MicroSnot just sneezed all over my PC

[Gareth Evans]

Does the arrogance of MicroSnot know no bounds?

Not content with forcing me to have automatic
updates for Windows 10, last night's updates
brought up MicroSnot Edge but without an
option to kill it before entering it, and then
it was shortcutted both onto the desktop as
well as the task bar.

I look forward to the dastardly pile of
bovine excrement that is MicroSnot finally
crashing and burning!

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Gareth Evans
Does the arrogance of MicroSnot know no bounds?
Not content with forcing me to have automatic
updates for Windows 10, last night's updates
brought up MicroSnot Edge but without an
option to kill it before entering it, and then
it was shortcutted both onto the desktop as
well as the task bar.
I look forward to the dastardly pile of
bovine excrement that is MicroSnot finally
crashing and burning!

You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

[Quadibloc]

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.

There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.

And if you buy a Macintosh, you won't be able to upgrade it except in limited
ways, unless you buy a system costing nearly five figures.

Those who can use Linux generally do so, but unfortunately, most people don't
have much of a choice.

John Savard

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

Those who can use Linux generally do so, but unfortunately, most people don't
have much of a choice.

Gareth claims to be a retired computer professional; that's not 'most people'.

[J. Clarke]

On Wed, 24 Jun 2020 13:58:05 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.

Searching the App Store gives me 928 hits for "drawing", 330 for CAD,
926 for "math", 182 hits for "engineering", and so on so it looks like
there's quite a lot available for the Mac, leaving aside that
underneath the GUI it's a Unix box.

As for Linux, _everything_ in Linux is "third party" and most of it
open source.

Post by Quadibloc
And if you buy a Macintosh, you won't be able to upgrade it except in limited
ways, unless you buy a system costing nearly five figures.

Why buy a Macintosh? Apple doesn't _want_ you to put their OS on your
PC but they don't _stop_ you.

Post by Quadibloc
Those who can use Linux generally do so, but unfortunately, most people don't
have much of a choice.
John Savard

[Quadibloc]

Post by J. Clarke
Searching the App Store gives me 928 hits for "drawing", 330 for CAD,
926 for "math", 182 hits for "engineering", and so on so it looks like
there's quite a lot available for the Mac, leaving aside that
underneath the GUI it's a Unix box.

True, there's a lot of BSD in there. I can't argue this point in detail, but
basically because of the small market share of the Macintosh, those software
makers who do address it... benefit from having less competition.

Post by J. Clarke
Why buy a Macintosh? Apple doesn't _want_ you to put their OS on your
PC but they don't _stop_ you.

Aside from the legal or ethical issue, the market share of the Macintosh is in
such a parlous state as to cause its effective value to reach a point where even
"if they gave them away", not counting the value of the hardware - which is what
that is - it's still questionable as to whether it's of interest.

John Savard

[Douglas Miller]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.
...
John Savard

I will say that I was pleasantly surprised about 10 years ago when I immediately found top-notch scanner software for my new MAC mini. I had to buy it, sure, but it was great and they supported all my scanner devices (film, slide, flatbed). So, I'm not a believer that Windows is the only option. Of course, I don't use a lot of third-party software. But these days even Linux has got a lot.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Douglas Miller

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.
...
John Savard

I will say that I was pleasantly surprised about 10 years ago when I
immediately found top-notch scanner software for my new MAC mini. I had
to buy it, sure, but it was great and they supported all my scanner
devices (film, slide, flatbed). So, I'm not a believer that Windows is
the only option. Of course, I don't use a lot of third-party software.
But these days even Linux has got a lot.

I can certainly get everything I want for Linux. Some specialized programs
may nominally only run on windoze, but ai think there’s an installer for
Linux now that will let you install most of them.

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 05:53:49 -0700, Peter Flass

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Douglas Miller

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.
...
John Savard

I will say that I was pleasantly surprised about 10 years ago when I
immediately found top-notch scanner software for my new MAC mini. I had
to buy it, sure, but it was great and they supported all my scanner
devices (film, slide, flatbed). So, I'm not a believer that Windows is
the only option. Of course, I don't use a lot of third-party software.
But these days even Linux has got a lot.

I can certainly get everything I want for Linux. Some specialized programs
may nominally only run on windoze, but ai think there’s an installer for
Linux now that will let you install most of them.

Only if you run Windows in VM. The WINE fans will tell you, oh, no,
everything runs on WINE. This may be true for some level of "run" but
if you are paid to be doing work your boss is not going to be happy
when you report that you didn't get the job done because you were
screwing around trying to get the software to run properly on an
unsupported operating system.

[Quadibloc]

Post by Peter Flass
I can certainly get everything I want for Linux.

But maybe other people have different wants than you.

John Savard

[Peter Flass]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Peter Flass
I can certainly get everything I want for Linux.

But maybe other people have different wants than you.

I’m sure they might. As I said in the part you didn’t quote that there are
still a few proprietary products that are locked into windoze that people
might need to use. Of course one could always run windoze in a VM.

Post by Quadibloc
John Savard

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 26 Jun 2020 09:58:14 -0700, Peter Flass

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Peter Flass
I can certainly get everything I want for Linux.

But maybe other people have different wants than you.

I’m sure they might. As I said in the part you didn’t quote that there are
still a few proprietary products that are locked into windoze that people
might need to use. Of course one could always run windoze in a VM.

Which will cause it to truly doze. Can a Windows application acccess
CUDA cores from a VM in Linux?

[Dave Garland]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.

I've found there's a ton of third-party software available for Linux
(and Linux supports some hardware Win doesn't, such as my
no-longer-MS-supported scanner; of course, the opposite is also true).
Mint comes with two different software managers (plus you can always
use the command-line options... before Win everybody used command
line, even people who weren't nerds, I know because I supported them),
and installing is usually as easy as clicking on an item and saying
"get it". And the price for most *ux software is $0.00.

Quality isn't always consistent, but the quality of Windows software
isn't always consistent either. Even software from MS.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.

I've found there's a ton of third-party software available for Linux
(and Linux supports some hardware Win doesn't, such as my
no-longer-MS-supported scanner; of course, the opposite is also true).
Mint comes with two different software managers (plus you can always
use the command-line options... before Win everybody used command
line, even people who weren't nerds, I know because I supported them),
and installing is usually as easy as clicking on an item and saying
"get it". And the price for most *ux software is $0.00.
Quality isn't always consistent, but the quality of Windows software
isn't always consistent either. Even software from MS.

That's not so. M$ software quality is indeed consistent.
Consistently awful, that is. 1/2 :-)

[J. Clarke]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.

I've found there's a ton of third-party software available for Linux
(and Linux supports some hardware Win doesn't, such as my
no-longer-MS-supported scanner; of course, the opposite is also true).
Mint comes with two different software managers (plus you can always
use the command-line options... before Win everybody used command
line, even people who weren't nerds, I know because I supported them),
and installing is usually as easy as clicking on an item and saying
"get it". And the price for most *ux software is $0.00.
Quality isn't always consistent, but the quality of Windows software
isn't always consistent either. Even software from MS.

That's not so. M$ software quality is indeed consistent.
Consistently awful, that is. 1/2 :-)

So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

[Dan Espen]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.

I've found there's a ton of third-party software available for Linux
(and Linux supports some hardware Win doesn't, such as my
no-longer-MS-supported scanner; of course, the opposite is also true).
Mint comes with two different software managers (plus you can always
use the command-line options... before Win everybody used command
line, even people who weren't nerds, I know because I supported them),
and installing is usually as easy as clicking on an item and saying
"get it". And the price for most *ux software is $0.00.
Quality isn't always consistent, but the quality of Windows software
isn't always consistent either. Even software from MS.

That's not so. M$ software quality is indeed consistent.
Consistently awful, that is. 1/2 :-)

So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

Have you tried it?

I would guess the GNU APL package might come up short,
not the multiple cores part or the LibreOffice part.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.

I've found there's a ton of third-party software available for Linux
(and Linux supports some hardware Win doesn't, such as my
no-longer-MS-supported scanner; of course, the opposite is also true).
Mint comes with two different software managers (plus you can always
use the command-line options... before Win everybody used command
line, even people who weren't nerds, I know because I supported them),
and installing is usually as easy as clicking on an item and saying
"get it". And the price for most *ux software is $0.00.
Quality isn't always consistent, but the quality of Windows software
isn't always consistent either. Even software from MS.

That's not so. M$ software quality is indeed consistent.
Consistently awful, that is. 1/2 :-)

So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

Have you tried it?

I have done it, demonstrated it, we use it as a process at work, and
the CEO of APL2000 seemed to be somewhat impressed. We normally only
run 8 cores as that gets things done in the timeframe we need, but we
have demonstrated 60 on the AWS cloud.

Post by Dan Espen
I would guess the GNU APL package might come up short,
not the multiple cores part or the LibreOffice part.

One of the things that makes it work is that APL2000 has a _very_
clean COM server. How would GNU APL interact with Open Office?

[Dan Espen]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.

I've found there's a ton of third-party software available for
Linux (and Linux supports some hardware Win doesn't, such as my
no-longer-MS-supported scanner; of course, the opposite is also
true). Mint comes with two different software managers (plus you
can always use the command-line options... before Win everybody
used command line, even people who weren't nerds, I know because I
supported them), and installing is usually as easy as clicking on
an item and saying "get it". And the price for most *ux software
is $0.00.
Quality isn't always consistent, but the quality of Windows
software isn't always consistent either. Even software from MS.

That's not so. M$ software quality is indeed consistent.
Consistently awful, that is. 1/2 :-)

So what's an actually better and not just different office suite?
And don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office
managing 60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

Have you tried it?

I have done it, demonstrated it, we use it as a process at work, and
the CEO of APL2000 seemed to be somewhat impressed. We normally only
run 8 cores as that gets things done in the timeframe we need, but we
have demonstrated 60 on the AWS cloud.

Post by Dan Espen
I would guess the GNU APL package might come up short, not the
multiple cores part or the LibreOffice part.

One of the things that makes it work is that APL2000 has a _very_
clean COM server. How would GNU APL interact with Open Office?

I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.

