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? :-)

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=diff+win32

> He was using notepad++ as his text editor and we wondered if there would
> be some way of comparing two files in it. With the million of menus in the
> program, it was probably not worth the trouble.

It works with vim, tho. :-)

>   Sometimes things just *are* way easier in unix. Sure, there are tools
> for Windows to do the same thing, but the problem is that Windows never
> has *any* tools by default, and it would always require quite a lot of
> work to get the tools. In unix the tools just are there, period. No need
> to think nor hassle around.

No more hassle than starting up yast to download them, methinks. 
Occasionally you'll have to figure out if it's a "real" port or a cygwin 
port, but i've found the "win32" modifier almost always points you at a 
native port without a bunch of dependencies.

But sure, unix has more command-line tools for Windows by default. :-) 
Windows isn't primarily targeted at developers, so developers have to 
install some tools they need.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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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.)

> > He was using notepad++ as his text editor and we wondered if there would
> > be some way of comparing two files in it. With the million of menus in the
> > program, it was probably not worth the trouble.

> It works with vim, tho. :-)

  Yeah, rather than take 2 seconds to diff the files in the mac computer,
he would have to spend at least 2 hours to find out how to do the same
thing in vim (and this after he had found and installed the program).

> >   Sometimes things just *are* way easier in unix. Sure, there are tools
> > for Windows to do the same thing, but the problem is that Windows never
> > has *any* tools by default, and it would always require quite a lot of
> > work to get the tools. In unix the tools just are there, period. No need
> > to think nor hassle around.

> No more hassle than starting up yast to download them, methinks. 

  I'm talking about a real, actual, concrete experience here, not some
theoretical "methinks" thing. Diffing the files on the mac was just way,
way less hassle than *anything* else.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> It works with vim, tho. :-)
> 
>   Yeah, rather than take 2 seconds to diff the files in the mac computer,
> he would have to spend at least 2 hours to find out how to do the same
> thing in vim (and this after he had found and installed the program).

And even more, vim can't diff. It can only run 'diff' to do the comparison,
then do stuff with its output.

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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.

I was just answering the question. I understood your point, but the easiest 
solution would have been to download the stand-alone diff executable. :-)

>   (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.)

No argument there.

>   Yeah, rather than take 2 seconds to diff the files in the mac computer,
> he would have to spend at least 2 hours to find out how to do the same
> thing in vim (and this after he had found and installed the program).

Well, diff works from the command line just like in UNIX. Maybe 3 minutes to 
find and download diff (once you know the best search terms) and then you 
run it from the command line.

If you want side-by-side diffs, you can invoke it from vim, is all I was 
saying. The same tools work. They're just not distributed there by default.

>   I'm talking about a real, actual, concrete experience here, not some
> theoretical "methinks" thing. Diffing the files on the mac was just way,
> way less hassle than *anything* else.

OK. I'm talking *my* real actual concrete experience. I *have* diff on my 
windows machine, along with netpbm and tar and gzip and a couple other 
packages I'm used to using or that I need to talk to unix machines. It's 
less of a hassle than you think, and you only need to do it once.

It was more a FYI post ("btw, it's easy to solve this problem on Windows so 
he doesn't have to bother you next time") than it was "you're wrong."

I still copy RAR files over to a UNIX VM to take apart because I haven't 
found an easy free unrar program for Windows, so I know just what you mean. 
"diff" doesn't fall into that category, is all.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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On Fri, 15 May 2009 19:16:12 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>
> I still copy RAR files over to a UNIX VM to take apart because I haven't  
> found an easy free unrar program for Windows, so I know just what you  
> mean.

Define "easy". 7-Zip can extract RAR, if you want GUI-based. If  
command-line is your thing, UnRAR is freeware.


-- 
FE

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Fredrik Eriksson <fe79}--at--{yahoo}--dot--{com> wrote:
> 7-Zip can extract RAR

  Besides being the best (free) compression program in existence, as a
bonus. :)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> It works with vim, tho. :-)
>>   Yeah, rather than take 2 seconds to diff the files in the mac computer,
>> he would have to spend at least 2 hours to find out how to do the same
>> thing in vim (and this after he had found and installed the program).
> 
> And even more, vim can't diff. It can only run 'diff' to do the comparison,
> then do stuff with its output.

I'm not sure what part of "it works with vim" is confusing you here. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> On Fri, 15 May 2009 19:16:12 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>
>> I still copy RAR files over to a UNIX VM to take apart because I 
>> haven't found an easy free unrar program for Windows, so I know just 
>> what you mean.
> 
> Define "easy". 7-Zip can extract RAR, if you want GUI-based. If 
> command-line is your thing, UnRAR is freeware.

Thanks. I'll look around for unrar. I hadn't found that, last time, oddly 
enough.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

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On Fri, 15 May 2009 20:23:53 +0200, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>
> I'll look around for unrar. I hadn't found that, last time, oddly enough.

http://www.rarlab.com/rar_add.htm


-- 
FE

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Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>>  Not even big rich companies are safe
>> from this kind of tampering (just ask Sun Microsystems).
> 
> Sun isn't a big rich company anymore, though :)

Yeah - I heard an unsubstantiated rumour that Oracle bought them...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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