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 15:22:26 +0200

While this is obviously a joke (and not a very funny one if you ask me), 
here's the HOWTO on becoming a hacker: 
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

Alexander Maryanovsky.

---

From: "David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 14:39:09 +0200

I have seen this one before , a big part of it has been taken from Elf
Qrin's site ... (www.elfqrin.com/)

There's been a lot of those out now , it's not that bad ... it's not
something to live by 100% though ... they didn't discuss hacker ethics that
good

Regards,

David Savoir

---

From: Eliran <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 15:57:20 +0300

> Qrin's site ... (www.elfqrin.com/)

taken ? I dont think so...

-- 
		<a href="http://eg-site.tripod.com">Eliran</a>

I invented the cordless extension cord
						-- Stephen Wright

---

From: Nimster <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 15:59:34 +0200

----- Original Message -----
From: "Amir Abiri" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: [hackers-il] Re: Re: H E L P ! ! !

> ? Or are you just REAL good in this game ?

What I'm afraid is that after you guys fool Shlomi enough, he'll cease being
the only person on this list who doesn't flame and RTFM a newbie to death.
Please, don't waste this valuable resource.

[snipped: Yet Another H4X0R Joke]

-Nim

---

From: "David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 15:11:54 +0200

Yeah , my bad, it has more usefull info compared to Elf Qrin's ...
I just had a quick view of the whole deal ... looks pretty good though ...

David Savoir

---

From: Eliran <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 16:17:01 +0300

> I just had a quick view of the whole deal ... looks pretty good though ...

Perhaps Qrin has taken it from him... You don't know Eric S. Raymond ?

"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes
without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an
offense to keep arms."
        -- Constitutional scholar and Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, 1840

---

From: "David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 15:27:56 +0200

Sadly no , but I would like to know what he wrote (as in books ) ...

David Savoir
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eliran" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 3:17 PM
Subject: Re: [hackers-il] Re: H E L P ! ! !

> > > > something to live by 100% though ... they didn't discuss hacker
ethics
> > that
> > > > > While this is obviously a joke (and not a very funny one if you
ask
> > me),

---

From: "David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 15:55:04 +0200

On second taughts I DO know him from his python article (I must have read
that 6 months ago)... He has a good insight on programming ...

David Savoir
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eliran" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 3:17 PM
Subject: Re: [hackers-il] Re: H E L P ! ! !

ethics
ask

---

From: Eliran <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 17:00:04 +0300

> that 6 months ago)... He has a good insight on programming ...

You never heard of Eric S. Raymond ? the designer of fetchmail, the author
of other well-known FAQs ?

check: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/

  "...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est."
[...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.]
        -- (Lucius Annaeus) Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD),

---

From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 17:01:11 +0300 (EET DST)

On Fri, 10 May 2002, Nimster wrote:

> the only person on this list who doesn't flame andRTFM a newbie to death.

Without wishing to offend Shlomi in any way, I would like to express my
concern that his attitude of non-flammatory, non-RTFMing-to-death clueless
newbies - is a resource of the Hackers-IL, which is as valuable as an open
honey jar in a house of people, who are allergic to bee stings.
                                             --- Omer
The deaf people in Israel demand 100% captioning of Hebrew-language TV and
cable TV programs.
WARNING TO SPAMMERS:  at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html

---

From: "David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 16:00:52 +0200

Sorry only know him from his great python article ...

David Savoir
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eliran" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 4:00 PM
Subject: Re: [hackers-il] Re: H E L P ! ! !

> > > > I just had a quick view of the whole deal ... looks pretty good
though
> > ...
> > > > > > I have seen this one before , a big part of it has been taken
from
> > Elf
> > >         -- Constitutional scholar and Supreme Court Justice Joseph
Story,
> > 1840

---

From: Eliran <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 17:08:27 +0300

> Sorry only know him from his great python article ...

You mean the article he wrote for linuxjournal (www.linuxjournal.com) ?
he is a well-known open-source programmer I bet lot of people in here
know him...

Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils.
	-- General George Stark.

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 23:16:36 +0300

> he is a well-known open-source programmer I bet lot of people in here

Oh my god!
STOP!