I've found there's a ton of third-party software available for
Linux (and Linux supports some hardware Win doesn't, such as my
no-longer-MS-supported scanner; of course, the opposite is also
true). Mint comes with two different software managers (plus you
can always use the command-line options... before Win everybody
used command line, even people who weren't nerds, I know because I
supported them), and installing is usually as easy as clicking on
an item and saying "get it". And the price for most *ux software
is $0.00.
Quality isn't always consistent, but the quality of Windows
software isn't always consistent either. Even software from MS.

That's not so. M$ software quality is indeed consistent.
Consistently awful, that is. 1/2 :-)

So what's an actually better and not just different office suite?
And don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office
managing 60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

Have you tried it?

I have done it, demonstrated it, we use it as a process at work, and
the CEO of APL2000 seemed to be somewhat impressed. We normally only
run 8 cores as that gets things done in the timeframe we need, but we
have demonstrated 60 on the AWS cloud.

Post by Dan Espen
I would guess the GNU APL package might come up short, not the
multiple cores part or the LibreOffice part.

One of the things that makes it work is that APL2000 has a _very_
clean COM server. How would GNU APL interact with Open Office?

I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.

It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

[Dan Espen]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.

I've found there's a ton of third-party software available for
Linux (and Linux supports some hardware Win doesn't, such as my
no-longer-MS-supported scanner; of course, the opposite is also
true). Mint comes with two different software managers (plus you
can always use the command-line options... before Win everybody
used command line, even people who weren't nerds, I know because I
supported them), and installing is usually as easy as clicking on
an item and saying "get it". And the price for most *ux software
is $0.00.
Quality isn't always consistent, but the quality of Windows
software isn't always consistent either. Even software from MS.

That's not so. M$ software quality is indeed consistent.
Consistently awful, that is. 1/2 :-)

So what's an actually better and not just different office suite?
And don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office
managing 60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

Have you tried it?

I have done it, demonstrated it, we use it as a process at work, and
the CEO of APL2000 seemed to be somewhat impressed. We normally only
run 8 cores as that gets things done in the timeframe we need, but we
have demonstrated 60 on the AWS cloud.

Post by Dan Espen
I would guess the GNU APL package might come up short, not the
multiple cores part or the LibreOffice part.

One of the things that makes it work is that APL2000 has a _very_
clean COM server. How would GNU APL interact with Open Office?

I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

The one time I saw office being used, it was more of a slave, they
passed in documents and had office format them. They said at the time
it was Star Office compatible.

One more thing in the list of things I don't know, thanks.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Dave Garland

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for
either one.

I've found there's a ton of third-party software available for
Linux (and Linux supports some hardware Win doesn't, such as my
no-longer-MS-supported scanner; of course, the opposite is also
true). Mint comes with two different software managers (plus you
can always use the command-line options... before Win everybody
used command line, even people who weren't nerds, I know because I
supported them), and installing is usually as easy as clicking on
an item and saying "get it". And the price for most *ux software
is $0.00.
Quality isn't always consistent, but the quality of Windows
software isn't always consistent either. Even software from MS.

That's not so. M$ software quality is indeed consistent.
Consistently awful, that is. 1/2 :-)

So what's an actually better and not just different office suite?
And don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office
managing 60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

Have you tried it?

I have done it, demonstrated it, we use it as a process at work, and
the CEO of APL2000 seemed to be somewhat impressed. We normally only
run 8 cores as that gets things done in the timeframe we need, but we
have demonstrated 60 on the AWS cloud.

Post by Dan Espen
I would guess the GNU APL package might come up short, not the
multiple cores part or the LibreOffice part.

One of the things that makes it work is that APL2000 has a _very_
clean COM server. How would GNU APL interact with Open Office?

I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

The one time I saw office being used, it was more of a slave, they
passed in documents and had office format them. They said at the time
it was Star Office compatible.
One more thing in the list of things I don't know, thanks.

That's OpenOffice, not Microsoft Office. OpenOffice used to be a
proprietary product called StarOffice, and now it's got a fork called
"LibreOfffice" (Oracle and Open Source politics involved). In theory
OpenOffice supports the same scripting as Microsoft Office. In
practice I've found it frustrating whenever I've played with it.

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

It’s probably a piece of Topsy software, it “just growed.” I would imagine
somebody tried it as a one-shot and it went from there. I would also
imagine it would be a horror to rewrite it to do it right. It’s certainly
possible to do COM stuff from a program, or probably even a script.

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 26 Jun 2020 09:58:16 -0700, Peter Flass

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

It’s probably a piece of Topsy software, it “just growed.” I would imagine
somebody tried it as a one-shot and it went from there. I would also
imagine it would be a horror to rewrite it to do it right. It’s certainly
possible to do COM stuff from a program, or probably even a script.

It didn't "just grow", it was designed to do what it does and it took
a lot of research and experimentation to figure out how to do it. If
I was doing it now I would have done some things differently and
eventually it may get a rewrite, but it's hardly a "horror".

As for shell scripts, this is a Windows shop. And before you say
"well change that", it's a Fortune 100 company, and I'm not the head
of IT.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of jobs
you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one less than the
number of cores in the machine of them, monitor their operation, when
one completes start another, display all of this in the user-friendly
interface, and if one crashes detect that it has crashed and display
appropriate messages.

[Dan Espen]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of jobs
you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one less than the
number of cores in the machine of them, monitor their operation, when
one completes start another, display all of this in the user-friendly
interface, and if one crashes detect that it has crashed and display
appropriate messages.

I don't mean to question your requirements or implementation,
I'm sure it took a lot of work to accomplish what you have.
Just curious about some of these things.

The number of CPUs seems trivial, at least on Linux:

home> lscpu | grep '^CPU(s):'
CPU(s): 4

I'm not sure what monitoring would entail, but it's pretty easy to
tell if something is running, capture it's PID and use "ps".

Crashes seem easy to detect and analyze using "abrt".

The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.

Python and Qt (PyQt) can produce some very attractive GUIs.
(Works on Windows too.)

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of jobs
you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one less than the
number of cores in the machine of them, monitor their operation, when
one completes start another, display all of this in the user-friendly
interface, and if one crashes detect that it has crashed and display
appropriate messages.

I don't mean to question your requirements or implementation,
I'm sure it took a lot of work to accomplish what you have.
Just curious about some of these things.
home> lscpu | grep '^CPU(s):'
CPU(s): 4

That's not the problem. The problem is having it keep track of the
number of sessions it has started and that have completed.

Post by Dan Espen
I'm not sure what monitoring would entail, but it's pretty easy to
tell if something is running, capture it's PID and use "ps".

Knowing that something is running doesn't help. We know it's running
because we started it. We need to know when it has completed. APL is
an environment, you don't do "APL X" and have X run. You do APL, then
)LOAD X, then Y to start a process, possibly after setting variables
A, B, and C to control that process, and then it runs until it
completes or crashes, then it sits there either with an error message
showing or the cursor sitting there flashing at you. And once the
process is completed, then we have other steps that need to be
performed.

Post by Dan Espen
Crashes seem easy to detect and analyze using "abrt".

APL doesn't crash. The program running in APL crashes. APL duly
reports it to the user and remains open. While there are probably
ways to make the interpreter itself crash that would come under the
heading of an "exploit", not something that happens in normal
programming.

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.
Python and Qt (PyQt) can produce some very attractive GUIs.
(Works on Windows too.)

For certain values of "attractive" and it's a lot more work than
displaying the information in an Excel workbook.

And at the time Python was not available to us.

Further, I'm still not sure that I can make Python do what VBA is
doing.

[Peter Flass]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of jobs
you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one less than the
number of cores in the machine of them, monitor their operation, when
one completes start another, display all of this in the user-friendly
interface, and if one crashes detect that it has crashed and display
appropriate messages.

I don't mean to question your requirements or implementation,
I'm sure it took a lot of work to accomplish what you have.
Just curious about some of these things.

Post by J. Clarke
lscpu | grep '^CPU(s):'

CPU(s): 4

That's not the problem. The problem is having it keep track of the
number of sessions it has started and that have completed.

Post by Dan Espen
I'm not sure what monitoring would entail, but it's pretty easy to
tell if something is running, capture it's PID and use "ps".

Knowing that something is running doesn't help. We know it's running
because we started it. We need to know when it has completed. APL is
an environment, you don't do "APL X" and have X run. You do APL, then
)LOAD X, then Y to start a process, possibly after setting variables
A, B, and C to control that process, and then it runs until it
completes or crashes, then it sits there either with an error message
showing or the cursor sitting there flashing at you. And once the
process is completed, then we have other steps that need to be
performed.

Post by Dan Espen
Crashes seem easy to detect and analyze using "abrt".

APL doesn't crash. The program running in APL crashes. APL duly
reports it to the user and remains open. While there are probably
ways to make the interpreter itself crash that would come under the
heading of an "exploit", not something that happens in normal
programming.

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.
Python and Qt (PyQt) can produce some very attractive GUIs.
(Works on Windows too.)

For certain values of "attractive" and it's a lot more work than
displaying the information in an Excel workbook.
And at the time Python was not available to us.
Further, I'm still not sure that I can make Python do what VBA is
doing.

To each his own, or, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything
looks like a nail,

[Dan Espen]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of jobs
you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one less than the
number of cores in the machine of them, monitor their operation, when
one completes start another, display all of this in the user-friendly
interface, and if one crashes detect that it has crashed and display
appropriate messages.

I don't mean to question your requirements or implementation,
I'm sure it took a lot of work to accomplish what you have.
Just curious about some of these things.

Post by J. Clarke
lscpu | grep '^CPU(s):'

CPU(s): 4

That's not the problem. The problem is having it keep track of the
number of sessions it has started and that have completed.

Post by Dan Espen
I'm not sure what monitoring would entail, but it's pretty easy to
tell if something is running, capture it's PID and use "ps".

Knowing that something is running doesn't help. We know it's running
because we started it. We need to know when it has completed. APL is
an environment, you don't do "APL X" and have X run. You do APL, then
)LOAD X, then Y to start a process, possibly after setting variables
A, B, and C to control that process, and then it runs until it
completes or crashes, then it sits there either with an error message
showing or the cursor sitting there flashing at you. And once the
process is completed, then we have other steps that need to be
performed.

