Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>>   "How do I do that?" Right, he was in Windows, and there's no diff in
>>> Windows. We pondered for a moment what would be the easiest solution.
> 
>> Download diff for Windows? :-)
> 
>   That's precisely the problem I was talking about. *Nothing* comes with
> Windows by default, and for everything you would have to search and download
> some third-party, non-standard utility which might or might not do what you
> want.
> 
>   (Additionally, Windows' command prompt just isn't as easy to use as
> unix's. It's just a PitA to try to do anything in it.)
> 
Yeah. Just one example: 4DOS.

Features, if you can even find a copy that isn't pay to use any more, or 
one at all (I haven't looked recently):

1. ANSI support built in to the command.com replacement.
2. Color coding of files by type.
3. File sorting and other options.
4. List command, so view > 32k files, a page at a time, with the ability 
to do searches in the text *and* go forward of back in the file (built in).
5. Other stuff I don't remember.

MS' solutions?

1. Sorry, not even supported, as far as I know, as a "functional" part 
of the command line even in XP, Vista, or likely 7. You can hunt down 
some third party file from PC World, or someone, which was written in 
the 1990s, and use that to get ANSI support. Otherwise, its only 
available via ansi.sys, if you boot into DOS mode.

2. Woops... This won't work without #1, so you are SOL.

3. Umm.. Kind of, if you string a lot of files together. I think they is 
a sort function in the DOS utilities, though I don't think it comes 
"with" Windows, and I doubt you can find DOS any more. But, it would 
work something like, "dir {flags for the stuff that is supported} | sort 
| more", easy... As long as you don't want "any" bloody real control 
over what is going on in those steps, and you don't mind looking up sets 
of commands flags you never use, for 2-3 utilities. You, well... can't 
do some of it at all in the GUI, not really, at least not as cleanly, or 
clearly, as you can in the prompt.

4. Lets keep using QBASIC running in "EDIT" mode (this is literally 
their solution), until we have Notepad, then give Notepad the same 32k 
limit, and keep it that way, and as the "default" txt file reader, until 
XP, and worse, only allow it to "recognize" .txt as a valid extension, 
so you can't open any other text files. Oh, and.. lets **never** bother 
to implement a way to read non-DOS files, which don't use the CR+LF 
method of terminating lines.

5. You name it, they either ignored it, or made up their own, which 
doesn't work like anyone else's. Such as, who in their right mind would 
want VBscript or Jscript as the command line script system, even if... 
again, they didn't bother even "supplying" something more interesting 
than .bat files until XP came out? lol

Not made for developers? Its not made for anyone with any clue at all, 
and that includes people that where doing things under DOS, near the end 
of its life, which are "vastly" superior to everything they provide 
"today" in the same command prompt.

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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