Warp wrote:
> 
> Rick [Kitty5] <ric### [at] kitty5com> wrote:
> : what would you suggest?, we all go linux and back to the days of a GUI
> : sitting on top of a command line OS?
> 
>   You clearly have no idea what Unix is.
> 

That's me 8)

>   Unix is not a command line OS. Unix is not a graphical OS.

I think that goes for most OS's. Confusing the interface with the OS can mess up
the discussion severely. With regard to Windows, I've heard and read several
times that Windows isn't a real OS because it's just a graphical shell on DOS. I
think that that has become less true with every new version but still talking
about the shell saying it is stolen from Apple says little about the OS.

>   The Unix operating system is a core which handles several things an operating
> system has to handle (like processes, resources, memory and so on). You can
> use the Unix operating systems through several user interfaces. One of these
> interfaces is the command line shell. Another one can be a graphical windowing
> system.

I agree and again I think you can apply that on more OS's.

>   There are even Unix machines out there which do not have ANY user interface,
> not even a command line shell.

I think it would be possible to rig a Windows machine to look that way (there
are several boot options already).
> 
>   The X windowing system does not rely on the command line shell. It's far
> independent of any shell. It uses the operating system directly.
>   You can start X from a command line shell. You can start a command line
> shell from X. You don't need one to use the other, though.
> 
>   I think that you just have the so-called command-line-fobia-syndrome.
> 
> : Windows is a major advance in that it has made computers accessible to the
> : masses, I don't see any of the competition having anything like that kind of
> : impact.
> 
>   Not true. MacOS was the first operating system which made computers
> accessible to the masses.
> 

Hm, I was also thinking about a Commodore, Spectrum or MSX (or similar).

>   And even if we say that, we have to admit that Windows is a big step
> backwards in versatility and stability.

Compared to what?

>   The instability of Windows is well known. Everyone agrees with that.
>   As for verstatility, you just can't do anything with Windows. 

Teehee 8)

> It doesn't
> offer you any good tools for making anything advanced. 

Bwaahaa!

> Only simple (which
> doesn't mean they are small) tools are given to make very simple tasks
> (eg. in file management). But Windows doesn't offer any powerful tools
> for eg. managing your files.
>   For example, if I want to make a small CGI program in my home page which,
> for example, handles guestbook entries (and creates a page to show all
> the entries to the world), that's quite easily done in Unix. You need about
> 10 lines of script code to do that.

Now that's a very important thing! Handling a guestbook in 10 lines!
You should have a look at Steve Gibsons site and then come back here and repeat
this.
(http://grc.com)

>   However, trying to do the same in Windows is a lot harder. You'll probably
> to use some programming language (and of course Windows doesn't give you
> any compiler, what a surprise) and mostly external programs (not found in
> Windows itself).

You could use assembler if you wanted to make it real hard on yourself, or use
the WinApi to make it a bit easier on yourself (but still get quite small
programs) or you could use one of the several development platforms which hand
you a bunch of functionality on a silver platter (resulting in big files).
This way you can do much more then handle a guestbook entry, with a program that
will perhaps have a couple of hundred lines of visible code (and thousands you
don't need to bother about) while you only have to do a few mouseclicks and
enter a handful parameters. 
This still doesn't really say anything about the underlying OS, though...

> 
> --
> main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
> ):_;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

Kind regards,

Remco

(PS I've put the follow-up to off-topic so this'll be my last contribution in
this part of the thread)

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