Post by Dan Espen
Crashes seem easy to detect and analyze using "abrt".

APL doesn't crash. The program running in APL crashes. APL duly
reports it to the user and remains open. While there are probably
ways to make the interpreter itself crash that would come under the
heading of an "exploit", not something that happens in normal
programming.

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.
Python and Qt (PyQt) can produce some very attractive GUIs.
(Works on Windows too.)

For certain values of "attractive" and it's a lot more work than
displaying the information in an Excel workbook.
And at the time Python was not available to us.
Further, I'm still not sure that I can make Python do what VBA is
doing.

To each his own, or, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything
looks like a nail,

Well, I think he's working with something pretty complex.
I think they used what they had and now they're in pretty deep.
I never liked being tied to one vendors whims, but sometimes it's
hard to avoid.

In this case, I'd try to keep current on what alternatives I might have.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by Peter Flass

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of jobs
you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one less than the
number of cores in the machine of them, monitor their operation, when
one completes start another, display all of this in the user-friendly
interface, and if one crashes detect that it has crashed and display
appropriate messages.

I don't mean to question your requirements or implementation,
I'm sure it took a lot of work to accomplish what you have.
Just curious about some of these things.

Post by J. Clarke
lscpu | grep '^CPU(s):'

CPU(s): 4

That's not the problem. The problem is having it keep track of the
number of sessions it has started and that have completed.

Post by Dan Espen
I'm not sure what monitoring would entail, but it's pretty easy to
tell if something is running, capture it's PID and use "ps".

Knowing that something is running doesn't help. We know it's running
because we started it. We need to know when it has completed. APL is
an environment, you don't do "APL X" and have X run. You do APL, then
)LOAD X, then Y to start a process, possibly after setting variables
A, B, and C to control that process, and then it runs until it
completes or crashes, then it sits there either with an error message
showing or the cursor sitting there flashing at you. And once the
process is completed, then we have other steps that need to be
performed.

Post by Dan Espen
Crashes seem easy to detect and analyze using "abrt".

APL doesn't crash. The program running in APL crashes. APL duly
reports it to the user and remains open. While there are probably
ways to make the interpreter itself crash that would come under the
heading of an "exploit", not something that happens in normal
programming.

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.
Python and Qt (PyQt) can produce some very attractive GUIs.
(Works on Windows too.)

For certain values of "attractive" and it's a lot more work than
displaying the information in an Excel workbook.
And at the time Python was not available to us.
Further, I'm still not sure that I can make Python do what VBA is
doing.

To each his own, or, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything
looks like a nail,

Well, I think he's working with something pretty complex.
I think they used what they had and now they're in pretty deep.
I never liked being tied to one vendors whims, but sometimes it's
hard to avoid.
In this case, I'd try to keep current on what alternatives I might have.

Our Powers That Be are committed to Microsoft, and at this point we're
damned glad that we were. On Thursday the CEO decreed "everybody but
security, landscaping, and building maintenance will be working from
home starting Monday". So on Monday we were working from home with
damned few hitches, and mostly because the Microsoft ecosystem has all
the tools we needed built into it.

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
In this case, I'd try to keep current on what alternatives I might have.

Our Powers That Be are committed to Microsoft, and at this point we're
damned glad that we were. On Thursday the CEO decreed "everybody but
security, landscaping, and building maintenance will be working from
home starting Monday". So on Monday we were working from home with
damned few hitches, and mostly because the Microsoft ecosystem has all
the tools we needed built into it.

We've been working from home (the entire company, several thousand)
since the second day of march. And the only MS stuff we use is office360
and a mix of windows, macos and linux from the OS perspective. Most of
use remote into various linux systems to do real work (high-end processor
design). The rest is various source code control systems, wiki's and
web-based bug, document and task tracking - none of which is MS.

We've had no hitches, and have taped out a half dozen chips since.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
In this case, I'd try to keep current on what alternatives I might have.

Our Powers That Be are committed to Microsoft, and at this point we're
damned glad that we were. On Thursday the CEO decreed "everybody but
security, landscaping, and building maintenance will be working from
home starting Monday". So on Monday we were working from home with
damned few hitches, and mostly because the Microsoft ecosystem has all
the tools we needed built into it.

We've been working from home (the entire company, several thousand)
since the second day of march. And the only MS stuff we use is office360
and a mix of windows, macos and linux from the OS perspective. Most of
use remote into various linux systems to do real work (high-end processor
design). The rest is various source code control systems, wiki's and
web-based bug, document and task tracking - none of which is MS.
We've had no hitches, and have taped out a half dozen chips since.

I don’t think either of you is going to convince the other.

[J. Clarke]

On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 15:40:42 -0700, Peter Flass

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
In this case, I'd try to keep current on what alternatives I might have.

Our Powers That Be are committed to Microsoft, and at this point we're
damned glad that we were. On Thursday the CEO decreed "everybody but
security, landscaping, and building maintenance will be working from
home starting Monday". So on Monday we were working from home with
damned few hitches, and mostly because the Microsoft ecosystem has all
the tools we needed built into it.

We've been working from home (the entire company, several thousand)
since the second day of march. And the only MS stuff we use is office360
and a mix of windows, macos and linux from the OS perspective. Most of
use remote into various linux systems to do real work (high-end processor
design). The rest is various source code control systems, wiki's and
web-based bug, document and task tracking - none of which is MS.
We've had no hitches, and have taped out a half dozen chips since.

I don’t think either of you is going to convince the other.

There's no convincing needed. We use Windows and Z/OS. He uses
Windows, Linux, and MacOS. Same difference, however he doesn't want
to admit that Windows has been very helpful in the current situation
and I'm happy to do so.

[Dan Espen]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by Peter Flass

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of jobs
you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one less than the
number of cores in the machine of them, monitor their operation, when
one completes start another, display all of this in the user-friendly
interface, and if one crashes detect that it has crashed and display
appropriate messages.

I don't mean to question your requirements or implementation,
I'm sure it took a lot of work to accomplish what you have.
Just curious about some of these things.

Post by J. Clarke
lscpu | grep '^CPU(s):'

CPU(s): 4

That's not the problem. The problem is having it keep track of the
number of sessions it has started and that have completed.

Post by Dan Espen
I'm not sure what monitoring would entail, but it's pretty easy to
tell if something is running, capture it's PID and use "ps".

Knowing that something is running doesn't help. We know it's running
because we started it. We need to know when it has completed. APL is
an environment, you don't do "APL X" and have X run. You do APL, then
)LOAD X, then Y to start a process, possibly after setting variables
A, B, and C to control that process, and then it runs until it
completes or crashes, then it sits there either with an error message
showing or the cursor sitting there flashing at you. And once the
process is completed, then we have other steps that need to be
performed.

Post by Dan Espen
Crashes seem easy to detect and analyze using "abrt".

APL doesn't crash. The program running in APL crashes. APL duly
reports it to the user and remains open. While there are probably
ways to make the interpreter itself crash that would come under the
heading of an "exploit", not something that happens in normal
programming.

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.
Python and Qt (PyQt) can produce some very attractive GUIs.
(Works on Windows too.)

For certain values of "attractive" and it's a lot more work than
displaying the information in an Excel workbook.
And at the time Python was not available to us.
Further, I'm still not sure that I can make Python do what VBA is
doing.

To each his own, or, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything
looks like a nail,

Well, I think he's working with something pretty complex.
I think they used what they had and now they're in pretty deep.
I never liked being tied to one vendors whims, but sometimes it's
hard to avoid.
In this case, I'd try to keep current on what alternatives I might have.

Our Powers That Be are committed to Microsoft, and at this point we're
damned glad that we were. On Thursday the CEO decreed "everybody but
security, landscaping, and building maintenance will be working from
home starting Monday". So on Monday we were working from home with
damned few hitches, and mostly because the Microsoft ecosystem has all
the tools we needed built into it.

Just chiming in. You don't need MSFT to use a VPN.
Some things actually work better without MSFT.

I saw lots of people using remote desktops to do their work.
With X windows, you don't need to remote the whole desktop, just
the applications you want to run. You do something like "ssh" to
your desktop at work, then start the application you want to use and
your work desktop opens a window on your home machine.

It can be really cool. At work I might have 5 or 6 files open
with Emacs edits in progress. I go home then ssh, then tell the
running Emacs to create a frame on my home machine. From that
"frame" I can access the same 5 or 6 files as though I never left.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by Peter Flass

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of jobs
you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one less than the
number of cores in the machine of them, monitor their operation, when
one completes start another, display all of this in the user-friendly
interface, and if one crashes detect that it has crashed and display
appropriate messages.

I don't mean to question your requirements or implementation,
I'm sure it took a lot of work to accomplish what you have.
Just curious about some of these things.

Post by J. Clarke
lscpu | grep '^CPU(s):'

CPU(s): 4

That's not the problem. The problem is having it keep track of the
number of sessions it has started and that have completed.

Post by Dan Espen
I'm not sure what monitoring would entail, but it's pretty easy to
tell if something is running, capture it's PID and use "ps".

Knowing that something is running doesn't help. We know it's running
because we started it. We need to know when it has completed. APL is
an environment, you don't do "APL X" and have X run. You do APL, then
)LOAD X, then Y to start a process, possibly after setting variables
A, B, and C to control that process, and then it runs until it
completes or crashes, then it sits there either with an error message
showing or the cursor sitting there flashing at you. And once the
process is completed, then we have other steps that need to be
performed.

Post by Dan Espen
Crashes seem easy to detect and analyze using "abrt".

APL doesn't crash. The program running in APL crashes. APL duly
reports it to the user and remains open. While there are probably
ways to make the interpreter itself crash that would come under the
heading of an "exploit", not something that happens in normal
programming.

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.
Python and Qt (PyQt) can produce some very attractive GUIs.
(Works on Windows too.)

For certain values of "attractive" and it's a lot more work than
displaying the information in an Excel workbook.
And at the time Python was not available to us.
Further, I'm still not sure that I can make Python do what VBA is
doing.

To each his own, or, if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything
looks like a nail,

Well, I think he's working with something pretty complex.
I think they used what they had and now they're in pretty deep.
I never liked being tied to one vendors whims, but sometimes it's
hard to avoid.
In this case, I'd try to keep current on what alternatives I might have.

