On Sat, Mar 24, 2007 at 12:12:41AM +0000, Paul Walker wrote: > On Fri, Mar 23, 2007 at 09:06:04PM +0000, Dave wrote:
> > If it only takes a millisecond to figure out why I'm wrong, why don't you > > spend the millisecond and post the results? I spent a few milliseconds on > > If you could only get work done under Unix-type systems, then anyone using > Windows couldn't get any work done. Work can only be done _efficiently_ under UNIX. I can prove an inefficiency in any toolchain of nontrivial size under any system that doesn't adhere to the UNIX philosophy. > Ignoring the ravings of Slashbots, > that's just wrong - millions of people get their daily work done using > Windows or even MS-DOS systems. That doesn't mean they're getting work done using an optimal system. The UNIX philosophy is in general (in the Mathematical sense, not as in "usually") the only way to build optimal solutions to problems. > Even me, for that matter - while part of my work is done inside a > VMware-hosted Fedora Core, the actual laptop itself is running Windows, > Word, Excel, Outlook, and various other apps that are diametrically opposite > to Unix. And yes, Outlook does things that mutt doesn't and can't do which I > find very useful for work. (That doesn't mean I want to run it at home!) Just out of curiosity, what can Outlook do that Mutt can't? (I'm not challenging your claim; I'm just interested.) > Is that enough? Or do you have a definition of work that I missed through > not really reading most of the thread? :-) You missed my argument. I might have screwed up some of the words on my last post, but I'm not making the ridiculous claim that it's impossible to do work without UNIX. (After all, making UNIX was work, and couldn't've been done with UNIX.) I'm simply making the claim that the UNIX philosophy provides the only known algorithm for building optimal solutions to arbitrary problems, and that any yet unknown algorithm for doing the same is functionally equivalent to the UNIX philosophy. > The Unix way of doing things is *a* way, but it's far from the only way, and > isn't even the "best" one (for whatever value of best) in all situations. > Trying to argue that it is really won't help your cause much. The UNIX philosophy is the only way to get work done efficiently. > To be honest, I'm not even really sure why this thread is still going on. > It's a long thread about a patch that was committed almost 10 days ago, and > wasn't really *that* important in the first place. [OT] I was very happy when I saw the changeset, since it showed that I'm not the only guy here who strongly believes that users might actually be worth supporting. - Dave