This thread has been the most boring, annoying, un-nettiquette-al thread
I've seen in a long time... The message I'm replying to had only 3 original
lines (quoted above), and then quoted about 333 (!!) more lines, including
the entire thread, signatures and all, including the following line:
> > > > > > > > > > > > > Please, can anyone send me a script that sorts a

So here we have a thread that was started by some spamming robot (if this
was not the case, I'm sorry - but I never saw any human write 4 identical
emails as replies to different messages), and somehow we got about two-
dozen incoherent replies that I couldn't even make sense of. It's like
everyone unleased their IRC bots or eliza clones on this list at the same
time, and all decided to quote entire messages when they make their
reply!

   _____  ______   ____     ____       ____  ______    __
  / ___/ /_  __/  / __ \   / __ \     /  _/ /_  __/   / /
  \__ \   / /    / / / /  / /_/ /     / /    / /     / / 
 ___/ /  / /    / /_/ /  / ____/    _/ /    / /     /_/  
/____/  /_/     \____/  /_/        /___/   /_/     (_)   

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |       Friday, May 10 2002, 29 Iyyar 5762
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln256%Pln256/snlbx]
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |sb3135071790101768542287578439snlbxq'|dc

---

From: "Amir Abiri" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 04:07:56 +0200

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>

> So here we have a thread that was started by some spamming robot (if this

I am not a bot !

--
http://abiri-e.com/
"God is a programmer".

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 07:29:30 +0300 (IDT)

Omer, AFAI perceive and understand the purpose of this list, we are not
supposed to discourage and flame people who wish to become _hackers_
(and naturally I don't mean crackers or other types of computer intruders
- hmmpf). This is not the place to answer questions which are too
technical, but I believe that E-mail was phrased in a way that could
induce some help on our part.

We have to accept the fact that our name will attract people who think we
are a group of computer intruders. And, no people don't read previous
postings, or the group's description, or anything else except our title.
Everybody who read Joel Spolsky's "UI Design for Programmers" and similar
resources knows that people _don't read_. (I can testify that for myself)
If people ask questions about computer intrusion or sniffing, we should
tell them it's the wrong list. Politely. If they ask us how to become a
hacker, in the legitimiate sense of the word, we should politely answer
them. If they ask other questions that are too technical and not too
philosophical, we should tell them that they are considered off-topic here
and that they should post them to GNUbies-IL instead. Again, politely.

Flames don't help more than a polite reply does.

And will you cut those parodies already? I have a tendency to take some
jokes too seriously. It's a known bug of my character, so please don't
test
me.

Regards,

        Shlomi Fish

There is no IGLU Cabal! There mailing list was spammed by a multi-tude of
people who wanted to learn how to build Igloo's in the snow.

---

From: Gilad Ben-Yossef <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 May 2002 10:16:33 +0300

> I am not a bot !

Why do you say you are not a bot?

:-)

-- 
Gilad Ben-Yossef <[email-masked]>
http://benyossef.com
"Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!"

---

From: Alon Altman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 14:12:40 +0300 (IDT)

> resources knows that people _don't read_. (I can testify that for myself)

  Suggestion: Move to real mailing list server, and require users to READ
the introduction in order to register. How? Bury a codeword for registering
to the list somewhere in the middle of the introduction, and thus people
will have to READ it before signing up, and thus before sending a message.

  Does this sound OK?

  Alon

-- 
This message was sent by Alon Altman ([email-masked]) ICQ:1366540
The RIGHT way to contact me is by e-mail. I am otherwise nonexistent :)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 -=[ Random Fortune ]=-
For the first time we have a weapon that nobody has used for thirty years.
This gives me great hope for the human race.
		-- Harlan Ellison

---

From: Oleg Goldshmidt <[email-masked]>
Date: 12 May 2002 08:09:46 +0300

Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]> writes:

> resources 

To switch to a more pertinent topic: as many on this list I have
followed links to Joel Spolsky's pages from here, and from other
forums (such as /.), and read some of his writings. I must say that
to me some of his ideas look like common sense, some - like total
garbage, none - like something really insightful. 

What I would like to understand is why I should pay attention to what
he says (here I recall an advice given to a young physicist to read an
erroneous paper by - IIRC - Heisenberg: even his mistakes are
interesting). From the biographical information on his web pages I
managed to figure out that his claim to fame is the fact that he
worked for a couple of years at Microsoft [hardly a good reason to
listen to him on UI design], and then started his own company, and I
could not figure out what that company does. [His manifesto regarding
making the company a good place to work seems pretty reasonable; his
description of interviewing techniques - less so, just to give
examples of my reaction to his musings].