Our Powers That Be are committed to Microsoft, and at this point we're
damned glad that we were. On Thursday the CEO decreed "everybody but
security, landscaping, and building maintenance will be working from
home starting Monday". So on Monday we were working from home with
damned few hitches, and mostly because the Microsoft ecosystem has all
the tools we needed built into it.

Just chiming in. You don't need MSFT to use a VPN.
Some things actually work better without MSFT.

Who said anything about a VPN? You really should find out what other
people are doing before you tell them how to do it better. In point
of fact our VPN is provided by Cisco.

Post by Dan Espen
I saw lots of people using remote desktops to do their work.
With X windows, you don't need to remote the whole desktop, just
the applications you want to run. You do something like "ssh" to
your desktop at work, then start the application you want to use and
your work desktop opens a window on your home machine.

Same with RDP except no SSH needed. But who needs remote desktops?

Post by Dan Espen
It can be really cool. At work I might have 5 or 6 files open
with Emacs edits in progress. I go home then ssh, then tell the
running Emacs to create a frame on my home machine. From that
"frame" I can access the same 5 or 6 files as though I never left.

I bring my work computer home. But RDP does that just fine without
being dependent on Emacs. And I don't have to tell the remote machine
to "create a frame".

[Dan Espen]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Peter Flass

On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 08:47:44 -0400, Dan Espen

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 20:02:00 -0400, Dan Espen

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted
similar to MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You
need to set some parameters in the workspace, start it
running, detect when it has finished, grab some data out of
it, save it to a new location, and if it crashes you have to
recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using
the office application to control another program provided by
a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right
tool for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of
jobs you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one
less than the number of cores in the machine of them, monitor
their operation, when one completes start another, display all
of this in the user-friendly interface, and if one crashes
detect that it has crashed and display appropriate messages.

I don't mean to question your requirements or implementation,
I'm sure it took a lot of work to accomplish what you have.
Just curious about some of these things.
lscpu | grep '^CPU(s):'
CPU(s): 4

That's not the problem. The problem is having it keep track of
the number of sessions it has started and that have completed.

Post by Dan Espen
I'm not sure what monitoring would entail, but it's pretty easy
to tell if something is running, capture it's PID and use "ps".

Knowing that something is running doesn't help. We know it's
running because we started it. We need to know when it has
completed. APL is an environment, you don't do "APL X" and have
X run. You do APL, then )LOAD X, then Y to start a process,
possibly after setting variables A, B, and C to control that
process, and then it runs until it completes or crashes, then it
sits there either with an error message showing or the cursor
sitting there flashing at you. And once the process is
completed, then we have other steps that need to be performed.

Post by Dan Espen
Crashes seem easy to detect and analyze using "abrt".

APL doesn't crash. The program running in APL crashes. APL duly
reports it to the user and remains open. While there are
probably ways to make the interpreter itself crash that would
come under the heading of an "exploit", not something that
happens in normal programming.

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script. I
think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better to
start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.
Python and Qt (PyQt) can produce some very attractive GUIs.
(Works on Windows too.)

For certain values of "attractive" and it's a lot more work than
displaying the information in an Excel workbook.
And at the time Python was not available to us.
Further, I'm still not sure that I can make Python do what VBA is
doing.

To each his own, or, if the only tool you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail,

Well, I think he's working with something pretty complex. I think
they used what they had and now they're in pretty deep. I never
liked being tied to one vendors whims, but sometimes it's hard to
avoid.
In this case, I'd try to keep current on what alternatives I might have.

Our Powers That Be are committed to Microsoft, and at this point
we're damned glad that we were. On Thursday the CEO decreed
"everybody but security, landscaping, and building maintenance will
be working from home starting Monday". So on Monday we were working
from home with damned few hitches, and mostly because the Microsoft
ecosystem has all the tools we needed built into it.

Just chiming in. You don't need MSFT to use a VPN. Some things
actually work better without MSFT.

Who said anything about a VPN? You really should find out what other
people are doing before you tell them how to do it better. In point
of fact our VPN is provided by Cisco.

Well, I'm confused. You talked about working from home. I assumed you
meant the VPN. Aha, I think you were talking about RDP.

X windows is always a network type protocol so all I needed to work
remote was the VPN. At work we were always connecting to other machines
and running stuff there using X Windows.

I had no idea that RDP let you redirect individual windows to another
desktop. RDP stands for "Remote Desktop Protocol'.

I've never used RDP. For a while I had to use Citrix to get get a
windows desktop on a server to do a time sheet. I think RDP did the
same thing at one time.

Okay, just read a bit about RDP. It looks like MSFT added "Seamless
Windows" in 2006:

Seamless Windows: remote applications can run on a client machine that
is served by a Remote Desktop connection.

I just read the Wikipedia page on RDP. That's pretty cool software. It
even includes audio redirection, file sharing and USB redirection.
There are also RDP clients for Linux.

Post by J. Clarke

I saw lots of people using remote desktops to do their work. With X
windows, you don't need to remote the whole desktop, just the
applications you want to run. You do something like "ssh" to your
desktop at work, then start the application you want to use and your
work desktop opens a window on your home machine.

Same with RDP except no SSH needed. But who needs remote desktops?

I think you misunderstood what I meant when I described ssh and then
creating a frame. In fact I created an Emacs window on my home machine
by hitting a single key. Scripts did all the dirty work.

It was pretty cool to connect to my existing edit sessions. More than
once I noticed I hadn't saved my latest changes before leaving work.

Post by J. Clarke

It can be really cool. At work I might have 5 or 6 files open with
Emacs edits in progress. I go home then ssh, then tell the running
Emacs to create a frame on my home machine. From that "frame" I can
access the same 5 or 6 files as though I never left.

I bring my work computer home. But RDP does that just fine without
being dependent on Emacs. And I don't have to tell the remote machine
to "create a frame".

Emacs just happens to be the tool I was using. I could have been using
any editor or a terminal.

Eventually they forced me to work on a Windows machine so I had a laptop
to take home. i bought a KVM switch so I could continue to use my
mechanical keyboard and large monitor.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Peter Flass

On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 08:47:44 -0400, Dan Espen

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 20:02:00 -0400, Dan Espen

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted
similar to MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You
need to set some parameters in the workspace, start it
running, detect when it has finished, grab some data out of
it, save it to a new location, and if it crashes you have to
recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using
the office application to control another program provided by
a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right
tool for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of
jobs you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one
less than the number of cores in the machine of them, monitor
their operation, when one completes start another, display all
of this in the user-friendly interface, and if one crashes
detect that it has crashed and display appropriate messages.

I don't mean to question your requirements or implementation,
I'm sure it took a lot of work to accomplish what you have.
Just curious about some of these things.
lscpu | grep '^CPU(s):'
CPU(s): 4

That's not the problem. The problem is having it keep track of
the number of sessions it has started and that have completed.

Post by Dan Espen
I'm not sure what monitoring would entail, but it's pretty easy
to tell if something is running, capture it's PID and use "ps".

Knowing that something is running doesn't help. We know it's
running because we started it. We need to know when it has
completed. APL is an environment, you don't do "APL X" and have
X run. You do APL, then )LOAD X, then Y to start a process,
possibly after setting variables A, B, and C to control that
process, and then it runs until it completes or crashes, then it
sits there either with an error message showing or the cursor
sitting there flashing at you. And once the process is
completed, then we have other steps that need to be performed.

Post by Dan Espen
Crashes seem easy to detect and analyze using "abrt".

APL doesn't crash. The program running in APL crashes. APL duly
reports it to the user and remains open. While there are
probably ways to make the interpreter itself crash that would
come under the heading of an "exploit", not something that
happens in normal programming.

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script. I
think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better to
start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.
Python and Qt (PyQt) can produce some very attractive GUIs.
(Works on Windows too.)

For certain values of "attractive" and it's a lot more work than
displaying the information in an Excel workbook.
And at the time Python was not available to us.
Further, I'm still not sure that I can make Python do what VBA is
doing.

To each his own, or, if the only tool you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail,

Well, I think he's working with something pretty complex. I think
they used what they had and now they're in pretty deep. I never
liked being tied to one vendors whims, but sometimes it's hard to
avoid.
In this case, I'd try to keep current on what alternatives I might have.

Our Powers That Be are committed to Microsoft, and at this point
we're damned glad that we were. On Thursday the CEO decreed
"everybody but security, landscaping, and building maintenance will
be working from home starting Monday". So on Monday we were working
from home with damned few hitches, and mostly because the Microsoft
ecosystem has all the tools we needed built into it.

Just chiming in. You don't need MSFT to use a VPN. Some things
actually work better without MSFT.

Who said anything about a VPN? You really should find out what other
people are doing before you tell them how to do it better. In point
of fact our VPN is provided by Cisco.

Well, I'm confused. You talked about working from home. I assumed you
meant the VPN. Aha, I think you were talking about RDP.

Wasn't talking about that either.

Post by Dan Espen
X windows is always a network type protocol so all I needed to work
remote was the VPN. At work we were always connecting to other machines
and running stuff there using X Windows.
I had no idea that RDP let you redirect individual windows to another
desktop. RDP stands for "Remote Desktop Protocol'.
I've never used RDP. For a while I had to use Citrix to get get a
windows desktop on a server to do a time sheet. I think RDP did the
same thing at one time.
Okay, just read a bit about RDP. It looks like MSFT added "Seamless
Seamless Windows: remote applications can run on a client machine that
is served by a Remote Desktop connection.
I just read the Wikipedia page on RDP. That's pretty cool software. It
even includes audio redirection, file sharing and USB redirection.
There are also RDP clients for Linux.

Yep, but wasn't what I was talking about. We mainly use it if we're
doing something that involves large files on network shares, where
transfer via the Internet is slow.

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

I saw lots of people using remote desktops to do their work. With X
windows, you don't need to remote the whole desktop, just the
applications you want to run. You do something like "ssh" to your
desktop at work, then start the application you want to use and your
work desktop opens a window on your home machine.

Same with RDP except no SSH needed. But who needs remote desktops?

