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Digital Magazines SuckNo one wants to read them. I mean, I don’t, but for proof check-out Zinio, the premier online purveyor of smut ’n’ magazines: Look for the slightest hint they’re selling electrons instead of dead trees. They describe their subscriptions as containing issues as if they were ’jes like those wonderful bundles of advertising & tripe you used to line the cat tray with. But no; hidden in the puffery they use the phrase “digital magazine” — so someone has sued them! ... But wait, that’s MacWorld. ... Maxim has no such disclaimer; but Playboy does, along with a warning about how “it will no longer feature nudity in its pages”. ... Well really the inconsistency’s just incompetence, the hallmark of online biz in general.... But nobody wants to read this stuff.... — the
physical-book-loving programmer
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Anders Hejlsberg and the scripts: The Great Circle Mr. Hejlsberg is the brilliant brain behind the
Turbo Pascal
and Delphi RAD IDEs
— the latter the fierce enemy (and copycat) of
Microsoft’s Visual
Basic. Both VB and Delphi were RAD GUI
IDEs
that produce Windows GUI programs. VB, although capable of compilation
in later (post-Delphi) versions, nevertheless seemed to prefer interpreted
code, like its non-GUI predecessor Basics; that is,
it’s
a script
language — and the So Hejlsberg went to work for Microsoft around 1996.
... But what strikes me in these latter days, was what a success Turbo Pascal and then Delphi were — and how totally without imitation! ... The interviewer asks Hejlsberg how he came up with this brilliant idea in the early ’80s, and Hejlsberg tries to explain it wasn’t really an idea; it’s just the obvious way people would want to develop code — edit, compile, the editor puts you right at any compile errors, and then you can breakpoint, step, run — all from within the editor — and so he tried to make it that way. ... And he did; and thousands and thousands of programmers, including me, were thrilled, for years and years and years. ... Indeed, he quietly averred Delphi still hasn’t been matched — i.e. a native-code RAD GUI IDE/compiler — which is quite correct. ... One can quibble about obscure expensive Windows offerings, but it’s particularly striking that in the years since Delphi, the Linux world hasn’t gotten anything as good as Turbo Pascal, much less Delphi! ... Except when Borland itself offered their ill-fated Delphi-for-Linux Kylix, which the Linuxoids scornfully disdained, because it didn’t have a GNU-enough license.... Indeed, I’ve always thought it’s fairly obvious that one reason Linux/Unix had so many little script languages — there’s a new one every few months — is precisely because they didn’t have Turbo Pascal!1 ... And yet, no one’s bothered to make a Turbo clone, much less a GNU-licensed Delphi-like IDE (the poignantly-named Lazarus gets closer & closer every year). ... I’m not sure why; I’m inclined to credit my paranoid suspicions of guruistic know-it-all insiderist techie I’ve-got-a-secret and-you-don’t supposedly smart guys. ... The average code developer just can’t bear the idea of an EZ way for mortals to write compiled native code without the grinding intricacy that coding, and especially GUI coding, typically requires; I mean, then, anybody could write software.... The Final IronyWhatever. ... The final irony is simple: Microsoft
brought Hejlsberg over for the scripting language to end all
scripting languages: first, the aborted Microsoft Java, and then, the
towering scriptiness of C# and So there’s your movie, folks. For some reason, the computer world must subsist on interpreted scripts because native code is too dangerous; too expensive. ... Too useful? ... Even ’though Turbo Pascal wowed ’em in the 80s, the new millennia must have scripts.... Annoyed at ScriptsI’m annoyed at script systems mostly because they’re one more thing that can screw-up. ... If I write a Delphi program, I expect it to work on numerous machines other than the one I wrote it on. ... With a script, no matter how cute, I expect (1.) the script interpreter to be missing, (2.) the correct version etc. to be missing, (3.) the interpreter to be incompatible in some way that is beyond the comprehension of all living things, (4.) and etc. ... I concede, what with security and the ever-rushing multiplication of junk, I’m probably just delusional — i.e. everything’s like that in these latter days!... And of course, despite
seeming
like a wrong turn to me ... it’s not even that popular! ...
Throngs did not
rush
to embrace C# and The FallAnd now, in the end times — about 10 years? — it
is reported that in Windows 8, Microsoft is dumping — Tuesday, June 14, 2011 3:13 pm 1. After a 2-hour session with BASH for a minor script change, I would have to submit another likely suspect for the ubiquity of the little Linux script languages: the ABSOLUTE AWFUL STUPID SCUMMY MORONIC BASH oral-tradition alleged script language. ... It’s that good. ... It’s not really Unix’s fault, but it is a pitifully annoying public shame, especially after years of these snooty morons’ august putdowns of the pathetic MSDOS batch language — which has a known limited set of rules, and can actually be used by mortals without 10 years of trench experience. ... That, of course, is why Microsoft has been furiously imitating Linux with new super-script languages and a thousand syntactical rules; the latest, I believe, is “power shell”. ... But they’ll never catch up; BASH has special syntactical rules for every single punctuation mark; numbers of them; constellations! ... I was foolishly trying to allow the user — me — to query the proc like “proc ?” but “?” of course is a wild card — one BASH book didn’t even have it in the index! They forgot — which is one of the many extreme annoyances of this briliant script chaos, as I have already whined-about in my brilliant whining essay on recursive grep.
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Dr. Dobbs: The Last of the Programming Magazines?At least, the last of the old programming magazines died. ... Visual Studio Magazine was supposedly still going, but I didn’t see a newsstand copy for a while; a few Java and Microsoft magazines limped on. ... I only picked up an issue now and then, because their algorithm focus has never appealed — shockingly, I’ve found programming is rarely about finding the latest cleverest way to do something, but more like finding some feasible reliable relatively nonbuggy way. ... Anyway, somewhere in the interval they dropped the letters column, a sure sign the end is near. ... One of the minor puzzles about the Dobbs debacle is how the publisher CMP (1.) shut-down Software Development Magazine first; then (2.) transferred many of the SDM features to Dobbs; and finally (3.) didn’t transfer the excellent SDM editor Alexandra Morales, who apparently was just let to wander off into the night. ... I suppose since the magazines were all closing anyway, it’s hardly important.... The obvious place all these magazines are going is the internet (but see my other cranky theories), and indeed the last few magazine collapses I’ve attended included relentless promotion of the magazine’s “web page” or “portal”, and Dobbs is no exception. ... So sad. ... It’s true when I’m looking for technical information, I turn to the internet first, and I suppose these programming magazines have survived for years mostly by persuading newcomers to pay them to learn about programming, which doesn’t work anymore since everyone knows about the internet.... But one of the things I learned early-on in my internet years — and before, in the days of dial-up bulletin boards! — was that positively the worst sites were the magazines’; they were almost always out-of-date and broken. The best sites have been — and as far as I know, continue to be — low- or non-profits, run at least to some extent for the amusement of the web master. It does not do to rail against fate, but I will miss the tawdry magazines — perhaps as much for their snooty pretensions as anything else! ... My goodness, the latest Dobbs finally admitted that Java occasionally stops for a few seconds to garbage collect — just like my 6809 Radio Shack Color Computer Microsoft Basic! ... I’ve never seen that admission in any magazine before! How many years did it take to ’fess up!? ... And to whom do I complain now? No letters column and, soon, no magazine! ... Oh how I loved to fume and write cranky letters to the editor!... —
the
autumnal programmer
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So
What
Happened to
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The Fabulous UPX and Program ShrinkageWe old school programmers have always been horrified at the sheer size of Windows. We grew-up with microcomputers: little harmless systems where a really large file might be 20,000 bytes — barely detectable today. So when I wandered into MSDOS and then Windows, I was fond of gadgets that would reduce the size of programs. LZEXE is a well-known free DOS utility (in French!), but it wouldn’t work with even Windows 3.1 programs, much less the 32-bit monstrosities of Windows 9x etc. I paid $100 for the “Shrinker” utility in 8/98, but it stopped working in various ways and sank without a trace. But I found out why: the fabulous free open-source command-line UPX, at http://upx.sourceforge.net. As well as WIN32 EXEs and DLLs, it’ll do MSDOS (but not as good as LZEXE for some reason), and various other operating systems including Linux. The shrinkage with UPX (or any of these programs) varies with the wind, but 50% is not unusual. Of course this is not necessarily good: Windows and other hotsy-totsy systems (i.e. aprés MSDOS) might play efficiency tricks with the EXEs to support multiple users (you do of course have several terminals attached to your W9x machine?) and swapping, which tricks might be defeated if the EXE isn’t a proper image. I shrink anyway because (1.) tricks-schmix, and (2.) my program output is so small-time that the disk “footprint” is more important — i.e., make it fit on a floppy disk, download, etc. ... whatever.... |
The Primitive Struggle for FTP: AT&T? Filezilla? — it’s Dreamhost, of course, weakened in the malevolent grip of Windows 8, & 10....Just to be clear: DO NOT PUT YOUR WEBSITE ON DREAMHOST. ... Of course none of the with-it kids have web sites anymore, just facebook pages or their phone somehow, but Dreamhost are lying incompetents. Their bengladeshi script reader “support” doesn’t even bother to pretend to be reading my pitiful whines, and just spews-out canned nonsense. Could be a really stupid AI working off keywords. ... Every time this kind of thing happens, I gullibly believe them again, knowing full well from tons of previous experience they’re ignorant helpless wandering lost souls at best, but I just forget and engage in pitiful 1-sided “communcation” with these idiots, somehow believing. ... I’m still at dreamhost because I’m too lazy to bother finding another incompetent fraudulent lying web host outfit.... We did have exciting adventures with AT&T “U-verse” but they sent hordes of marching minions and actually fixed it eventually — mostly, I suspect, by replacing the router with a new rendition which supported FTP and other exciting novelties — one of which, to be sure, was the cable television, which involved replacing that box. So everything worked fine, for months! Even on Windows 8! ... Then I’d guess Usux™ did some kind of ipv6 Win8 update something, and my “poing.bat” which pings this site, the holy Dreamhost-hosted owenlabs.org, consistently failed. I didn’t realize until later that Filezilla also would upload no more forever on Win8, since I use a good ol’ Win7 machine for that. 
Behold! “Rob” At Dreamhost Confirms: No Ftp @ Dreamhost w/Windows 8This is really the story of the poor addled webmaster — me! — idiotically pestering Dreamhost “technical support” — doubtless one of the 17,000 symptoms of onrushing mild cognitive impairment, imagining these fictitious tech support personnel were anything but pitiful ignorant minions + laptop + script somewhere in deepest Bangladesh or even Omaha.... Anyway, from my two Windows 8 machines, the famous FOSS Filezilla FTP client won’t connect with my Dreamhost-hosted website, but will from several Windows 7 machines — on at least some of which, to be sure, I’ve disabled ipv6. ... I’ll undoubtedly get around to dumping Dreamhost eventually if they don’t wink-out before then, massively disrupting the vast teeming fan community of this site; and/or Windows 8 for that matter (done 3/16). ... And my precious stupid Dreamhost real-mailbox thing also is gershtunk from Windows 8. Not Filezilla; this is the FOSS Thunderbird email client, another widely-used and esteemed program with which Dreamhost + Win8 don’t work — I can receive email, but sending it arouses incoherent security stupidity errors, presumably because Dreamhost hasn’t bothered to update the 17,000 certificates which is what I pay it vast sums for.
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Residence Inn Gershtunk
Through the wandering years, many Residence Inns have provided dribbling showers and other tantalizing amenities. One refrigerator was totally gershtunk — although deceptively lit-up — so now we check every time we enter a room. And some Residence Inns are quite acceptable; the Harrisonburg VA place has always been good. ... Although they all share a certain scarcity of working luggage carts.... 9/17/21: The Residence Inn Wayneboro franchiser totters towards receivership as it gaily abandoned our super two-bedroom reservation with the traditional fraudulent room switcheroo: big wedding mergency mergency amazing computer broken oh man no room. Well, two separate rooms the poor idiot claimed were next to each other but not connecting, but I think the “next to” claim was i’m-just-a-pur-gurl crap; they were across the hall, 127, 128. My beloved, compassionate as always, claimed there was a huge crowd, which there was for the wedding maybe, but the parking lots were empty the next morning. Perhaps our adorable desk gurly got a cut of the bribery. ... Important local thugs perhaps....
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.
But now that it appears the humdebugger is vanishing into the new world
order, it was good to stock up. And I suppose nobody’s really playing
those stupid single coil buzzy things anyway anymore — at least without
a 
NET incarnation of the product,
although
it
discarded much of the barbaric syntax of its nominal ancestor, has
returned to its roots to the extent that interpreted script output
is again the only mode, like the other 
In an
interview I saw — somewhere around 
Summary
Victory
over Dreamhost vs IPV6 vs Filezilla
internettery. ...
Interestingly, this
5/18.
Yes my children, today and tomorrow only, I will 
I
believe some of the truck rental franchisees have been
following this simple strategery for