So, I know who ESR is and why his mistakes [oh gosh, he's gonna shoot
me!] might be interesting. Who is John Galt^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Joel
Spolsky?

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | [email-masked] 
If it aint't broken it hasn't got enough features yet.

---

From: Muli Ben-Yehuda <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 09:41:02 +0300

> garbage, none - like something really insightful. 

Amen. Shlomi, Chen and I had a private thread about J. Spolsky a while
ago. Shlomi was for, I was against, and Chen was "cautiously for",
IIRC. I think it ended with an agreement to disagree. I'd like to know
what the rest of the list thinks. 

> he says 

You shouldn't, IMHO. Unless you're bored and /. is out of interesting
stories. 

Whenever I code, there are two opposing forces pushing and pulling me:
the desire to get it right, and the need to get it done. When reading
professional material, I always go for those things which will help me
get it right, because in the fields I work in, getting it right is far
more important than getting it done (and getting it done right takes
less time than first getting it done, and the getting it
right). Spolsky, on the other hand, usually goes for the "get it done
and ship it out" angle, in true Microsoft fashion. 
-- 
The ill-formed Orange
Fails to satisfy the eye:       http://vipe.technion.ac.il/~mulix/
Segmentation fault.             http://syscalltrack.sf.net/

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 10:58:18 +0300 (IDT)

> garbage, none - like something really insightful.

Maybe you are a bit more experienced than I am. I found some of them quite
enlightening.

> examples of my reaction to his musings].

Joel Spolsky did work for some time at Microsoft and then in another
company called Juno, and later on started his own company, named Fog
Creek. What Fog Creek does is work on several projects. Their flag-ship
market-place products are FogBugz which is a bug database written for
IIS/ASP (%-)) and CityDesk, which is a content-management software for
Windows. I did not try any of them, so I cannot testify how good they are.

Spolsky's articles are mostly relevant to market-place software. He
himself testified that they may not necessarily be relevant to OSS, or to
other types of software (one that accompanies hardware, internal use one,
etc), and so should be taken with a grain of salt.

I don't fully agree with anything he sais. Sometimes, he starts from a
right conclusion and reaches a different one that is totally wrong. But I
like reading his stuff and what he said, because it's amusing and
occasionally enlightening.

I don't know how good his personal UI designs are, but I think Microsoft
is a company whose GUIs tend to be very good. (or at least was that way
until recently) One can argue that they are enforcing a de-facto standard,
but at least they are following it themselves.

> me!] might be interesting. Who is John Galt^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Joel

I don't agree with everything ESR says, either. ESR appeals to some
people. Joel appeals to others. I think every programmer can learn from them.
The CatB is pertinent to commercial software. What Joel says is pertinent to
O-S one. Both should be taken with a grain of salt, in both cases.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 16:00:37 +0300 (IDT)

> Maybe you are a bit more experienced than I am. I found some of them quite

Answering to my own post in order to add something new. You said some of
his ideas look like common sense. Programmers' common sense is something
that varies among programmers. Common Sense is defined as "sound and
prudent but often unsophisticated judgment". Some people possess it,
yet some people are ignorant of various parts of it, because they are not
experienced enough.

My friend works at El-bit and he was the first person on his team to
install a source control system (SourceSafe, for that matter[1]) and the
other people just use a bunch of zip files. If we did not use CVS for our
project, he may have remained ignorant of it. And like I said in the
professor of shoe-making thread, it seems the Technion at large is too.

What Joel does is not only introduce "Common Sense" to software engineers,
but also back it up with reasons and facts. If somebody told you "you
should always use a source control system for your projects", it would
not have been very convincing. But if someone explained to you why it is
important, and how it saved the day for him a few times, that would make
you interested in it. And then you'll try it out and find how good it is.

Believe it or not, but some things that I read on Joel's site, actually
convinced me into doing things differently for Freecell Solver. One
example was that I made sure the executable uses the library interface
that I supply to the user. (eating your own dog food as he puts it). And
another example, was that I made sure I can automate the building of an
RPM package from the source. (the Joel Test specifies that one should be
able to build a package in one command).