I think you misunderstood what I meant when I described ssh and then
creating a frame. In fact I created an Emacs window on my home machine
by hitting a single key. Scripts did all the dirty work.
It was pretty cool to connect to my existing edit sessions. More than
once I noticed I hadn't saved my latest changes before leaving work.

I still don't get the point. I don't normally log into a machine at
work from home, I have my work machine at home. When I close the lid,
the next time I open it everything is exactly as it was when I closed
the lid, unless the IT department forced a reboot in the interim.

But if I am logged into a work machine, if I disconnect, the next time
I reconnect the screen is exactly as I left it, again unless IT
rebooted it or someone else logged into it and forced my session to
close.

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

It can be really cool. At work I might have 5 or 6 files open with
Emacs edits in progress. I go home then ssh, then tell the running
Emacs to create a frame on my home machine. From that "frame" I can
access the same 5 or 6 files as though I never left.

I bring my work computer home. But RDP does that just fine without
being dependent on Emacs. And I don't have to tell the remote machine
to "create a frame".

Emacs just happens to be the tool I was using. I could have been using
any editor or a terminal.

Remote access isn't a function of an editor or terminal for us.

Post by Dan Espen
Eventually they forced me to work on a Windows machine so I had a laptop
to take home. i bought a KVM switch so I could continue to use my
mechanical keyboard and large monitor.

My monitor is 49 inches and 4K, one cable moves the keyboard and mouse
and two clicks on the remote move the screen.

For us the laptop is a third screen most of the time.

[Kerr-Mudd,John]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen

On Mon, 20 Jul 2020 08:47:44 -0400, Dan Espen

On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 20:02:00 -0400, Dan Espen

[]

Bloodly 'ell.

Post by J. Clarke
Remote access isn't a function of an editor or terminal for us.

Post by Dan Espen
Eventually they forced me to work on a Windows machine so I had a laptop
to take home. i bought a KVM switch so I could continue to use my
mechanical keyboard and large monitor.

My monitor is 49 inches and 4K, one cable moves the keyboard and mouse
and two clicks on the remote move the screen.
For us the laptop is a third screen most of the time.

Remote working; marvelous, you both can do what you want with ease. I get
it. Stop arguing!

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke
Our Powers That Be are committed to Microsoft, and at this point we're
damned glad that we were. On Thursday the CEO decreed "everybody but
security, landscaping, and building maintenance will be working from
home starting Monday". So on Monday we were working from home with
damned few hitches, and mostly because the Microsoft ecosystem has all
the tools we needed built into it.

Just chiming in. You don't need MSFT to use a VPN.
Some things actually work better without MSFT.
I saw lots of people using remote desktops to do their work.
With X windows, you don't need to remote the whole desktop, just
the applications you want to run. You do something like "ssh" to
your desktop at work, then start the application you want to use and
your work desktop opens a window on your home machine.
It can be really cool. At work I might have 5 or 6 files open
with Emacs edits in progress. I go home then ssh, then tell the
running Emacs to create a frame on my home machine. From that
"frame" I can access the same 5 or 6 files as though I never left.

Indeed, that's how we work. The ability to ssh into any system
and get ones preferred shell (including the mac, but not windows)
is very useful and productive.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of jobs
you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one less than the
number of cores in the machine of them, monitor their operation, when
one completes start another, display all of this in the user-friendly
interface, and if one crashes detect that it has crashed and display
appropriate messages.

I don't mean to question your requirements or implementation,
I'm sure it took a lot of work to accomplish what you have.
Just curious about some of these things.

Post by J. Clarke
lscpu | grep '^CPU(s):'

CPU(s): 4
I'm not sure what monitoring would entail, but it's pretty easy to
tell if something is running, capture it's PID and use "ps".
Crashes seem easy to detect and analyze using "abrt".
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.
Python and Qt (PyQt) can produce some very attractive GUIs.
(Works on Windows too.)

Or Rexx

[Dan Espen]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Dan Espen

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Dan Espen
I've never done it but I believe LibreOffice can be scripted similar to
MS Office.

That's not the problem. You have a GNU APL workspace. You need to
set some parameters in the workspace, start it running, detect when it
has finished, grab some data out of it, save it to a new location, and
if it crashes you have to recognize that it crashed and log the crash.
It isn't just scripting the office application, it is using the office
application to control another program provided by a different vendor.

Isn't that what shell scripts are designed for? Use the right tool
for the job.

OK, so tell us how to, from a shell script, display the list of jobs
you can run, quickly select the ones you want, start one less than the
number of cores in the machine of them, monitor their operation, when
one completes start another, display all of this in the user-friendly
interface, and if one crashes detect that it has crashed and display
appropriate messages.

I don't mean to question your requirements or implementation,
I'm sure it took a lot of work to accomplish what you have.
Just curious about some of these things.

Post by J. Clarke
lscpu | grep '^CPU(s):'

CPU(s): 4
I'm not sure what monitoring would entail, but it's pretty easy to
tell if something is running, capture it's PID and use "ps".
Crashes seem easy to detect and analyze using "abrt".
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.
Python and Qt (PyQt) can produce some very attractive GUIs.
(Works on Windows too.)

Or Rexx

Just checked. The GUI packages for REXX are ActiveTcl and
RexxTK. The both appear to be TK based. I looked at
TCL/TK. What I saw was pretty ugly. Maybe it's better now,
I don't know.

What I liked about Qt was that it looks like a native application,
the same code looks different on Unix/Windows/MacOS. It also has
a huge selection of widgets.

Looks like TCL/TK is portable too.
REXX is pretty nice to code in, I've used it extensively,
but I'd still prefer Python. It hasn't let me down.
When I need to parse JSON, Html, email, there are good packages
available.

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Mon, 2020-07-20, Dan Espen wrote:
...

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.

I disagree -- many tasks are solved elegantly in shell scripts (bash
at least) but only clumsily in Python. (For other tasks it's the other
way around of course, but I prefer the shell for handling files, and
streams of data between external commands.)

My bosses tend to agree with you though, so I've often done typical
shell tasks in Python. (Perl is not an option for them.)

/Jorgen

[Dan Espen]

Post by Jorgen Grahn
...

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.

I disagree -- many tasks are solved elegantly in shell scripts (bash
at least) but only clumsily in Python. (For other tasks it's the other
way around of course, but I prefer the shell for handling files, and
streams of data between external commands.)
My bosses tend to agree with you though, so I've often done typical
shell tasks in Python. (Perl is not an option for them.)

I agree that shell often provides a nice simple solution for small
problems.

What I found is that simple solutions have a way of growing to larger
and larger solutions. Then shell scripting becomes harder and harder
to manage.

Once was given dozens of awk files and shell scripts that no one else
could find their way through. Converted it all to one Perl script
and the mess became manageable.

When I coded in Perl I used constructs that made it look very much
like C.

Of course, in today's world, I'd use Python.

[Niklas Karlsson]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by Jorgen Grahn
I disagree -- many tasks are solved elegantly in shell scripts (bash
at least) but only clumsily in Python. (For other tasks it's the other
way around of course, but I prefer the shell for handling files, and
streams of data between external commands.)
My bosses tend to agree with you though, so I've often done typical
shell tasks in Python. (Perl is not an option for them.)

I agree that shell often provides a nice simple solution for small
problems.

A prospective employer recently asked me to provide a sample of my work,
the spec being:

Write bash one-liner which will find binary files with identical
contents, permissions and owner, on the same ext4 file-system, from
current working directory recursively, replaces all files with older
access times with hard links to latest accessed file and reports saved
disk space in kibibytes. Extra credits if you do it without creating any
temporary files.

I ended up with a so-called one-liner of about 1.3 kB. It works, but I'm
not exactly proud of it, and would never solve the problem with a
one-liner in the real world.

After I sent in my answer, I showed the question to a friend, who
produced a much nicer and more concise version using awk. Perhaps I
ought to learn awk...

Niklas

[Dan Espen]

Post by Niklas Karlsson

Post by Dan Espen

Post by Jorgen Grahn
I disagree -- many tasks are solved elegantly in shell scripts (bash
at least) but only clumsily in Python. (For other tasks it's the other
way around of course, but I prefer the shell for handling files, and
streams of data between external commands.)
My bosses tend to agree with you though, so I've often done typical
shell tasks in Python. (Perl is not an option for them.)

I agree that shell often provides a nice simple solution for small
problems.

A prospective employer recently asked me to provide a sample of my work,
Write bash one-liner which will find binary files with identical
contents, permissions and owner, on the same ext4 file-system, from
current working directory recursively, replaces all files with older
access times with hard links to latest accessed file and reports saved
disk space in kibibytes. Extra credits if you do it without creating any
temporary files.
I ended up with a so-called one-liner of about 1.3 kB. It works, but I'm
not exactly proud of it, and would never solve the problem with a
one-liner in the real world.
After I sent in my answer, I showed the question to a friend, who
produced a much nicer and more concise version using awk. Perhaps I
ought to learn awk...

There is a Perl program called a2p.
It converts awk to Perl.

Worked for me.

I really didn't like dealing with awk, sed, yacc, etc.

[Kerr-Mudd,John]

On Tue, 21 Jul 2020 13:42:33 GMT, Niklas Karlsson <***@yahoo.se> wrote:

[]

Post by Niklas Karlsson
I ended up with a so-called one-liner of about 1.3 kB. It works, but I'm
not exactly proud of it, and would never solve the problem with a
one-liner in the real world.

To my antiquated way of thinking a "one-liner" has to fit into 80 bytes.

Post by Niklas Karlsson
After I sent in my answer, I showed the question to a friend, who
produced a much nicer and more concise version using awk. Perhaps I
ought to learn awk...

[Niklas Karlsson]

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John
[]

Post by Niklas Karlsson
I ended up with a so-called one-liner of about 1.3 kB. It works, but I'm
not exactly proud of it, and would never solve the problem with a
one-liner in the real world.

To my antiquated way of thinking a "one-liner" has to fit into 80 bytes.

One would think, but I don't believe it's possible to solve that problem
in 80 bytes with bash. Not even with the awk solution.

Niklas

[Kerr-Mudd,John]

Post by Niklas Karlsson

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John
[]

Post by Niklas Karlsson
I ended up with a so-called one-liner of about 1.3 kB. It works, but
I'm not exactly proud of it, and would never solve the problem with
a one-liner in the real world.

