Re: Perl vs Python vs ....
I think we should wrap this up. It's becoming much too long.
mdorman@lot49.med.miami.edu (Michael Alan Dorman) wrote on 03.08.96 in <[🔎] m0ummIc-0008WkC@lot49.med.miami.edu>:
> In message <[🔎] 6EBhsQqUcsB@khms.westfalen.de>, Kai Henningsen writes:
> >That's a problem, but it's not the problem I meant. For difficult to
> >parse, well, compare these two lines:
> > a =~ s/some/thing...
> > b = c/d
> >Very bad syntax design, that.
>
> There's always s,some,thing, or s|some|thing| or whatever.
>From the "clean syntax" poin of view, that's anything but an improvement.
Maybe you need to spend some time with lex and yacc (sorry, flex and
bison) to really understand what I'm upset about here.
> >It's success did not depend on technical merits. Ever.
>
> I'd disagree with that. At the introduction of the IBM PC, you had
> DOS, the p-system and, later CP/M. I'd take DOS over the p-system any
> day. And by the time DRI got their act together, DOS had directories.
Actually, the technical merits of those seem pretty close to me.
> So, in that context, it did. Remember, it wasn't bundled.
Back then, *my* computer was an Apple ][, with either Apple DOS, Prodos,
the p-system, or CP/M. My first Intel machine was an AT compatible from
Acer (back then, they were named Multitech; changed because of a name
clash.) DOS was bundled in a way - you usually "got it". I needed some
talking to get them to *sell* me one (3.1, I believe); I wanted the
manuals.
Back then, I did most of my programming in Pascal - p-system or Turbo
Pascal for CP/M. I'd *loved* to have a p-system for the AT; unfortunately,
I've never even *seen* one. Nor CP/M for the beast, either.
Then again, when I first heard of the Intel chip (remember, I used a 64 K
machine at the time), my reaction was "1 MB address space? Are those guys
stupid? Why not do at least the 16 MB of the 68000?"
> That it was not quickly enough eclipsed so that installed base was not
> a problem competition-wise is hardly MS's fault.
The real problem is probably that OS/2 1.0 (aka "project black hole") took
several years too long. Otherwise, we'd still have a mediocre system
instead of an abominable one. Maybe even better, but somehow I doubt OS/2
would have been as good as today.
Oh well, we should go back to Linux.
> Of course, I have to wonder how I ended up defending DOS and
> Microsoft...
I know the feeling.
MfG Kai
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