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

[1] For the record, even Joel Spolsky uses CVS, because he thinks
SourceSafe sucks. While being Microsoftish, he is not an MS bigot. He also
uses Emacs. ;-)

---

From: guy keren <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 23:22:31 +0300 (EET DST)

On 12 May 2002, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:

> followed links to Joel Spolsky's pagesfrom here, and from other

did you already think previously about the things that 'look like common
sense'? and did you practive them? many of the articles you read could
seem quite obvious - once you've read them, that is. if you haven't read
them - you might come up with those ideas, and you might not. you read
them because a single perosn cannot have the imagination of a large
population of persons.

try to think about it in the light of that.

and btw, what muli writes about it - he "forgot" to disclose that he
_hates_ GUI programming ;) *me ducks*

if you're on to it, try reading something by another (more veteran)
microsoftish, who wrote "debugging the development process" (i forgot his
name, i think its steve). that specific book is very interesting (which is
not the same as "i agree with everything written there").

-- 
guy

"For world domination - press 1,
 or dial 0, and please hold, for the creator." -- nob o. dy

---

From: Oleg Goldshmidt <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 May 2002 10:52:18 +0300

guy keren <[email-masked]> writes:

> sense'? and did you practive them? 

Actually, yes (or at least I sincerely believe so).

My point was that sometimes I see references to JS that make me think
that he has a reputation of someone whose mistakes are also
interesting. I was wondering outloud (online, that is) what this
reputation (as perceived by me) was based upon, if anything. 

There are people who don't know who Linus Torvalds is. Maybe JS is
a world-renowned software engineering / management guru and I don't
know that?

> _hates_ GUI programming ;) *me ducks*

Not only do I hate GUI programming (Muli, how about drowning our
hatred in free beer while discussing the best way to kick choo? ;-), I
also despise M$ GUI as the most uncomfortable and downright broken of
those I've seen. I've vented my frustration about it more than once in
the past.

> not the same as "i agree with everything written there").

That's Steve Maguire.

There are several useful and interesting books that came out of
Microsoft Press. Even Maguire's "Writing Solid Code" had good stuff in
it. There certainly are very competent people with ideas who work
there (or used to).

---

From: guy keren <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 11:14:29 +0300 (EET DST)

> Actually, yes (or at least I sincerely believe so).

well, that's good, then ;)

> reputation (as perceived by me) was based upon, if anything.

sometimes, you don't care about the reputation of whoever wrote something.
you read it, it makes sense to you, then you apply it, then you figure it
was good advise, and thus for _you_, that writer is credible. you keep
testing the applicability of their advices alter on.

> a world-renowned software engineering / management guru and I don't

it might be relevant, but it also might be irrelevant. i usually try to
ignore people's reputations, unless someone that _i_ know and trust told
me good things about them, because i've seen quite a few cases in which
someone that was considered to have good reputation - recommended doing
things that i couldn't agree with, or just was alergic to.

btw, how do i know i trust someone to give me good recommendations? i try
1-2 such recommendations. if they work for me - i trust them ;)

> Not only do I hate GUIprogramming (Muli, how about drowning our

somehow, the two cases (hating GUI programming and despising misrosoft's
GUI) tend to go together ;) . now that you've disclosed your situation -
i'll take your words in a different light. the other case of despising
microsoft's GUI and yet liking GUI programming - is if you're a religius
MACist :)

just to disclose this: i hate _using_ microsoft's GUI myself. yet i can
see why many others like using it. and i do copy features from this GUI
sometimes. i used to dislike writing GUIs, althought i did write some at
my spare time, before i started working. lately i've become interested in
writing GUIs, and i am now actively writing a GUI application at work - on
linux, though.

> it. There certainly are very competent people with ideas who work

even the programmers that i most despise - still sometimes manage to show
me something i didn't think about, that i adopt. it'll be a waste to
ignore everything they do, if i already have to hear them or see their
code, so if i'm already there, why not just apply the filters and allow
myself to pick up some new ideas from them while at it? and to even admit
to myself that i am doing so?

by the way, i'm quite sure that there are many competent people in
microsoft - its a large place, and there bound to be some such people. it
does not conflict with our disliking their software eventually, but
generalizing ("or used to"??) won't cut it with me any longer.