To my antiquated way of thinking a "one-liner" has to fit into 80 bytes.

One would think, but I don't believe it's possible to solve that
problem in 80 bytes with bash. Not even with the awk solution.
Niklas

Oh I was suggesting it was feasible, given the long spec (that I snipped,
sorry).

[Radey Shouman]

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John

Post by Niklas Karlsson

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John
[]

Post by Niklas Karlsson
I ended up with a so-called one-liner of about 1.3 kB. It works, but
I'm not exactly proud of it, and would never solve the problem with
a one-liner in the real world.

To my antiquated way of thinking a "one-liner" has to fit into 80 bytes.

One would think, but I don't believe it's possible to solve that
problem in 80 bytes with bash. Not even with the awk solution.
Niklas

Oh I was suggesting it was feasible, given the long spec (that I snipped,
sorry).

Years ago I played judo with a large and burly guy, who told a story
about one of his larger and burlier weight lifting buddies. This guy
had gone to an interview for a job moving safes. He chatted with
various people, and seemed to be doing alright. As the last step of the
interview they took him to a warehouse and showed him a large safe.
They asked him to move it. He took one look at the safe and said "I
can't move that".

He got the job.

Not that I'm suggesting that was the stratagem your prospective employer
was using.

[Niklas Karlsson]

Post by Radey Shouman
He got the job.
Not that I'm suggesting that was the stratagem your prospective employer
was using.

Good story. And no, fortunately it doesn't appear to be. I've gotten
positive feedback. I'm pretty sure an interview is in the works,
probably won't happen until people get back from their vacations.
(Sweden is usually more than halfway shut down in the month of July and
early in August.)

Niklas

[Kerr-Mudd,John]

On Wed, 22 Jul 2020 10:54:13 GMT, "Kerr-Mudd,John"

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John

Post by Niklas Karlsson

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John
[]

Post by Niklas Karlsson
I ended up with a so-called one-liner of about 1.3 kB. It works,
but I'm not exactly proud of it, and would never solve the problem
with a one-liner in the real world.

To my antiquated way of thinking a "one-liner" has to fit into 80 bytes.

One would think, but I don't believe it's possible to solve that
problem in 80 bytes with bash. Not even with the awk solution.
Niklas

Oh I was suggesting it was feasible, given the long spec (that I
snipped, sorry).

*wasn't* ! doh!

[Peter Flass]

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John
[]

Post by Niklas Karlsson
I ended up with a so-called one-liner of about 1.3 kB. It works, but I'm
not exactly proud of it, and would never solve the problem with a
one-liner in the real world.

To my antiquated way of thinking a "one-liner" has to fit into 80 bytes.

+1

Post by Kerr-Mudd,John

Post by Niklas Karlsson
After I sent in my answer, I showed the question to a friend, who
produced a much nicer and more concise version using awk. Perhaps I
ought to learn awk...

[Niklas Karlsson]

Post by Niklas Karlsson
A prospective employer recently asked me to provide a sample of my work,

[deletia]

And if anyone is curious, this was my solution:

https://pastebin.com/QdKMDVve

I am sure you will not disappoint in picking it apart and pointing out
things I could have done better. (I know there's a little dead code in
there, should probably have cleaned up a bit after I got it working.)

Niklas

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Tue, 2020-07-21, Niklas Karlsson wrote:
...

Post by Niklas Karlsson
A prospective employer recently asked me to provide a sample of my work,
Write bash one-liner which will find binary files with identical
contents, permissions and owner, on the same ext4 file-system, from
current working directory recursively, replaces all files with older
access times with hard links to latest accessed file and reports saved
disk space in kibibytes. Extra credits if you do it without creating any
temporary files.

That last part is a much more sensible requirement than the one-liner
one. I always get nervous when dealing with "temporary" files ...

/Jorgen

[Jorgen Grahn]

Post by Dan Espen

Post by Jorgen Grahn
...

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.

I disagree -- many tasks are solved elegantly in shell scripts (bash
at least) but only clumsily in Python. (For other tasks it's the other
way around of course, but I prefer the shell for handling files, and
streams of data between external commands.)
My bosses tend to agree with you though, so I've often done typical
shell tasks in Python. (Perl is not an option for them.)

I agree that shell often provides a nice simple solution for small
problems.

I've happily used shell for certain medium-sized problems, too. But I
should add that I've used Bash, with local variables, functions and so
on. Not some lowest common denominator (I could never remember what's
available in the POSIX shell).

Post by Dan Espen
What I found is that simple solutions have a way of growing to larger
and larger solutions. Then shell scripting becomes harder and harder
to manage.

Yes, you have to be prepared for a rewrite. But a lot of problems
never grow out of their costumes, too.

A counter-argument could be that you want to minimize the number of
languages in use in an organization, but IMO both the shell and Python
are on the must-have list for a Unix-oriented organization.

/Jorgen

[Peter Flass]

Post by Jorgen Grahn

Post by Dan Espen

Post by Jorgen Grahn
...

Post by Dan Espen
The go to tool for Linux always seems to be a shell script.
I think that's a mistake, sooner or later as the application
grows, shell scripts are going to come up short. Much better
to start out with a real scripting language like Perl or even
better, Python.

I disagree -- many tasks are solved elegantly in shell scripts (bash
at least) but only clumsily in Python. (For other tasks it's the other
way around of course, but I prefer the shell for handling files, and
streams of data between external commands.)
My bosses tend to agree with you though, so I've often done typical
shell tasks in Python. (Perl is not an option for them.)

I agree that shell often provides a nice simple solution for small
problems.

I've happily used shell for certain medium-sized problems, too. But I
should add that I've used Bash, with local variables, functions and so
on. Not some lowest common denominator (I could never remember what's
available in the POSIX shell).

Post by Dan Espen
What I found is that simple solutions have a way of growing to larger
and larger solutions. Then shell scripting becomes harder and harder
to manage.

Yes, you have to be prepared for a rewrite. But a lot of problems
never grow out of their costumes, too.
A counter-argument could be that you want to minimize the number of
languages in use in an organization, but IMO both the shell and Python
are on the must-have list for a Unix-oriented organization.

That horse left the barn quite some time ago. It seems like each
open-source project uses a different language, and often different parts of
the same project use different languages.

Diversity may be good, but the old days were good where COBOL and CICS were
enough for a mainframer, and Shell and C for unix programmers.

[Quadibloc]

Post by J. Clarke
So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

Microsoft Office can run APL?

John Savard

[J. Clarke]

On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 23:12:23 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc

Post by Quadibloc

Post by J. Clarke
So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

Microsoft Office can run APL?

Yes, it can. You have to have the right APL interpreter though.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 19:00:02 -0400

Post by J. Clarke
So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

This is not a common use case for an office suite, arguably it is
not even a sane one. Most people use them to create documents, which is
what they were designed for. In that area the descendants of Star Office
work fine for folks who like that kind of thing.

As for better, that's at least partly opinion. I think sc is a
better spreadsheet than Excel because it doesn't try to be anything else
and gets the job done. I think troff and LaTeX are both better word
processors than Word or LibreOffice because I can knock out documents much
more quickly and reliably with them. Oh yes and neither have changed their
interface in all the decades I've been using them, documents written in the
1990s still render perfectly (older ones would too if I had any to hand).

[Thomas Koenig]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 19:00:02 -0400

Post by J. Clarke
So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

This is not a common use case for an office suite, arguably it is
not even a sane one. Most people use them to create documents, which is
what they were designed for. In that area the descendants of Star Office
work fine for folks who like that kind of thing.

As much as it pains me to say a good word about Microsoft, PowerPoint
is _much_ better than LibreOffice Impress.

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
I think troff and LaTeX are both better word
processors than Word or LibreOffice because I can knock out documents much
more quickly and reliably with them. Oh yes and neither have changed their
interface in all the decades I've been using them, documents written in the
1990s still render perfectly (older ones would too if I had any to hand).

Well, there was the \documentstyle to \documentclass changeover... flag
day.

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Thomas Koenig

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 19:00:02 -0400

Post by J. Clarke
So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

This is not a common use case for an office suite, arguably it is
not even a sane one. Most people use them to create documents, which is
what they were designed for. In that area the descendants of Star Office
work fine for folks who like that kind of thing.

As much as it pains me to say a good word about Microsoft, PowerPoint
is _much_ better than LibreOffice Impress.

troff with the 'mv' macro package is sufficient.

.A This viewgraph is about
.B Point A
.C Point A.1
.C Point A.2
.B Point B
.B Point C

Eyecandy isn't necessary. Animation isn't necessary.

[Thomas Koenig]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Thomas Koenig
As much as it pains me to say a good word about Microsoft, PowerPoint
is _much_ better than LibreOffice Impress.

troff with the 'mv' macro package is sufficient.
.A This viewgraph is about
.B Point A
Eyecandy isn't necessary. Animation isn't necessary.

If all you want to convey is text bullet points, sure.

When I make slides for work, there is usually a bit more: Things
like graphs, sketches, technical drawings, tables, flow sheets etc.
A bit more complex than bullet points.

I used LaTeX for my slides at university. LaTeX is almost
infinitely superior to Word for any serious text, my only gripe
is figure placement. But LaTeX for slides... no.

[Andreas Eder]

Post by Thomas Koenig
I used LaTeX for my slides at university. LaTeX is almost
infinitely superior to Word for any serious text, my only gripe
is figure placement. But LaTeX for slides... no.

Have you looked at beamer? Yjay is far superior to powerpoint in my
opinion. And far faster to write for me.

'Andreas

[Gareth Evans]

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Thomas Koenig
I used LaTeX for my slides at university. LaTeX is almost
infinitely superior to Word for any serious text, my only gripe
is figure placement. But LaTeX for slides... no.

Have you looked at beamer? Yjay is far superior to powerpoint in my
opinion. And far faster to write for me.

Is there a (Slacko) Linux package that will read (and maybe
write) .DOCX files (in order to circumvent MicroSnot forever
moving the goalposts as to what is the industry standard)?

I just remembered that I dual booted an old laptop 5 years
ago but not done anything with it since.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Gareth Evans

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Thomas Koenig
I used LaTeX for my slides at university. LaTeX is almost
infinitely superior to Word for any serious text, my only gripe
is figure placement. But LaTeX for slides... no.

