Re: is it possible to install a desktop-manager without python and perl?
> I open this thread as a programmer, you can ignore my questions about
> programming in the future, but you should not ignore my questions as a
> debian user.
Right now you are showing that you're a person who asks for advice,
but does not listen to the response. People value their time and will
not take the time to respond to someone like this, whether you're
speaking as a programmer, a Debian user, an artist, or a fisherman.
Don't waste people's time. Ever.
You talk about how different languages are just "different ways to do
the same thing." Well... okay... but you're writing to this list in
English. From your sig and your name you're obviously a native
Chinese speaker. Aren't English and Chinese just "different ways to
say the same thing?" If you don't understand them both well, you
might think so. But some things are much easier to do in one language
versus the other. "飄飄何所似， 天地一沙鷗" -- in English, is it 'just the same
thing?' It's not that Chinese is just "better," there are plenty of
things that are more natural in English than in Chinese. Just the
same, if all you see in Perl is wrappers around C functions--if you
think "none of them bring new concepts [or clarity or simplicity] to
C/C++" -- then you don't understand Perl. And you need to. Without
lots of different ways of thinking about problems, you're like a frog
in a well, saying "look how small the sky is!"
I'm perhaps a "junior programmer" myself. I can and have used C and
Pascal. I've taught Java. I'm working on projects with JavaScript
and I use Perl and SQL regularly in my career. I don't know ENOUGH
different ways to do the same thing! I say this because I've realized
that different languages do different things much more easily than
others, and ultimately it's about getting the job done.
Quick storytime: Several years back, I was writing some XML format
converters in Perl. There are wonderful pre-written Perl modules to
parse and output XML. But I wanted to "learn more," so I insisted on
doing it all myself. (Management wasn't watching me too closely.) It
took me three times as long to write and the code wasn't flexible or
maintainable... and honestly, I didn't learn anything worthwhile, but
I wanted to "learn." Now, whenever I find myself doing this, I look
back at that: do I *really* want to spend my time inventing inferior
ways to parse XML? Is it so interesting to write string parsers?
What am I learning? How much better it is just to learn the common
tools! If I want to learn, I'm better off reading someone else's
great code than writing my own bad code. It's not the "waste of time
those scripts languages bring to us programmers" -- they exist to SAVE
time. If you doubt it, challenge a perl programmer to a race
sometime. There are problems for which it would be faster to *learn
perl well enough to write a perl solution* than to write the solution
in C.
You keep coming back to this argument that "I hope one day I will be
able to take full control of my system, and modify [it] as i like."
An admirable goal -- but what does it actually *mean*? What are you
going to do with this system? You're going to give up most of the
functionality of a good Linux distro so you can... mess around with
the way your personal hardware handles filesystem journaling, or
memory allocation, or something? That's really the most interesting
problem you can think of solving with computers?
You really need to rethink your priorities. A mature person would
accept that when a solution has been endorsed by thousands of people
over decades, there might be something worthwhile to it, even if it is
unfamiliar at first. The majority isn't always right, but their ideas
are at least worth considering.
Good luck.
~Jeff Soules
2009/6/22 明覺 <shi.minjue@gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 10:18 PM, John Hasler<jhasler@debian.org> wrote:
>> 明覺 writes:
>>> yes, currently it's true, but I hope one day I will be able to take full
>>> control of my system, and modify them as i like, if I have those other
>>> language programmed softwares installed in my system, it will be hard to
>>> maintain for me.
>>
>> If learning enough of another language to do maintainence is hard for you
>> you aren't much of a programmer. Programming is not about knowing a
>> language.
> Yes, language is just a tool, so I want to keep my tool simple and
> powerful, I do not want so many similar tools with the same functions.
>> --
>> John Hasler
>>
>>
>> --
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>
>
>
> --
> Gnu.Linux.(Debian|gNewSense).Gnome.(Mozilla|Gmail|Evolution|Scim|Flashplayer|Codeblocks)
> Microsoft.Windows.(Vista|XP).(QQ|Game|Notepad++) Gcc.Gtkmm.Opengl
> 初禪言語寂滅，二禪覺觀寂滅，三禪喜心寂滅，四禪出入息寂滅....于貪欲心、嗔恚心、愚痴心不樂、解脫，是為無上禪。
>
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