-- 
guy

---

From: Gilad Ben-Yossef <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 May 2002 11:11:35 +0300

> those I've seen. I've vented my frustration about it more than once in

How can you say that a GUI system where one is required to press the
"Start" button in order to shutdown the machine is broken? <g>

Gilad.

---

From: Oleg Goldshmidt <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 May 2002 11:48:48 +0300

guy keren <[email-masked]> writes:

> GUI) tend to go together ;) . 

I used that wording to follow-up on your disclosure about Muli, and it
was not well thought out. I cannot say I hate GUI programming, since I
have never done any. I should have said that (at present) that area is
not interesting to me.

This does not mean that I am unqualified to judge the quality of a GUI
as a user.

> generalizing ("or used to"??) won't cut it with me any longer.

The "used to" was meant to be a back reference to Joel Spolsky. Sorry
for misunderstanding.

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 12:35:12 +0300 (IDT)

> a world-renowned software engineering / management guru and I don't

Spolsky became well-known because of his articles, at least AFAIK. Again,
if someone wrote a lot of good articles, which people have read and
considered enlightening, he deserves some credit for that too.

Like I said, I cannot testify for how good he is as a programmer, much
less the projects he did. (I still don't know exactly at what projects he
worked on in MS and in what positions) However, his opinions are also
good, and maintaining a site about software management and writing all
these articles, also require a lot of effort. And it is clear that he
speaks from experience.

> those I've seen. I've vented my frustration about it more than once in

I'm not particularily fond of GUI programming, either. But I realize
it needs to be done, so I don't spend time mowning about it. For the
record, I believe, scripting languages such as Perl, Python or Ruby makes
GUI programming much more easier. Or at least faster, which is the same
thing.

Sure, I'll take on writing good and challenging algorithms any day. But
people like GUI, and even I find it convenient, so I realize it is an
important task.

As for MS GUI: it has some very important flaws, but as a general role
it's well-thought and consistent. Once you get used to it, it's really
easy to get your job done, and you can later adapt to similar applications
very quickly. I actually appreciate Microsoft for introducing a common
and unified way for applications to work.

Most of the GUIs I encountered on Linux (with the exception of KDE 2.x)
were much less up to par with what I'm used to on Windows. I had the
misfortune to work with Cadence, which is a Motif-based software whose GUI
design had nothing to do with anything I encountered so far. When working
with it, I did not know what to expect. There were inconsistencies even
between various parts of the problem, and were told that also between the
various versions. The program itself was very powerful (a
chip/Semiconductor design program) but the interface was absolutely
horrid.

> it. There certainly are very competent people with ideas who work

And still MS is known for its exceptionally bad code. And lately we seem
to have tangible proofs of it. Oh well, who is John Galt?

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: Muli Ben-Yehuda <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 13:13:32 +0300

> Actually, yes (or at least I sincerely believe so).

I can second that. He articulates a lot of concepts rather well, but
there was nothing earth shattering there. Very low "wow!" factor. If
you feel otherwise, please supply concrete examples[1]. 

> There are people who don't know who Linus Torvalds is. Maybe JS is

Heretics. 

> a world-renowned software engineering / management guru and I don't

Err, no. But I'm starting to sound like a broken record, so I'll shut
up on JS now. 

> > _hates_ GUI programming ;) *me ducks*

Hate? Only inasmuch as I hate doing anything I'm not either a) very
good at or b) intending to get better at. I *did* GUI programming for
several projects, and while all have seen the light of day and were
very useful to the users, the GUI sucked. I'm much better at writing
code than designing screens. 

and then ogoldshmidt wrote:

> hatred in free beer while discussing the best way to kick choo? ;-),

You're on. Are we talking /kick[2] or "kick his ass in risk" kind of kick?

> it. There certainly are very competent people with ideas who work

Fully agreed. Contrary to popular belief, I personally know (and
like!) a few very good people who work at MS. I have no problem with
them on a personal level, my problem is with the corporation itself. 
-- 
The ill-formed Orange
Fails to satisfy the eye:       http://vipe.technion.ac.il/~mulix/
Segmentation fault.             http://syscalltrack.sf.net/

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 13:48:02 +0300 (IDT)

> you feel otherwise, please supply concrete examples[1].