Have you looked at beamer? Yjay is far superior to powerpoint in my
opinion. And far faster to write for me.

Is there a (Slacko) Linux package that will read (and maybe
write) .DOCX files (in order to circumvent MicroSnot forever
moving the goalposts as to what is the industry standard)?

Try LibreOffice.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Gareth Evans

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Thomas Koenig
I used LaTeX for my slides at university. LaTeX is almost
infinitely superior to Word for any serious text, my only gripe
is figure placement. But LaTeX for slides... no.

Have you looked at beamer? Yjay is far superior to powerpoint in my
opinion. And far faster to write for me.

Is there a (Slacko) Linux package that will read (and maybe
write) .DOCX files (in order to circumvent MicroSnot forever
moving the goalposts as to what is the industry standard)?

Try LibreOffice.

From what I read it’s a bit iffy, but I didn’t note the date of those
posts.

[Andy Leighton]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Gareth Evans

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Thomas Koenig
I used LaTeX for my slides at university. LaTeX is almost
infinitely superior to Word for any serious text, my only gripe
is figure placement. But LaTeX for slides... no.

Have you looked at beamer? Yjay is far superior to powerpoint in my
opinion. And far faster to write for me.

Is there a (Slacko) Linux package that will read (and maybe
write) .DOCX files (in order to circumvent MicroSnot forever
moving the goalposts as to what is the industry standard)?

Try LibreOffice.

From what I read it’s a bit iffy, but I didn’t note the date of those
posts.

Not really. I use LibreOffice and never had any problems with my own
documents or the stuff I get given that has come from MS Office.
Not it is possible to create stuff in Microsoft Office that isn't going
to work very well in LibreOffice (and probably vice-versa) but they
aren't you typical work documents.

[J. Clarke]

On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:29:54 +0100, Gareth Evans

Post by Gareth Evans

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Thomas Koenig
I used LaTeX for my slides at university. LaTeX is almost
infinitely superior to Word for any serious text, my only gripe
is figure placement. But LaTeX for slides... no.

Have you looked at beamer? Yjay is far superior to powerpoint in my
opinion. And far faster to write for me.

Is there a (Slacko) Linux package that will read (and maybe
write) .DOCX files (in order to circumvent MicroSnot forever
moving the goalposts as to what is the industry standard)?

You do know that the document format used by Word is an ISO standard
do you not?

Post by Gareth Evans
I just remembered that I dual booted an old laptop 5 years
ago but not done anything with it since.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by J. Clarke
On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:29:54 +0100, Gareth Evans

Post by Gareth Evans

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Thomas Koenig
I used LaTeX for my slides at university. LaTeX is almost
infinitely superior to Word for any serious text, my only gripe
is figure placement. But LaTeX for slides... no.

Have you looked at beamer? Yjay is far superior to powerpoint in my
opinion. And far faster to write for me.

Is there a (Slacko) Linux package that will read (and maybe
write) .DOCX files (in order to circumvent MicroSnot forever
moving the goalposts as to what is the industry standard)?

You do know that the document format used by Word is an ISO standard
do you not?

That's news to me. I remember the days when the .doc file format
was covered by an NDA - and that someone in this newsgroup signed
it and said we really didn't want to know what was inside.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by J. Clarke
On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:29:54 +0100, Gareth Evans

Post by Gareth Evans

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Thomas Koenig
I used LaTeX for my slides at university. LaTeX is almost
infinitely superior to Word for any serious text, my only gripe
is figure placement. But LaTeX for slides... no.

Have you looked at beamer? Yjay is far superior to powerpoint in my
opinion. And far faster to write for me.

Is there a (Slacko) Linux package that will read (and maybe
write) .DOCX files (in order to circumvent MicroSnot forever
moving the goalposts as to what is the industry standard)?

You do know that the document format used by Word is an ISO standard
do you not?

That's news to me. I remember the days when the .doc file format
was covered by an NDA - and that someone in this newsgroup signed
it and said we really didn't want to know what was inside.

That was doc. docx is defined by ISO29500. So is xlsx. Change the
extension on either to .zip and double-click it (in Windows 10 anyway)
and it opens up into a set of xml files.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by J. Clarke
You do know that the document format used by Word is an ISO standard
do you not?

That's news to me. I remember the days when the .doc file format
was covered by an NDA - and that someone in this newsgroup signed
it and said we really didn't want to know what was inside.

That was doc. docx is defined by ISO29500. So is xlsx. Change the
extension on either to .zip and double-click it (in Windows 10 anyway)
and it opens up into a set of xml files.

I did discover that much. (Although in Linux it was much easier -
hexdump revealed the PK magic bytes, and unzip unpacked it without
having to rename it.) I suppose it adds a lot of flexibility, but
for simple documents it looks like gratuitous complexity. Hopefully
with ISO behind it there won't be any proprietary gotchas.

[Gareth Evans]

Post by J. Clarke
On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:29:54 +0100, Gareth Evans

Post by Gareth Evans

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Thomas Koenig
I used LaTeX for my slides at university. LaTeX is almost
infinitely superior to Word for any serious text, my only gripe
is figure placement. But LaTeX for slides... no.

Have you looked at beamer? Yjay is far superior to powerpoint in my
opinion. And far faster to write for me.

Is there a (Slacko) Linux package that will read (and maybe
write) .DOCX files (in order to circumvent MicroSnot forever
moving the goalposts as to what is the industry standard)?

You do know that the document format used by Word is an ISO standard
do you not?

No, I did not, but I had in mind MicroSnot's EEE policy;

Embrace, Extend, Exterminate.

[Jim Jackson]

Post by J. Clarke
On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:29:54 +0100, Gareth Evans

Post by Gareth Evans
Is there a (Slacko) Linux package that will read (and maybe
write) .DOCX files (in order to circumvent MicroSnot forever
moving the goalposts as to what is the industry standard)?

You do know that the document format used by Word is an ISO standard
do you not?

Oh memories memories. Microsoft strong-armed it's new docx xml based
format through the standardisation process in the early noughties.
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML has some
comments on it (3rd paragraph under the Standardisation Process
heading).

They were shamed into doing something because a lot of big organisations
were getting jittery about format lock-in (doc being proprietary), and
there was already an Internation Standard, Open Document, which they
were not going t osupport because they didn't invent it. Microsoft at
the time was aggressively trying to protect it's dominant position.
Interestingly they seem to have changed a lot in the intervening years.

[J. Clarke]

On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 16:07:27 -0000 (UTC), Jim Jackson

Post by Jim Jackson

Post by J. Clarke
On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:29:54 +0100, Gareth Evans

Post by Gareth Evans
Is there a (Slacko) Linux package that will read (and maybe
write) .DOCX files (in order to circumvent MicroSnot forever
moving the goalposts as to what is the industry standard)?

You do know that the document format used by Word is an ISO standard
do you not?

Oh memories memories. Microsoft strong-armed it's new docx xml based
format through the standardisation process in the early noughties.
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML has some
comments on it (3rd paragraph under the Standardisation Process
heading).
They were shamed into doing something because a lot of big organisations
were getting jittery about format lock-in (doc being proprietary), and
there was already an Internation Standard, Open Document, which they
were not going t osupport because they didn't invent it. Microsoft at
the time was aggressively trying to protect it's dominant position.
Interestingly they seem to have changed a lot in the intervening years.

They found other ways. One big one is providing the average user
quite remarkably capable development capability that is locked into a
Microsoft interprocess communication protocol that has wide third
party support. If we had to go to LibreOffice our productivity would
tank until we recreated most of our automation code--no, it does not
run in LibreOffice and can't be easily ported.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:56:57 -0400

Post by J. Clarke
They found other ways. One big one is providing the average user
quite remarkably capable development capability that is locked into a
Microsoft interprocess communication protocol that has wide third
party support. If we had to go to LibreOffice our productivity would
tank until we recreated most of our automation code--no, it does not
run in LibreOffice and can't be easily ported.

I still find the idea of using an office suite for process
automation bizarre.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:56:57 -0400

Post by J. Clarke
They found other ways. One big one is providing the average user
quite remarkably capable development capability that is locked into a
Microsoft interprocess communication protocol that has wide third
party support. If we had to go to LibreOffice our productivity would
tank until we recreated most of our automation code--no, it does not
run in LibreOffice and can't be easily ported.

I still find the idea of using an office suite for process
automation bizarre.

Perhaps, but look at some of the things that are being done by
people who live in spreadsheet land.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:56:57 -0400

Post by J. Clarke
They found other ways. One big one is providing the average user
quite remarkably capable development capability that is locked into a
Microsoft interprocess communication protocol that has wide third
party support. If we had to go to LibreOffice our productivity would
tank until we recreated most of our automation code--no, it does not
run in LibreOffice and can't be easily ported.

I still find the idea of using an office suite for process
automation bizarre.

Perhaps, but look at some of the things that are being done by
people who live in spreadsheet land.

Look at it from a different perspective.

Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications is a programming environment
that includes libraries that provide the functionality of a full
featured office suite including a spreadsheet, word processor,
database manager, and slideshow presenter and is in addition supported
by a wide variety of third party libraries.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 15:38:12 -0400

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
I still find the idea of using an office suite for process
automation bizarre.

Perhaps, but look at some of the things that are being done by
people who live in spreadsheet land.

Look at it from a different perspective.
Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications is a programming environment
that includes libraries that provide the functionality of a full
featured office suite including a spreadsheet, word processor,
database manager, and slideshow presenter and is in addition supported
by a wide variety of third party libraries.

I see your point, I've always thought of it as a scripting language
bolted onto a bunch of office applications and I think it started that way
before it became what you describe.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On 11 Jul 2020 18:24:47 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:56:57 -0400

Post by J. Clarke
They found other ways. One big one is providing the average user
quite remarkably capable development capability that is locked into a
Microsoft interprocess communication protocol that has wide third
party support. If we had to go to LibreOffice our productivity would
tank until we recreated most of our automation code--no, it does not
run in LibreOffice and can't be easily ported.

I still find the idea of using an office suite for process
automation bizarre.

Perhaps, but look at some of the things that are being done by
people who live in spreadsheet land.

I have seen, I find it bizarre.

[maus]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:56:57 -0400

Post by J. Clarke
They found other ways. One big one is providing the average user
quite remarkably capable development capability that is locked into a
Microsoft interprocess communication protocol that has wide third
party support. If we had to go to LibreOffice our productivity would
tank until we recreated most of our automation code--no, it does not
run in LibreOffice and can't be easily ported.

I still find the idea of using an office suite for process
automation bizarre.

I haave long since given up trying to communicate via email with
government. print it out, and post it.

[Dennis Boone]

Post by J. Clarke
You do know that the document format used by Word is an ISO standard
do you not?

It's probably more correct to say that at one point ISO wrote
down what M$ products were doing, and that M$ has been diverging
from there ever since.

De

[J. Clarke]

Post by Dennis Boone

Post by J. Clarke
You do know that the document format used by Word is an ISO standard
do you not?

down what M$ products were doing, and that M$ has been diverging
from there ever since.

No, Microsoft wrote down what their products were doing and crammed it
down ISO's throat whether ISO liked it or not.

Do you have evidence that the current Microsoft products are not
compliant with ISO29500?

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by J. Clarke
On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 17:29:54 +0100, Gareth Evans

Post by Gareth Evans

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Thomas Koenig
I used LaTeX for my slides at university. LaTeX is almost
infinitely superior to Word for any serious text, my only gripe
is figure placement. But LaTeX for slides... no.

Have you looked at beamer? Yjay is far superior to powerpoint in my
opinion. And far faster to write for me.

Is there a (Slacko) Linux package that will read (and maybe
write) .DOCX files (in order to circumvent MicroSnot forever
moving the goalposts as to what is the industry standard)?

You do know that the document format used by Word is an ISO standard
do you not?

There was a bit of controversy about that when it was submitted
to ISO, as it is not all-inclusive and was not generally embraced
by the open source community.

https://www.wired.com/2007/08/microsoft-allegedly-bullies-and-bribes-to-make-office-an-international-standard/

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Thomas Koenig

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 19:00:02 -0400

Post by J. Clarke
So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

This is not a common use case for an office suite, arguably it is
not even a sane one. Most people use them to create documents, which is
what they were designed for. In that area the descendants of Star Office
work fine for folks who like that kind of thing.

As much as it pains me to say a good word about Microsoft, PowerPoint
is _much_ better than LibreOffice Impress.

troff with the 'mv' macro package is sufficient.
.A This viewgraph is about
.B Point A
.C Point A.1
.C Point A.2
.B Point B
.B Point C
Eyecandy isn't necessary. Animation isn't necessary.

You know that. I know that. But J. Random Luser not only doesn't know
that, but doesn't _want_ to know that. And neither does his manager.

"Ohhhhh... shiny!"

[Peter Flass]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Thomas Koenig

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Thu, 25 Jun 2020 19:00:02 -0400

Post by J. Clarke
So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

This is not a common use case for an office suite, arguably it is
not even a sane one. Most people use them to create documents, which is
what they were designed for. In that area the descendants of Star Office
work fine for folks who like that kind of thing.

As much as it pains me to say a good word about Microsoft, PowerPoint
is _much_ better than LibreOffice Impress.

troff with the 'mv' macro package is sufficient.
.A This viewgraph is about
.B Point A
.C Point A.1
.C Point A.2
.B Point B
.B Point C
Eyecandy isn't necessary. Animation isn't necessary.

You know that. I know that. But J. Random Luser not only doesn't know
that, but doesn't _want_ to know that. And neither does his manager.
"Ohhhhh... shiny!"

You have to keep them awake during your presentation. Pretty pictures and
jazzy background music don’t hurt.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Fri, 26 Jun 2020 10:00:06 -0700

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Scott Lurndal
troff with the 'mv' macro package is sufficient.
.A This viewgraph is about
.B Point A
.C Point A.1
.C Point A.2
.B Point B
.B Point C

Gets the job done most of the time.

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Scott Lurndal
Eyecandy isn't necessary. Animation isn't necessary.

Diagrams sometimes help.

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Charlie Gibbs
You know that. I know that. But J. Random Luser not only doesn't know
that, but doesn't _want_ to know that. And neither does his manager.
"Ohhhhh... shiny!"

I usually walk the (in-house) wiki page for whatever it is I'm
presenting (often shortly after writing it), collapsing and expanding
sections as I go. It works pretty well for overview->deep dive
presentations, handles diagrams well enough and gives them a single
reference to take away that's way more useful than a slide deck that's
already getting stale.

Post by Peter Flass
You have to keep them awake during your presentation. Pretty pictures and
jazzy background music don’t hurt.

Keeping it as short as possible and to the point helps more, nobody
ever fell asleep in one of my presentations and I've never added eye candy
or music.

[Thomas Koenig]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Keeping it as short as possible and to the point helps more, nobody
ever fell asleep in one of my presentations and I've never added eye candy
or music.

In the company I work in, it is quite normal to present results
in team meetings (or telcos) on PowerPoint, not as a formal
presentation, but as a way of putting down something in writing
and graphs that is reasonably fast to make and to easy understand.
Copy in parts of Excel tables or diagrams or screenshots from CFD
or ... as needed.

This is about as far from a formal presentation as can be while
still using slides.

Certainly no eye candy involved (except for the mandatory corporate
design, where people still use the 4:3 format because it fits
better to content than 16:9, especially if the corporate design
clips off a lot of space on the top and the bottom).

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by J. Clarke
So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

Of course 99.9999999999999% of office users (MS or Open/Libre office)
don't need office to manage any APL workspaces. What a silly requirement.

[J. Clarke]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke
So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

Of course 99.9999999999999% of office users (MS or Open/Libre office)
don't need office to manage any APL workspaces. What a silly requirement.

I don't care what 99.99999999% need. This is what _I_ need.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Sun, 19 Jul 2020 23:51:20 -0400

Post by J. Clarke

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by J. Clarke
So what's an actually better and not just different office suite? And
don't say "Open Office" until you can demonstrate Open Office managing
60 APL workspaces each executing on a different core.

Of course 99.9999999999999% of office users (MS or Open/Libre office)
don't need office to manage any APL workspaces. What a silly requirement.

I don't care what 99.99999999% need. This is what _I_ need.

Sure but what you need is a process control system not an office
suite. It is impressive that you can use an office suite for the purpose
but it is certainly possible to imagine a far better office suite than
either MS or Libre with no ability to manage APL workspaces at all.

[Jorgen Grahn]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.

There's not a lot of /non-free/ software for Linux (I think) but I can
choose between 57,000 different packages for my Debian system, and
that's only those that someone bothered to package.

Post by Quadibloc
Those who can use Linux generally do so, but unfortunately, most people don't
have much of a choice.

There's probably more people forced to use a smartphone today. If you
have a child in Sweden, you probably have to have one, since the
national authentication software "BankID" is smartphone-only[0], and
you need it to communicate with schools and whatnot.

/Jorgen

[0] Closed source crypto. There was a Linux version for a while, but
it was removed a long time ago. There's a Windows version, but it
appears to be deprecated too.

[Niklas Karlsson]

Post by Jorgen Grahn
There's probably more people forced to use a smartphone today. If you
have a child in Sweden, you probably have to have one, since the
national authentication software "BankID" is smartphone-only[0], and
you need it to communicate with schools and whatnot.
/Jorgen
[0] Closed source crypto. There was a Linux version for a while, but
it was removed a long time ago. There's a Windows version, but it
appears to be deprecated too.

Deprecated? Possibly, but still working. I can still authenticate in
Windows with my smartcard reader. Well, I could, until the card recently
expired.

Niklas

[Jorgen Grahn]

Post by Niklas Karlsson

Post by Jorgen Grahn
There's probably more people forced to use a smartphone today. If you
have a child in Sweden, you probably have to have one, since the
national authentication software "BankID" is smartphone-only[0], and
you need it to communicate with schools and whatnot.
/Jorgen
[0] Closed source crypto. There was a Linux version for a while, but
it was removed a long time ago. There's a Windows version, but it
appears to be deprecated too.

Deprecated? Possibly, but still working. I can still authenticate in
Windows with my smartcard reader. Well, I could, until the card recently
expired.

I had the impression that the smartphone variant is accepted for more
uses than the variant that needs Windows (or Mac) -- but since I use
neither, I may be wrong. It's true, at least, that the vast majority
of users are on the smartphone variant.

/Jorgen

[r***@gmail.com]

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.

MAC software is worse.

They repeatedly ask to update software; when I let it go,
it takes ages, as it downloads 100-200MB of program
(apparently the entire package), and then attempts to
install it.

In earlier times, I was given, as a present, itunes
to listen to any music I loaded onto it.

It did not have the package already installed?! Apple
expected you to download it -- all 100Mb of it.
At that time, I was on dial-up, and that process
would have taken several days at 14400 bps.

Post by Quadibloc
There isn't a heck of a lot of third-party software available for either one.
And if you buy a Macintosh, you won't be able to upgrade it except in limited
ways, unless you buy a system costing nearly five figures.
Those who can use Linux generally do so, but unfortunately, most people don't
have much of a choice.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Wed, 24 Jun 2020 13:58:05 -0700 (PDT)

Post by Quadibloc

Post by Scott Lurndal
You made the choice to use microsoft software. There are alternatives.

There is Linux, and there is the Macintosh.

I've been happy enough these last few decades with FreeBSD - but
then all I want is a unix workstation and the one I have today beats the
pants off anything Sun ever made.

[JimP]

On Wed, 24 Jun 2020 17:30:52 +0100, Gareth Evans

Post by Gareth Evans
Does the arrogance of MicroSnot know no bounds?
Not content with forcing me to have automatic
updates for Windows 10, last night's updates
brought up MicroSnot Edge but without an
option to kill it before entering it, and then
it was shortcutted both onto the desktop as
well as the task bar.
I look forward to the dastardly pile of
bovine excrement that is MicroSnot finally
crashing and burning!

Go to http://www.tenforums.com/

and search for a program called Windows update blocker. Follow the
instructions on that site. Windows will no longer, as long as you
start up this program after you log into your computer's account,
randomly update your computer.