Believe it or not, but some people would find what he says helpful. Maybe
not earth-shattering, but helpful. Not every source of information needs
to be earth-shattering to be effective.

I'd rather have someone explain something rational calmly and logically,
than someone trying to convey something irrational using a lot of dogma,
FUD, lies, non-sequitors and/or manipulation of emotions[1]. I'd rather
reach a large set of small rational mental achievements, than one big
irrational one.

> > There are people who don't know who Linus Torvalds is. Maybe JS is

Maybe it's because Linux does not support Hebrew well (or at least did not
until recently), but I found that many Israelis are completely ignorant of
it. I many times have to describe Linux as "a UNIX one can run at home"
because people did not hear of it. (let's leave the freedom/O-S and other
ideals and facts about it, alone, for the while). In the Technion, most EE
and CS people do get exposed to it at one point or the other, but even
many non-info-tech graduates are not very familiar with it.

> code than designing screens.

I think you can become better at designing GUI if you make a certain
amount of integrated effort doing that. No-one is born a good GUI
designer. Even people who have used the most well-designed GUI for years,
can build very bad dialogs, very easily. I cannot testify for how well my
GUI is, just that I'm trying to:

1. Give it some final touches.

2. Think about how it will look like in the first place.

And yes, everything else Spolsky and other sources say. (at least what I
agree with). GUI is definitely much more work than designing CLI, but it's
sometimes a necessity. Can programs like Excel or PowerPoint make sense in
a non-GUI form? I don't think so.

OTOH, defaulting on the GUI to make sure your application is successful is
not a good idea, either.

> them on a personal level, my problem is with the corporation itself.

I have several specific problems with what Microsoft does, but I don't
indulge in MS hatred. I like Linux because it is technically superior and
gives a better man-machine experience. But I'm not a Linux/Free
Software/OSS bigot. I think it has some clear advantages regarding what
the users expect from it, but it is not a panacea.

I believe we are not going to get rid of Microsoft, even if everybody and
his mother switched to Linux. So, we'd better just make sure it plays nice
and be just another info-tech company out there, rather than try to
"eliminate" it.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: Muli Ben-Yehuda <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 14:42:52 +0300

On Mon, May 13, 2002 at 01:48:02PM +0300, Shlomi Fish wrote:

[some stuff about JS which I mercilessly snipped. I'm tired of
discussing him, and I'm in the middle of my daily dosage of a.s.r]

I wrote (about GUI programming):

> amount of integrated effort doing that. 

Read the quoted paragraph above. Concentrate on the point designated
as (b). I have no intention at getting better at designing GUIs. I
find HCI (Human Computer Interface) a fascinating subject, in a remote
academic sort of sense. I have no intention to ever again design
GUIs. Unless, of course, I feel like it. 

> a non-GUI form? I don't think so.

Donno about excel, but as for PowerPoint, Sure they can. Look at
magicpoint. FWIW, look at Word vs. TeX. I postulate (but will not dain
to prove) that anything person P does with a GUI, a different person,
P' can do quicker and better with a text based tool. 
-- 
The ill-formed Orange
Fails to satisfy the eye:       http://vipe.technion.ac.il/~mulix/
Segmentation fault.             http://syscalltrack.sf.net/

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 18:36:42 +0300 (IDT)

> GUIs. Unless, of course, I feel like it.

Granted. But I think that if you try designing GUIs and try to make them
good you'll eventually realize that:

1. You can do it eventually.

2. It would feel great knowing that you did.

I remember my days in Smart-Link when I was assigned to write a GUI
program to help maintain a set of INF files (kinda of an INI on steroids
used for Win32 device drivers). Naturally, maintaining the GUI was very
tedious, and required a lot of pixel alignments (Win32 only has X-Y as a
geometry manager - %-)) and playing with the tab spacing, and assigning
keyboard accelerators and generally a lot of tweaking. But eventually it
was working, and I liked doing it.

Granted, programming, optimizing and tweaking with algorithmic code is
more challenging and more interesting and so is more fun (at least for
me). But GUI is needed because otherwhys the vast majority of mundane
users cannot make heads nor tails of your application. When you encounter
a GUI app, (which is properly designed) and knows what it does, you can
play with the menus and eventually be able to learn how to do what you
need. CLI can never offer you this.

> magicpoint.

Did not try MagicPoint yet. Nor am I going to until it does not have a
decent HTML output. I am even more primitive, writing my presentations in
WebMetaLanguage, which is actually HTML with some sophisticated macro-ing
capabilities. But I found PowerPoint (when I did not abuse it with all of
these superflous effects) to be much easier than that for designing a
simple-minded slide-show. It was very fast, very simple and very
convenient. And later on my partner and I were congratulated for the high
quality of its content. (despite the fact it was virtually free of any
bells, whistles and tricks).

Moshe Bar seems to take the other extreme, making very
bells-and-whistles-ful lectures. But he is very good at making them, and
they are very fun to watch. (I think he uses PowerPoint)

> FWIW, look at Word vs. TeX.

I did. For %90 of the case TeX is much better. For %10 of the other cases,
WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS was better than Word, and it's also possible that
it was even better than LaTeX for some of the original %90. In later
versions they removed the text-based display, which is something I miss
because it was lightweight, fast and easy. Word is not my idea of a good
WordProcessor, so there's no place for a comparison.

> I postulate (but will not dain

It's not about getting the job done quicker. Surely enough, with enough
experience and with writing the Most Powerful Text-Based Application for
the Job (MPTBA4J), you should be able to fair better. _If_ you are a good
CLI and have a good imagination, and a good mathematical thinking, and are
very experienced with it. But some people don't have time for this.

I started to learn PS-Tricks which is LaTeX answer to Corel-Draw and found
it very awkward and confusing to work with. Maybe I should have read its
manual from start to finish, and only then work with it, but I was anxious
to get things done. With Corel-Draw, I read much less and could do much
more easily. Later on, when I upgraded to Corel-Draw 4.0, I was able to
understand the new features in a relative straightforward manner. I
created some very nice graphics with Corel. Check:

http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/art/

for two prominent, and open-content examples. There are others which are
less visually appealing, but also were relatively easy to produce.

Maybe PS-Tricks is better than Corel-Draw, but the fact is that using
Corel was straightforward for me, while using PS-Tricks was not. Some
things I would not do with Corel, because they will require too much work.
For them I'll rather use Perl+GraphViz or maybe perl generating an SVG, or
a dia file, or a Sketch file, or whatever. But for doing some things that
require a lot of tweaking to get right, and do not have repetitive
changes, GUI rocks.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

---

From: Oleg Goldshmidt <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 May 2002 11:04:25 +0300

Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]> writes:

> bells-and-whistles-ful lectures. 

Actually, his slides are quite simple, usually just bullet points, no
graphics, let alone animations or other distractions.

> But he is very good at making them, and they are very fun to watch.

Which is a property of the presentation, not _just_ the slides.

> (I think he uses PowerPoint)

I recall that a few years ago he gave Applix presentations (I noticed
that when he was booting him laptop and starting Applix before the
lecture). At one of his more recent appearances I asked him if he had
a recommendation for presentation software, and he recommended
StarOffice.

If I am misrepresenting something here, I hope I'll be corrected some
day, and I apologize in advance.

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 14:12:56 +0300 (IDT)

> graphics, let alone animations or other distractions.

From what I remember from his last lecture I attended (the 2.5.x kernel
roadmap), he had a lot of animations and other curious effects.

> Which is a property of the presentation, not _just_ the slides.

He is a good presentor. But his slides are also very good. A good point is
that some people add redundant effects which do not add to the quality of
the lecture. OTOH, he makes a good use of it.

I, on my case, don't usually even bother to make sure the points appear
individually. (albeit this is one effect which I can agree with)

> a recommendation for presentation software, and he recommended

Maybe he converts his StarPoint presentations to PowerPoint. I never
seriosly worked with StarPoint, so I cannot testify for its quality. I do
like PowerPoint, though. While I did not try it myself, I came into the
impression that MagicPoint is sub-standard in many regards, however. Its
HTML generation is simply large GIFs for every slide, or alternatively
purely plain text (zero formatting or hyper-links). It generates very
large PostScript files (a few MBs), while there's absolutely no reason it
should do that. And it cannot convert to PowerPoint format.

I think I'll stick to HTML generated by WebMetaLanguage for the while.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish