When using a computer, laziness is a virtue. This is why we have
command lines, to help automate the boring and repetitive tasks.
This article <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/command-line-wizardry-part-two-variables-and-loops-in-bash/>
continues the authorrCOs intro to basic command-line concepts. But it
repeats a failing I see all too often in shell scripting: doing
complex parsing of the output of some command, when the command itself
offers an option to produce something closer to the exact output you
need.
In this case, he is extracting the names of datasets from the rCLzfs
listrCY command. And while I have zero experience with ZFS, I can look
at documentation <https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18752_01/html/819-5461/gazsu.html>, and
discover that the command offers the rCL-orCY option where you can select exactly that information you want it to output. It even has rCL-HrCY to simplify the output format right down, specifically to make it easier
to parse.
Sure, itrCOs fun to write code. But it can be even more fun to _avoid_ writing code. RTFM helps.
When using a computer, laziness is a virtue. This is why we have
command lines, to help automate the boring and repetitive tasks.
This article
continues the authorrCOs intro to basic command-line concepts. But it repeats a failing I see all too often in shell scripting: doing
complex parsing of the output of some command, when the command itself offers an option to produce something closer to the exact output you
need.
In this case, he is extracting the names of datasets from the rCLzfs
listrCY command. And while I have zero experience with ZFS, I can look
at documentation <https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18752_01/html/819-5461/gazsu.html>, and discover that the command offers the rCL-orCY option where you can select exactly that information you want it to output. It even has rCL-HrCY to simplify the output format right down, specifically to make it easier
to parse.
Sure, itrCOs fun to write code. But it can be even more fun to _avoid_ writing code. RTFM helps.
On 3/12/26 08:21, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
This article <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/command-line-wizardry-part-two-variables-and-loops-in-bash/>
continues the authorrCOs intro to basic command-line concepts. But it repeats a failing I see all too often in shell scripting: [...]
Right. I can only agree with you.
The more general problem is that there's so much stuff about shell programming on the web but most of it is sadly of very bad quality.
Shell scripts HAVE THEIR PLACE, I've writ fairly
long ones ... but any modern suggestion that they
are the one and only great solution to complex
problems - no, No, NO !
Despite my own complaints here, Python is the better
way to go - if possible - for complex little issues.
Far clearer.
On 3/12/26 09:00, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 3/12/26 08:21, Lawrence DOliveiro wrote:
two-variables-and-loops-in-bash/>
This article
<https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/command-line-wizardry-part-
I took the time to look more closely into that link above.
continues the authors intro to basic command-line concepts. But it
repeats a failing I see all too often in shell scripting: [...]
Not only "a [one] failing"; it's full of bad coding practices!
(I suggest to abstain from it.)
In article <10ou2q9$1qp29$1@dont-email.me>,
Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:
On 3/12/26 09:00, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 3/12/26 08:21, Lawrence DOliveiro wrote:
>
> This article
> <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/command-line-wizardry-part- >>> two-variables-and-loops-in-bash/>
I took the time to look more closely into that link above.
> continues the authors intro to basic command-line concepts. But it
> repeats a failing I see all too often in shell scripting: [...]
Not only "a [one] failing"; it's full of bad coding practices!
(I suggest to abstain from it.)
Shell scripting seems to bring out the critic in everybody. Nobody likes
the way other people shell script.
Or, as I discovered long ago, nobody wants to run someone else's shell script. What I mean is that if I hand you a piece of C code, you are quite likely to just compile it and run it, as is. Similar for most other languages. But shell, no. Before you will consider running it, you will first analyze it and then probably pretty much totally re-write it. And
this as it should be.
Something called "Python" (mentioned by another poster) probably falls somewhere in between.
In article <EMScnQS_gIv98y_0nZ2dnZfqn_idnZ2d@giganews.com>,
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> mysteriously wrote:
...
Shell scripts HAVE THEIR PLACE, I've writ fairly
long ones ... but any modern suggestion that they
are the one and only great solution to complex
problems - no, No, NO !
Despite my own complaints here, Python is the better
way to go - if possible - for complex little issues.
Far clearer.
This response has nothing to do with the OP.
Sadly, that's standard for c186282.
In article <10oukth$240u3$1@dont-email.me>, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
...
Sadly, that's standard for c186282.
Just out of curiosity, what is that (c186282) ?
In article <10oukth$240u3$1@dont-email.me>, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
...
Sadly, that's standard for c186282.
Just out of curiosity, what is that (c186282) ?
Perhaps that is why I never ever shell script if at all avoidable.
Like Regexp, and PERL it seems to be the province of wannabe gurus
who cant code C.
In article <10ou2q9$1qp29$1@dont-email.me>,
Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:
On 3/12/26 09:00, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 3/12/26 08:21, Lawrence DOliveiro wrote:
>
> This article
> <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/command-line-wizardry-part- >>> two-variables-and-loops-in-bash/>
I took the time to look more closely into that link above.
> continues the authors intro to basic command-line concepts. But it
> repeats a failing I see all too often in shell scripting: [...]
Not only "a [one] failing"; it's full of bad coding practices!
(I suggest to abstain from it.)
Shell scripting seems to bring out the critic in everybody. Nobody likes
the way other people shell script.
Or, as I discovered long ago, nobody wants to run someone else's shell script. What I mean is that if I hand you a piece of C code, you are quite likely to just compile it and run it, as is. Similar for most other languages. But shell, no. Before you will consider running it, you will first analyze it and then probably pretty much totally re-write it. And
this as it should be.
Something called "Python" (mentioned by another poster) probably falls somewhere in between.
On 12/03/2026 12:44, Kenny McCormack wrote:
Perhaps that is why I never ever shell script if at all avoidable.
Shell scripting seems to bring out the critic in everybody.-a Nobody likes >> the way other people shell script.
Like Regexp, and PERL it seems to be the province of wannabe gurus who
cant code C.
On Thu, 12 Mar 2026 14:12:21 +0000
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Perhaps that is why I never ever shell script if at all avoidable.
Like Regexp, and PERL it seems to be the province of wannabe gurus
who cant code C.
Horses for courses. C is much more capable for general-purpose work,
but it requires a lot more wrangling (or an external library) to do
batch file operations effectively.
F'rexample, I'm in the process of putting together a home-grown "static
site generator" for use with a free host that doesn't allow server-side
stuff like PHP; the job is to assemble complete HTML files for each
page from header/sidebar templates and page-specific content files.
It's totally possible to do that in C, but I'd have to either roll my
own code or pull in non-stdlib dependencies for stuff like enumerating/ looping over the files in a directory; shell script makes that a first-
class language feature. And the core of the work (tacking files to each other) is likewise something that's easily doable in C, but provided out
of the box in the shell (it's just what cat is designed and named for.)
Probably because it lies somewhere between scripting and programming language?
I've found perl to be a lot more useful for that sort of thing. I
suppose if were starting now I'd be using python. But in the 90's eprl
was the goto scripting language for C programmers.
On 12.03.26 15:12, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 12/03/2026 12:44, Kenny McCormack wrote:
Perhaps that is why I never ever shell script if at all avoidable.
Shell scripting seems to bring out the critic in everybody.-a Nobody
likes
the way other people shell script.
The application domain of shells and (for example) "C" are quite
different. There's task that are easy done in shell where there's a
huge and unnecessary overhead with languages like "C".
Like Regexp, and PERL it seems to be the province of wannabe gurus who
cant code C.
You think that folks can only program [sophisticatedly] in shell *or* languages like "C"? - I'm positive that you're wrong.
The shell language has a lot of peculiarities, though. And you need
to learn the languages you use (shell or otherwise) in any case. Some
don't seem to do that, though; for languages like "C" it's mandatory
to read a textbook, it seems, while for shell I've seen that many use existing paragons (good or bad ones) to "learn" it or web pages like
the one mentioned in this thread.
Since when I started with Unix I saw most experts know "C" and shell;
on the Unix platforms you have (and often want to use) both languages.
With the separation from Unix, the independent development of the "C" languages, things have probably changed later.
Regexps are a basic key feature of the Unix platforms, something that
was long missing on other platforms. You need to learn the Regexps,
though, with simple expressions you can do powerful things, and with
simple inconsistencies in Regexps you can produce subtle flaws.
Janis
In article <10oukth$240u3$1@dont-email.me>, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
...
Sadly, that's standard for c186282.
Just out of curiosity, what is that (c186282) ?
As with SQL I have always found it quicker to do anything complex, in C,
as it is in fact quicker than trying to do it in SQL, or regexp, both in terms of design time and indeed execution time.
There are people who like to master arcane syntaxes and there are people
who just want an efficient route to a solution.
In article <10ou2q9$1qp29$1@dont-email.me>,
Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:
Not only "a [one] failing"; it's full of bad coding practices!
(I suggest to abstain from it.)
Shell scripting seems to bring out the critic in everybody. Nobody likes
the way other people shell script.
Or, as I discovered long ago, nobody wants to run someone else's shell script. What I mean is that if I hand you a piece of C code, you are quite likely to just compile it and run it, as is. Similar for most other languages. But shell, no. Before you will consider running it, you will first analyze it and then probably pretty much totally re-write it. And
this as it should be.
Something called "Python" (mentioned by another poster) probably falls somewhere in between.
I've found perl to be a lot more useful for that sort of thing. I
suppose if were starting now I'd be using python. But in the 90's
eprl was the goto scripting language for C programmers.
On Thu, 12 Mar 2026 14:12:21 +0000
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Perhaps that is why I never ever shell script if at all avoidable.
Like Regexp, and PERL it seems to be the province of wannabe gurus
who cant code C.
Horses for courses. C is much more capable for general-purpose work,
but it requires a lot more wrangling (or an external library) to do
batch file operations effectively.
F'rexample, I'm in the process of putting together a home-grown "static
site generator" for use with a free host that doesn't allow server-side
stuff like PHP; the job is to assemble complete HTML files for each
page from header/sidebar templates and page-specific content files.
It's totally possible to do that in C, but I'd have to either roll my
own code or pull in non-stdlib dependencies for stuff like enumerating/ looping over the files in a directory; shell script makes that a first-
class language feature. And the core of the work (tacking files to each other) is likewise something that's easily doable in C, but provided out
of the box in the shell (it's just what cat is designed and named for.)
In article <EMScnQS_gIv98y_0nZ2dnZfqn_idnZ2d@giganews.com>,
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> mysteriously wrote:
...
Shell scripts HAVE THEIR PLACE, I've writ fairly
long ones ... but any modern suggestion that they
are the one and only great solution to complex
problems - no, No, NO !
Despite my own complaints here, Python is the better
way to go - if possible - for complex little issues.
Far clearer.
This response has nothing to do with the OP.
On Thu, 12 Mar 2026 19:23:17 +0100, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
Probably because it lies somewhere between scripting and programming
language?
No idea what rCLscriptingrCY means in this context. Does it mean the
language is interpreted, not compiled?
Yet nobody ever called BASIC a
rCLscriptingrCY language back in the day -- it was always known as a rCLprogrammingrCY language.
Perl and Python are the same.
One of the first BASIC dialects I programmed in was tokenized on the
fly, including syntax checks when committing a line, and it was then compiled. So there was no reason (in that respect) to call it
anything other than a programming languages.
But one aspect - and that should have been clear from the context of
my previous post - is that in shell you type in the code, and then
you execute it by interpreting it; you don't compile it, you have no
static type checking, not even a complete syntax check (unless you
explicitly invoke a separate explicit syntax check step).
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 03:05:48 +0100, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
One of the first BASIC dialects I programmed in was tokenized on the
fly, including syntax checks when committing a line, and it was then
compiled. So there was no reason (in that respect) to call it
anything other than a programming languages.
Other than the fact that it didnrCOt actually compile to machine
language.
Perl and Python do the same sort of thing.
But one aspect - and that should have been clear from the context of
my previous post - is that in shell you type in the code, and then
you execute it by interpreting it; you don't compile it, you have no
static type checking, not even a complete syntax check (unless you
explicitly invoke a separate explicit syntax check step).
See my previous post on the distinction between rCLcommandrCY languages
and rCLprogrammingrCY languages. Shell script being a rCLcommandrCY language is a more meaningful distinction from rCLprogrammingrCY languages than
trying to separate rCLprogrammingrCY languages from rCLscriptingrCY ones.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 03:05:48 +0100, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
One of the first BASIC dialects I programmed in was tokenized on the
fly, including syntax checks when committing a line, and it was then
compiled. So there was no reason (in that respect) to call it
anything other than a programming languages.
Other than the fact that it didnrCOt actually compile to machine
language.
Perl and Python do the same sort of thing.
But one aspect - and that should have been clear from the context of
my previous post - is that in shell you type in the code, and then
you execute it by interpreting it; you don't compile it, you have no
static type checking, not even a complete syntax check (unless you
explicitly invoke a separate explicit syntax check step).
See my previous post on the distinction between rCLcommandrCY languages
and rCLprogrammingrCY languages. Shell script being a rCLcommandrCY language is a more meaningful distinction from rCLprogrammingrCY languages than
trying to separate rCLprogrammingrCY languages from rCLscriptingrCY ones.
On 13.03.26 04:00, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 03:05:48 +0100, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
One of the first BASIC dialects I programmed in was tokenized on the
fly, including syntax checks when committing a line, and it was then
compiled. So there was no reason (in that respect) to call it
anything other than a programming languages.
Other than the fact that it didnrCOt actually compile to machine
language.
I'm not sure I understand your statement correctly. The BASIC system
I was talking about *did* have a compile to the machine instructions
step involved that you triggered explicitly by a 'compile' command.\\
Last time I used Perl I just ran the perl command on a program file[...]
(if I recall correctly). That was certainly different from the BASIC
case I described, where syntax checking was interactively done, and
where an explicit compile step was necessary.
On 12.03.26 20:03, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
As with SQL I have always found it quicker to do anything complex, in
C, as it is in fact quicker than trying to do it in SQL, or regexp,
both in terms of design time and indeed execution time.
Are you saying here that if, for example, you have a pattern to match
then you would implement that natively in "C" than in regexp?
Presumed I understood you correctly, then, frankly, you are obviously
just lacking the necessary expertise and blame Regular Languages (and
their uses and users) just due to ignorance.
There's nothing wrong not
knowing every aspect of CS and IT, but your generalizing imputations
based on that are misguided.
On Thu, 12 Mar 2026 19:38:13 -0000 (UTC), Jim Jackson wrote:
I've found perl to be a lot more useful for that sort of thing. I
suppose if were starting now I'd be using python. But in the 90's eprl
was the goto scripting language for C programmers.
That was the '90s... It took me a while to warm up to Python but it
became the scripting language for GIS applications. It certainly was
better than VBA.
Pike is good too but never caught on.
Python in my experience enforces the re-writing step by inevitably
requiring a version that's either newer or older than what you have available. Although since rewriting in Python only sets you up for
the same thing later on, I rewrite as a Bash script, assuming
there are no alternatives available in a sane language.
I have seen a static site generator written in C, but I don't think
it was anyone's idea of elegance. A C program that only needs to
run once (for its author, at least) can cut a_lot_ of corners!
I am sometimes tempted to use C for dynamic sites, though manyPhp is nowhere near as fast as C, but it is for sure *fast enough*. Mostly
claim PHP is just as fast these days anyway.
Frankly, I don't recall when I heard the term "scripting" for the first
time and in what (language-)context.
IMHO, anything that makes the box "do something"
-a useful is a 'programming language' - compiled,
-a interpreted or guided by magic fairies.
-a Bash is a 'programming language' (though nasty), so
-a is Python, so are 'C' and FORTRAN.
On 3/12/26 23:59, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 13.03.26 04:00, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 03:05:48 +0100, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
One of the first BASIC dialects I programmed in was tokenized on the
fly, including syntax checks when committing a line, and it was then
compiled. So there was no reason (in that respect) to call it
anything other than a programming languages.
Other than the fact that it didnrCOt actually compile to machine
language.
I'm not sure I understand your statement correctly. The BASIC system
I was talking about *did* have a compile to the machine instructions
step involved that you triggered explicitly by a 'compile' command.\\
-a I did a few large-ish projects using BASIC/BASCOM
-a back in the early PC days. So, apparently, BASIC
-a was not a computer language - but WAS when I compiled
-a it all five minutes later ???-a :-)
-a Sorry, some want to see a big diff here, I just see
-a "organized way to get a box to DO stuff" - which
-a includes scripts, compiled or what-the-fuck.
I do not claim that this distinction defines the difference between
scripting languages and programming languages. That difference
is not well defined.
On 13/03/2026 05:32, c186282 wrote:
On 3/12/26 23:59, Janis Papanagnou wrote:Back in the day I came across and used enormous accounting systems
On 13.03.26 04:00, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 03:05:48 +0100, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
One of the first BASIC dialects I programmed in was tokenized on the >>>>> fly, including syntax checks when committing a line, and it was then >>>>> compiled. So there was no reason (in that respect) to call it
anything other than a programming languages.
Other than the fact that it didnrCOt actually compile to machine
language.
I'm not sure I understand your statement correctly. The BASIC system
I was talking about *did* have a compile to the machine instructions
step involved that you triggered explicitly by a 'compile' command.\\
-a-a I did a few large-ish projects using BASIC/BASCOM
-a-a back in the early PC days. So, apparently, BASIC
-a-a was not a computer language - but WAS when I compiled
-a-a it all five minutes later ???-a :-)
-a-a Sorry, some want to see a big diff here, I just see
-a-a "organized way to get a box to DO stuff" - which
-a-a includes scripts, compiled or what-the-fuck.
written in BASIC.
On 12/03/2026 19:44, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 12.03.26 20:03, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Beyond a very limited complexity, yes.
As with SQL I have always found it quicker to do anything complex, in
C, as it is in fact quicker than trying to do it in SQL, or regexp,
both in terms of design time and indeed execution time.
Are you saying here that if, for example, you have a pattern to match
then you would implement that natively in "C" than in regexp?
It's very hard to documents a regexp . Or in fact a complex SQL statement. And in the latter case I replaced a complex SQL statement by a series of simple statements and some C and the program ran at least 10 times
faster. (I never found out how long the SQL version ran because I
aborted it after 6 hours. The C example ran and gave me debugging
output, and once I had fined tuned it, it took about 40 minutes )
On 3/13/26 11:32, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 12/03/2026 19:44, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 12.03.26 20:03, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Beyond a very limited complexity, yes.
As with SQL I have always found it quicker to do anything complex,
in C, as it is in fact quicker than trying to do it in SQL, or
regexp, both in terms of design time and indeed execution time.
Are you saying here that if, for example, you have a pattern to match
then you would implement that natively in "C" than in regexp?
It's very hard to documents a regexp . Or in fact a complex SQL
statement.
And in the latter case I replaced a complex SQL statement by a series
of simple statements and some C and the program ran at least 10 times
faster. (I never found out how long the SQL version ran because I
aborted it after 6 hours. The C example ran and gave me debugging
output, and once I had fined tuned it, it took about 40 minutes )
People teach or learn SQL from an ivory tower perspective.
Real life SQL, try to limit a big table query to a max of four tables (ideally :-)), + use temporary tables and or cursors.
I've done the same thing using PHP, running the script from the
command-line to generate the static site. I've done it in Bash
earlier too, but I ran into things that are just much easier in
PHP since it's built for generating HTML.
On 13 Mar 2026 07:59:02 +1000
not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) wrote:
I've done the same thing using PHP, running the script from the
command-line to generate the static site. I've done it in Bash
earlier too, but I ran into things that are just much easier in
PHP since it's built for generating HTML.
Oh, that's a clever notion! Hadn't thought of doing it that way.
Oh, that's a clever notion! Hadn't thought of doing it that way.
There is no point in using PHP to generate a *static* site. It is
after all for *active* sites.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 16:03:21 +0000
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Oh, that's a clever notion! Hadn't thought of doing it that way.
There is no point in using PHP to generate a *static* site. It is
after all for *active* sites.
Allows you to use the same language across the board. A bit unorthodox,
but I can see the use of it.
Back in the day I came across and used enormous accounting systems
written in BASIC.
Allows you to use the same language across the board. A bit
unorthodox, but I can see the use of it.
But 90% of my php is in fact straight HTML.
My experience is colored by being an employer of coders, and the ones
that knew C produced more in less time than the ones who had mastered
regexps and PERL.
It's very hard to documents a regexp . Or in fact a complex SQL
statement.
And in the latter case I replaced a complex SQL statement by a series of simple statements and some C and the program ran at least 10 times
faster.
(I never found out how long the SQL version ran because I aborted it
after 6 hours. The C example ran and gave me debugging output, and once
I had fined tuned it, it took about 40 minutes )
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 19:02:02 +0000
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Allows you to use the same language across the board. A bit
unorthodox, but I can see the use of it.
But 90% of my php is in fact straight HTML.
Ditto - but adding PHP (or another preprocessor utility) to the mix
allows me to write the common sections (header, footer, nav. sidebar)
once, in a separate file, rather than having to update them manually
across every single page every time I need to change something. It's
not *as* useful when it's not happening automagically server-side, but
it still saves a lot of tedium.
On 13/03/2026 10:20, Keith Thompson wrote:
I do not claim that this distinction defines the difference between
scripting languages and programming languages.-a That difference
is not well defined.
In the end its mere convention.
To my mind scripting tends to be less complete and more specialised. And probably interpreted. And designed to use standalone *programs* to do
the heavy lifting.
Whereas 'language' implies more general application and uses *libraries*
to do the grunt work.
[...]
I am not claiming that is an exact definition, but its how my mind
separates the terms...
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 11:32:12 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
It's very hard to documents a regexp . Or in fact a complex SQL
statement.
And in the latter case I replaced a complex SQL statement by a series of
simple statements and some C and the program ran at least 10 times
faster.
(I never found out how long the SQL version ran because I aborted it
after 6 hours. The C example ran and gave me debugging output, and once
I had fined tuned it, it took about 40 minutes )
We had one support person who spent his spare time crafting SQL
statements. They would fail on older DB2 systems that had a 4K limit on a statement size. The best part is with a chain of
CONCAT(CONCAT(CONCAT(.... when a SUBSTR or something fails the whole mess returns NULL.
Ditto - but adding PHP (or another preprocessor utility) to the mix
allows me to write the common sections (header, footer, nav.
sidebar) once, in a separate file, rather than having to update
them manually across every single page every time I need to change something. It's not *as* useful when it's not happening
automagically server-side, but it still saves a lot of tedium.
You can do the same with javaScript
On 12/03/2026 19:44, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 12.03.26 20:03, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Beyond a very limited complexity, yes.
As with SQL I have always found it quicker to do anything complex, in
C, as it is in fact quicker than trying to do it in SQL, or regexp,
both in terms of design time and indeed execution time.
Are you saying here that if, for example, you have a pattern to match
then you would implement that natively in "C" than in regexp?
It's very hard to documents a regexp .
[snip SQL topic]
Presumed I understood you correctly, then, frankly, you are obviously
just lacking the necessary expertise and blame Regular Languages (and
their uses and users) just due to ignorance.
Its not a matter of ignorance. That's what wannabe code gurus like to
say, because to them 'guru knowledge' is more important than getting the
job done on time, on budget and leaving code that can actually be maintained.
My point being exactly that to gain the expertise does not lead to a practicable solution *anyway*.
There's nothing wrong notUnfortunately you have just made my point for me.
knowing every aspect of CS and IT, but your generalizing imputations
based on that are misguided.
I have always been under pressure to produce efficient-a working comprehensible and maintainable code in a short time.
Regexps simply don't fit the bill. Nor do overly complex SQL statements.
I tried both and gave up after I had already taken longer to produce
code that ran way slower than a custom solution in C did
There's even a video about it
"How on Earth does ^.?$|^(..+?)\1+$ produce primes?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vbk0TwkokM
18 minutes of documentation to explain one regular expression
The same algorithm would be just a few lines of python or C and could include comments
On 13 Mar 2026 07:59:02 +1000
not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) wrote:
I've done the same thing using PHP, running the script from the
command-line to generate the static site. I've done it in Bash
earlier too, but I ran into things that are just much easier in
PHP since it's built for generating HTML.
Oh, that's a clever notion! Hadn't thought of doing it that way.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 20:56:47 +0000
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Ditto - but adding PHP (or another preprocessor utility) to the mix
allows me to write the common sections (header, footer, nav.
sidebar) once, in a separate file, rather than having to update
them manually across every single page every time I need to change
something. It's not *as* useful when it's not happening
automagically server-side, but it still saves a lot of tedium.
You can do the same with javaScript
IMNSHO the use of client-side scripting to load and display static page content should be considered Objectively Wrong, so...nope.
On 2026-03-13 12:32, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 12/03/2026 19:44, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 12.03.26 20:03, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Beyond a very limited complexity, yes.
As with SQL I have always found it quicker to do anything complex,
in C, as it is in fact quicker than trying to do it in SQL, or
regexp, both in terms of design time and indeed execution time.
Are you saying here that if, for example, you have a pattern to match
then you would implement that natively in "C" than in regexp?
One point with repexps is that with them you are able to control
complexity for a very specific class of tasks; tasks that can be
described within a Chomsky-3 grammar or expressed by finite state
machines. A comparable explicitly programmed programming language
code (say, with a context free grammar) for a respective regexp is
usually clumsier.
It's very hard to documents a regexp .
A regexp is an expression from a language. It is a clear definition
with rules simpler than of a programming language.
But you can of course document the regexps you write if it gets too complicated (for you or generally). You can also compose regexps to
manage complexity. Or name them. - You have all options, similar to
the possibilities that you have in typical programming languages.
And, as with programming languages, you should learn the language!
But Regular Expressions are much simpler. While you may find slight differences in the meta-syntax the basic principle is the same.
[snip SQL topic]
Presumed I understood you correctly, then, frankly, you are obviously
just lacking the necessary expertise and blame Regular Languages (and
their uses and users) just due to ignorance.
Its not a matter of ignorance. That's what wannabe code gurus like to
say, because to them 'guru knowledge' is more important than getting
the job done on time, on budget and leaving code that can actually be
maintained.
(I already noticed that you have a very peculiar image in mind.)
I spoke about the necessity to learn languages, whether regular or
context free. And that lacking knowledge is just ignorance.
I'm aware that typical regular expression syntaxes appear cryptic.
(And I understand the reluctance to learn them.)
(To move that/your problem to "gurus" you met in your life appears
to be nothing but a red herring and is obviously only demonstrating
your unwillingness to learn or understand regexps.)
My point being exactly that to gain the expertise does not lead to a
practicable solution *anyway*.
Within the naturally given domain of Regular Languages you can use
them to quickly create usable (practicable) solutions in appropriate requirement contexts. (I do that all the time. They're really very
useful.)
There's nothing wrong notUnfortunately you have just made my point for me.
knowing every aspect of CS and IT, but your generalizing imputations
based on that are misguided.
I have always been under pressure to produce efficient-a working
comprehensible and maintainable code in a short time.
And regular expressions are one part of it. - Of course, if you don't
know them, how to use them, what they are for, it may be a hindrance
to use them efficiently. - As said; you have to learn them. It's not different to other things in IT you have to learn. (You don't get it
for free, by divine inspiration, or else.)
Regexps simply don't fit the bill. Nor do overly complex SQL
statements. I tried both and gave up after I had already taken longer
to produce code that ran way slower than a custom solution in C did
There's even a video about it
"How on Earth does ^.?$|^(..+?)\1+$ produce primes?"
(This is not a Regular Expression; it uses back references. Just BTW.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vbk0TwkokM
18 minutes of documentation to explain one regular expression
The same algorithm would be just a few lines of python or C and could
include comments
It wouldn't occur to me to use regexps to create (or match) primes.
I suggest to not use fancy Youtube videos but a book or basic tutorial
if you want to get knowledge on that topic.
Janis
Real life SQL, try to limit a big table query to a max of four
tables (ideally :-)), + use temporary tables and or cursors.
VAX Basic was widely used on major banking systems. Excel/VBA was
everywhere.
Chruch-Turing Thesis - different languages are just syntactic sugar.
IMNSHO the use of client-side scripting to load and display static
page content should be considered Objectively Wrong, so...nope.
Christ! There is so much religion here the odour of sanctity is
making me vomit...
On 13/03/2026 15:00, John Ames wrote:
On 13 Mar 2026 07:59:02 +1000There is no point in using PHP to generate a *static* site. It is after
not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) wrote:
I've done the same thing using PHP, running the script from the
command-line to generate the static site. I've done it in Bash
earlier too, but I ran into things that are just much easier in
PHP since it's built for generating HTML.
Oh, that's a clever notion! Hadn't thought of doing it that way.
all for *active* sites.
IMNSHO the use of client-side scripting to load and display static
page content should be considered Objectively Wrong ...
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:57:39 +0000, Pancho wrote:
Real life SQL, try to limit a big table query to a max of four
tables (ideally :-)), + use temporary tables and or cursors.
Real life SQL, use the EXPLAIN statement to find out where the
bottlenecks are in your query, and fix them.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:48:56 +0000, Pancho wrote:
VAX Basic was widely used on major banking systems. Excel/VBA was
everywhere.
Not any more, thank goodness.
Chruch-Turing Thesis - different languages are just syntactic sugar.
Ever wonder why we donrCOt write real-world computer programs using TuringrCOs universal tape machine?
ThererCOs a reason why rCLcomputer sciencerCY and rCLmathematicsrCY are quite different subjects ...
On 3/13/26 21:58, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:57:39 +0000, Pancho wrote:
Real life SQL, try to limit a big table query to a max of four
tables (ideally :-)), + use temporary tables and or cursors.
Real life SQL, use the EXPLAIN statement to find out where the
bottlenecks are in your query, and fix them.
Yeah, in the late 1980s, my goal for career advancement was to learn how
to interpret query plans. I never really did. I mean I sometimes used
them to spot simple stuff like a missing index, but normally they
weren't that useful.
I was just watching a political YouTube thing with Yanis Varoufakis.
He reckoned the West was losing in the Ukraine war because they deindustrialised, couldn't actually manufacture weapons.
On 3/13/26 21:59, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:48:56 +0000, Pancho wrote:
VAX Basic was widely used on major banking systems. Excel/VBA was
everywhere.
Not any more, thank goodness.
Chruch-Turing Thesis - different languages are just syntactic sugar.
Ever wonder why we donrCOt write real-world computer programs using
TuringrCOs universal tape machine?
No, I like syntactic sugar.
ThererCOs a reason why rCLcomputer sciencerCY and rCLmathematicsrCY are quite
different subjects ...
Ok, I don't understand that comment. Are Turing Machines mathematics
or are they Computer Science?
On 13/03/2026 12:57, Pancho wrote:
On 3/13/26 11:32, The Natural Philosopher wrote:+ use a bit of C code instead. The temporary table then becomes an array
On 12/03/2026 19:44, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 12.03.26 20:03, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Beyond a very limited complexity, yes.
As with SQL I have always found it quicker to do anything complex,
in C, as it is in fact quicker than trying to do it in SQL, or
regexp, both in terms of design time and indeed execution time.
Are you saying here that if, for example, you have a pattern to match
then you would implement that natively in "C" than in regexp?
It's very hard to documents a regexp . Or in fact a complex SQL
statement.
And in the latter case I replaced a complex SQL statement by a series
of simple statements and some C and the program ran at least 10 times
faster. (I never found out how long the SQL version ran because I
aborted it after 6 hours. The C example ran and gave me debugging
output, and once I had fined tuned it, it took about 40 minutes )
People teach or learn SQL from an ivory tower perspective.
Real life SQL, try to limit a big table query to a max of four tables
(ideally :-)), + use temporary tables and or cursors.
in C.
Obviously in the limit this breaks if you run out of memory, but 4
gigabytes of data is a hell of a lot.
It was enough to specify the name, address,-a postcode, borough, county
and country for every single person in Great Britain....
Which I had as-a flat files, and wanted as a normalised data base.
Yep by cursors, I meant using a for each loop in a language like C.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 19:02:02 +0000 The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Allows you to use the same language across the board. A bit
unorthodox, but I can see the use of it.
But 90% of my php is in fact straight HTML.
Ditto - but adding PHP (or another preprocessor utility) to the mix
allows me to write the common sections (header, footer, nav. sidebar)
once, in a separate file, rather than having to update them manually
across every single page every time I need to change something. It's not
*as* useful when it's not happening automagically server-side, but it
still saves a lot of tedium.
On 13/03/2026 19:33, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 11:32:12 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
It's very hard to documents a regexp . Or in fact a complex SQL
statement.
And in the latter case I replaced a complex SQL statement by a series
of simple statements and some C and the program ran at least 10 times
faster.
(I never found out how long the SQL version ran because I aborted it
after 6 hours. The C example ran and gave me debugging output, and
once I had fined tuned it, it took about 40 minutes )
We had one support person who spent his spare time crafting SQL
statements. They would fail on older DB2 systems that had a 4K limit on
a statement size. The best part is with a chain of
CONCAT(CONCAT(CONCAT(.... when a SUBSTR or something fails the whole
mess returns NULL.
Exactly. And since the statement is atomic, and very nested, as with
regexp, its very hard to comment or debug.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 14:14:31 -0700, John Ames wrote:
IMNSHO the use of client-side scripting to load and display static
page content should be considered Objectively Wrong ...
I once took a web page created by a friend, displaying a static table
of information (about CPU processors), and reduced it from nearly a
megabyte in size down to a little over 100K. I put all the table info
into JavaScript structures, and had code that ran on page load to
generate the display tables from that.
I also added dynamic sorting features, so you could rearrange the
table by the values of selected columns by clicking on the column
headings. The sorting code knew something about the units used for
numeric values in certain columns, so it could, e.g. interpret rCL1MrCY as greater than rCL2KrCY.
All the work was done in the browser.
Another fucking guru.
Bye
The US has the weapons, it just has its own internal preoccupations (particularly religious ones) to deal with, which donrCOt necessarily
align with the rest of the so-called rCYWestrCY. Like this stupid
distraction with Iran right now.
Like it or not, the Europeans have to learn to be more independent of
the US. It means leaving that oh-so-pleasant post-World-War-II comfort
zone, that they have become addicted to over the last half-century or
so.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:48:56 +0000, Pancho wrote:
VAX Basic was widely used on major banking systems. Excel/VBA was
everywhere.
Not any more, thank goodness.
Chruch-Turing Thesis - different languages are just syntactic sugar.
Ever wonder why we donrCOt write real-world computer programs using TuringrCOs universal tape machine?
ThererCOs a reason why rCLcomputer sciencerCY and rCLmathematicsrCY are quite different subjects ...
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:21:29 -0700, John Ames wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 19:02:02 +0000 The Natural Philosopher
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Allows you to use the same language across the board. A bit
unorthodox, but I can see the use of it.
But 90% of my php is in fact straight HTML.
Ditto - but adding PHP (or another preprocessor utility) to the mix
allows me to write the common sections (header, footer, nav. sidebar)
once, in a separate file, rather than having to update them manually
across every single page every time I need to change something. It's not
*as* useful when it's not happening automagically server-side, but it
still saves a lot of tedium.
There is a learning curve but in Python the Flask framework pulls in Jinja
as the templating engine.
https://jinja.palletsprojects.com/en/stable/templates/#template-
inheritance
We had a programmer who loved PHP (Personal Home Page). I dipped into the code a couple of times trying to do minor fixes and it wasn't pretty.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 23:07:00 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
The US has the weapons, it just has its own internal preoccupations
(particularly religious ones) to deal with, which donrCOt necessarily
align with the rest of the so-called rCYWestrCY. Like this stupid
distraction with Iran right now.
[...]
Gibbon came to the conclusion that one of the main causes for the fall of
the Roman Empire was Christianity. That may be pertinent to the American Empire too. Why Europeans imported an Asian messiah escapes me.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 23:07:00 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
The US has the weapons, it just has its own internal preoccupations
(particularly religious ones) to deal with, which donrCOt necessarily
align with the rest of the so-called rCYWestrCY. Like this stupid
distraction with Iran right now.
That goes back to the Reagan era. There were several highly placed people whose game plan was to get all the Jews in Israel to fulfill prophecy and bring on Armageddon and the Second Coming. I think assholes like Huckabee are still on that page.
Gibbon came to the conclusion that one of the main causes for the fall of
the Roman Empire was Christianity. That may be pertinent to the American Empire too. Why Europeans imported an Asian messiah escapes me.
Like it or not, the Europeans have to learn to be more independent of
the US. It means leaving that oh-so-pleasant post-World-War-II comfort
zone, that they have become addicted to over the last half-century or
so.
If the Europeans want to rattle their sabers it would help if they had
some sabers that weren't rusty and dull. Props to Meloni for saying 'Screw this.' She has bigger balls than Starmer but that's a low bar.
Muggeseggele describes his equipment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muggeseggele
If you need a web page to DO SHIT other than just sit there and look
pretty then you need PHP. I often used those 'make yer own page'
apps/CMS - cheap - to set up the HTML/pages ... the annoying stuff
... and then used PHP to add IQ. Worked well, fairly quick. Found
Joomla to be maybe the best compromise of features, though there is a
bit of a learning curve compared to, say, WordPress.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 23:26:41 -0400, c186282 wrote:is a
If you need a web page to DO SHIT other than just sit there and look
pretty then you need PHP. I often used those 'make yer own page'
apps/CMS - cheap - to set up the HTML/pages ... the annoying stuff
... and then used PHP to add IQ. Worked well, fairly quick. Found
Joomla to be maybe the best compromise of features, though there
prior tobit of a learning curve compared to, say, WordPress.
Never used it. Our SPA used Angular. The browser based apps I did
the map being incorporated into the Angular project used Node.js/
Express.js on the backend and the Esri Javascript 3.x API on the fontend
for the map pieces.
I did a web app on the Pi yesterday. The Pi reads a I2C DHT11 sensor totemperature
get the inside temperature and humidity and publishes it so I can get the data in the browser on my main machine rather than switching to the Pi. Tomorrow I'll probably expand it to query NOAA for the outside
and humidity and add it to the page. Python/Flask.
fwiw, since the Flask package is included in the Pi's system sitepackages
I'm not in a venv. Also I spun off a process using subprocess.Popen("python", "dht_simple.py") with no problem. The
subprocess does the actual hardware read and updates the html.
I suppose PHP was better than FrontPage that used millions ofnon-breaking
spaces to format a page. Like Cobol there is still a lot of it around. However if I had a kid in college I would not advise them to use PHP.
https://kinsta.com/blog/php-vs-angular/
probably tl;dr. Synopsis:
"The Angular framework works excellent for building large-scale apps with complexity and need of scalability.
PHP is an old player, and itrCOs still very much in the game. ItrCOs a good, low-cost option for you to develop a small business website, a portfolio site, or even an ecommerce store."
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 21:59:47 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:48:56 +0000, Pancho wrote:
VAX Basic was widely used on major banking systems. Excel/VBA was
everywhere.
Not any more, thank goodness.
Chruch-Turing Thesis - different languages are just syntactic sugar.
Ever wonder why we donrCOt write real-world computer programs using
TuringrCOs universal tape machine?
ThererCOs a reason why rCLcomputer sciencerCY and rCLmathematicsrCY are quite
different subjects ...
'Computer science' is ambiguous and in some cases refers to rarefied abstractions that are fairly useless. There should be 'practical
programming' or some other discipline that I don't think falls under mathematics.
I think that goes back to the '60s. RPI and many other colleges did not
have a CS program. I forget what the course designation was for FORTRAN IV programming but they didn't know what to do with it and put it in the math department.
Apropos, Tony Hoare died last week but Quicksort lives on.
On 2026-03-13, Pancho wrote:
On 3/13/26 21:59, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:48:56 +0000, Pancho wrote:
VAX Basic was widely used on major banking systems. Excel/VBA was
everywhere.
Not any more, thank goodness.
Chruch-Turing Thesis - different languages are just syntactic sugar.
Ever wonder why we donrCOt write real-world computer programs using
TuringrCOs universal tape machine?
No, I like syntactic sugar.
ThererCOs a reason why rCLcomputer sciencerCY and rCLmathematicsrCY are quite
different subjects ...
Ok, I don't understand that comment. Are Turing Machines mathematics
or are they Computer Science?
They're computer science which is mathematics.
The complexity or simplicity or convenience or lack thereof of using
Turing's machine definition is probably irrelevant here. I suppose the
point Pancho wanted to allude at was precisely that the
platform/language doesn't matter to determine what's doable or not, at
least provided that the languages involved are Turing-complete.
On 3/12/26 09:00, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 3/12/26 08:21, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
<https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/command-line-wizardry-part-
This article
two-variables-and-loops-in-bash/>
I took the time to look more closely into that link above.
continues the authorrCOs intro to basic command-line concepts. But it
repeats a failing I see all too often in shell scripting: [...]
Not only "a [one] failing"; it's full of bad coding practices!
(I suggest to abstain from it.)
Right. I can only agree with you.
The more general problem is that there's so much stuff about shell
programming on the web but most of it is sadly of very bad quality.
It's exactly a paragon for the said many sources of bad quality.
If the Europeans want to rattle their sabers it would help if they had
some sabers that weren't rusty and dull.
On 3/13/26 21:59, Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:48:56 +0000, Pancho wrote:
VAX Basic was widely used on major banking systems. Excel/VBA was
everywhere.
Not any more, thank goodness.
Chruch-Turing Thesis - different languages are just syntactic sugar.
Ever wonder why we donrCOt write real-world computer programs using
TuringrCOs universal tape machine?
No, I like syntactic sugar.
ThererCOs a reason why rCLcomputer sciencerCY and rCLmathematicsrCY are quite
different subjects ...
Ok, I don't understand that comment. Are Turing Machines mathematics or
are they Computer Science?
We had a programmer who loved PHP (Personal Home Page). I dipped into the code a couple of times trying to do minor fixes and it wasn't pretty.
I'm not sure what the real web-technology experts would say. I'd
certainly try to avoid use of dynamic languages for static pages
(I don't much like Javascript as language and I sort of hate PHP
from a programming language perspective; but I regularly used the
former and [only] in one small case had used the latter).
I'm not running an own server, so for dynamic content I used JS.
I observed that you can do a lot to reduce bloat by using CSS.
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 21:59:47 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence DrCOOliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 12:48:56 +0000, Pancho wrote:
VAX Basic was widely used on major banking systems. Excel/VBA was
everywhere.
Not any more, thank goodness.
Chruch-Turing Thesis - different languages are just syntactic sugar.
Ever wonder why we donrCOt write real-world computer programs using
TuringrCOs universal tape machine?
ThererCOs a reason why rCLcomputer sciencerCY and rCLmathematicsrCY are quite
different subjects ...
'Computer science' is ambiguous and in some cases refers to rarefied abstractions that are fairly useless. There should be 'practical
programming' or some other discipline that I don't think falls under mathematics.
I think that goes back to the '60s. RPI and many other colleges did not
have a CS program. I forget what the course designation was for FORTRAN IV programming but they didn't know what to do with it and put it in the math department.
[ It's impressive how things can get OT in *technical* newsgroups.
Let's at least name it appropriately and label it as such. :-) ]
On 3/13/26 23:19, rbowman wrote:
Apropos, Tony Hoare died last week but Quicksort lives on.
-a "Computer Science" has very little do do with
-a practical apps. It's closer to, but not quite,
-a Pure Math and Stats. It CAN inform practical apps,
-a but, really, not so much these days.
-a Employers need not hire CS people, waste of money.
-a CS *may* have some utility in the developing quantum
-a realm however. We'll see.
-a [...]
-a Yes, I've bitched about Python here, recently, but
-a it's still mostly much better than Bash or CSH.
-a Those shells were built-up over time ... adding
-a ever more weird symbols and syntatic oddities to
-a expand the 'language' until they make NO sense
-a except for the simplest things.
<https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/command-line-wizardry-part-
two-variables-and-loops-in-bash/>
I took the time to look more closely into that link above.
It's a... curious article, the first part of it seems to want to explain
some operations with variables by repeatedly stating that the syntax is "unsettling".
Besides the whole thing about relegating bash to some place where it's
only used as an interactive command interpreter and where it's not a
"real language"
-2If you need to write a script for repeated userCoparticularly one
with significant logical branching and evaluationrCoI strongly
recommend a rCLreal languagerCY instead of Bash.-+
-2Although the switch back and forth between referencing hello and
$hello is deeply unsettling if yourCOre only familiar with rCLrealrCY
languages,[...]-+
This is silly, I mean, one of the key strengths of UNIX shells is that
you can use them to write scripts. In fact, these might be more suitable tools for some operations...
> continues the authorrCOs intro to basic command-line concepts. But it >>> > repeats a failing I see all too often in shell scripting: [...]
Not only "a [one] failing"; it's full of bad coding practices!
(I suggest to abstain from it.)
Right. I can only agree with you.
The more general problem is that there's so much stuff about shell
programming on the web but most of it is sadly of very bad quality.
It's exactly a paragon for the said many sources of bad quality.
I liked the detail near the end where it's apparently *echo* that gets
rid of the whitespace in the argument, and not the shell's word
splitting.
In a larger view I think 'survival of the fittest' really is 'survival of anything not too screwed up to live.' The x86 architecture wasn't the
best either, but here we are.
On 15/03/2026 20:44, rbowman wrote:
In a larger view I think 'survival of the fittest' really is 'survival of
anything not too screwed up to live.'-a The x86 architecture wasn't the
best either, but here we are.
Yes. The world is comprised of things that haven't become extinct (yet)...
A million years of dinosaurs and now just jackdaws.
On 3/16/26 09:06, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 15/03/2026 20:44, rbowman wrote:
In a larger view I think 'survival of the fittest' really is
'survival of
anything not too screwed up to live.'-a The x86 architecture wasn't the
best either, but here we are.
Yes. The world is comprised of things that haven't become extinct
(yet)...
A million years of dinosaurs and now just jackdaws.
-a 50 million years of dinosaurs !
-a It IS odd how all but the birdy side of the
-a entire line disappeared so completely. Hey,
-a maybe it was space alien 'big game hunters' !
On 16/03/2026 13:52, c186282 wrote:
On 3/16/26 09:06, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 15/03/2026 20:44, rbowman wrote:-a 50 million years of dinosaurs !
In a larger view I think 'survival of the fittest' really is
'survival of anything not too screwed up to live.'-a The x86
architecture wasn't the best either, but here we are.
Yes. The world is comprised of things that haven't become extinct
(yet)...
A million years of dinosaurs and now just jackdaws.
I stand corrected...
-a It IS odd how all but the birdy side of the
-a entire line disappeared so completely. Hey,
-a maybe it was space alien 'big game hunters' !
They fell through cracks in reality that the birds flew over?
We had a programmer who loved PHP (Personal Home Page). I dipped into
the code a couple of times trying to do minor fixes and it wasn't
pretty.
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
On 16/03/2026 13:52, c186282 wrote:
On 3/16/26 09:06, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 15/03/2026 20:44, rbowman wrote:-a 50 million years of dinosaurs !
In a larger view I think 'survival of the fittest' really is
'survival of anything not too screwed up to live.'-a The x86
architecture wasn't the best either, but here we are.
Yes. The world is comprised of things that haven't become extinct
(yet)...
A million years of dinosaurs and now just jackdaws.
I stand corrected...
Nearer 168M years!
-a It IS odd how all but the birdy side of the
-a entire line disappeared so completely. Hey,
-a maybe it was space alien 'big game hunters' !
They fell through cracks in reality that the birds flew over?
I gather than most of the birds and rather a lot of mammals went exinct
too. A 10km asteroid will really mess a planet up.
A 10km asteroid will really mess a planet up.
On 14 Mar 2026 02:35:23 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
We had a programmer who loved PHP (Personal Home Page). I dipped into
the code a couple of times trying to do minor fixes and it wasn't
pretty.
Definitely would not class it as one of my favorite languages (and I've
heard tell that it was even jankier in the Bad Old Days,) but for
simple HTML preprocessor duties it does the job well enough. If I were
trying to build any kind of large-scale Web application I'd probably be
more inclined to think about my options and choice of tooling.
I gather than most of the birds and rather a lot of mammals went exinct
too. A 10km asteroid will really mess a planet up.
On 16/03/2026 14:35, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
I gather than most of the birds and rather a lot of mammals went exinct
too. A 10km asteroid will really mess a planet up.
It's amazing that the meteor missed the visitor centre in AZ ;)
I got into Linux back when RH/Slack/OSu came on 5-1/4 disks at the
superstore. Don't think Python existed yet.
If you wanted a 'script' then you did it in Bash or one of the
others.
Fortunately I skipped Py2 ... kept hearing Py3 was coming out and
would be kind-of different. Why learn the 'wrong way' ?
Config files CAN be good - or HELL. All kinds of weird, often
poorly/non-documented stuff in them.
The X system is a particular pain. I still remember trying to get
original X in RH to see my monitor,
KB and mouse ... took a couple days of fooling around, sometimes
shooting in the dark. Was younger then however ...
DSL has gotten fatter since its reboot and is up to 900 MB whichMy original DSL wasn't terrible, version 2 could sometimes get to
still isn't bad in the time of 4 GB+ isos.
20mbs. My 'new and improved'
5G thingie almost never gets to 20mbs, 15 is about the top almost all
the time, under 10 more common.
On 15/03/2026 20:44, rbowman wrote:
In a larger view I think 'survival of the fittest' really is 'survival
of anything not too screwed up to live.' The x86 architecture wasn't
the best either, but here we are.
Yes. The world is comprised of things that haven't become extinct
(yet)...
A million years of dinosaurs and now just jackdaws.
On 16/03/2026 14:35, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
I gather than most of the birds and rather a lot of mammals went exinct
too. A 10km asteroid will really mess a planet up.
It's amazing that the meteor missed the visitor centre in AZ ;)
On 16/03/2026 14:35, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
I gather than most of the birds and rather a lot of mammals went exinct
too. A 10km asteroid will really mess a planet up.
It's amazing that the meteor missed the visitor centre in AZ ;)
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 05:11:30 -0400, c186282 wrote:
I got into Linux back when RH/Slack/OSu came on 5-1/4 disks at the
superstore. Don't think Python existed yet.
If you wanted a 'script' then you did it in Bash or one of the
others.
Python predates Linux by a little although it was way behind Perl in popularity. Python 2 came out in 2000. Red Hat Linux not only included the infamous gcc 2.96 that couldn't compile the kernel and a Python version
that broke existing scripts. As I've said, it took me 25 years to give
Fedora a chance.
Fortunately I skipped Py2 ... kept hearing Py3 was coming out and
would be kind-of different. Why learn the 'wrong way' ?
The Esri Desktop installation included Python 2, which they started to use
as VBA faded away. ActiveState Python was also useful since it had Win32 extensions. I did have to do some rework for Python 3. It wasn't as bad
as some of the other transitions like Angular.js to Angular. It didn't
affect me but Visual Basic to VB.NET was a real mess.
Config files CAN be good - or HELL. All kinds of weird, often
poorly/non-documented stuff in them.
The X system is a particular pain. I still remember trying to get
original X in RH to see my monitor,
KB and mouse ... took a couple days of fooling around, sometimes
shooting in the dark. Was younger then however ...
I don't have a problem with config files, either the old ini style or the newer xml or JSON types but I wasn't familiar with rxvt. I tweak xterm
in .Xresources but in this case another config where most of the work is
done is included in .Xresourcces like your MX. Hopefully the hack for the
vim cursor in xterm also works.
> DSL has gotten fatter since its reboot and is up to 900 MB which
> still isn't bad in the time of 4 GB+ isos.
My original DSL wasn't terrible, version 2 could sometimes get to
20mbs. My 'new and improved'
5G thingie almost never gets to 20mbs, 15 is about the top almost all
the time, under 10 more common.
DSL -- Damn Small Linux. I don't know anything about the other DSL. afaik
it never made it past the city line and didn't even have total coverage in town.
I learned that you could use them to write books from a famous SF author from a column in Analog SF magazine. He was using CPM which
was not a cheap thing at the time.
I used Knoppix on a 5.25 inch CD to remove a Windows password once or
twice that was Knoppix 3.4 I believe. I got it with a laarge paperback Knoppix for Dummies or some such title at a Borders Book Store. In the
early 2000s.
On 2026-03-16, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
I learned that you could use them to write books from a famous SF
author from a column in Analog SF magazine. He was using CPM which was
not a cheap thing at the time.
Sounds like Jerry Pournelle. His regular Byte column was fun to read,
at least until it turned into an endless account of trying to get
Windows boxes to work. He gave each of his computers a name; the IBM PC
was called Lucy because he found that, like the Peanuts comic strip character, it was quite a fussbudget.
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:29:49 -0700, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
I used Knoppix on a 5.25 inch CD to remove a Windows password once or
twice that was Knoppix 3.4, I believe. I got it with a laarge paperback
Knoppix for Dummies or some such title at a Borders Book Store. In the
early 2000s.
Knoppix is still around. Like Tails I don't think you can install it so I can't play with it is a VM.
On 16/03/2026 13:52, c186282 wrote:
On 3/16/26 09:06, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 15/03/2026 20:44, rbowman wrote:
In a larger view I think 'survival of the fittest' really is
'survival of
anything not too screwed up to live.'-a The x86 architecture wasn't the >>>> best either, but here we are.
Yes. The world is comprised of things that haven't become extinct
(yet)...
A million years of dinosaurs and now just jackdaws.
-a-a 50 million years of dinosaurs !
I stand corrected...
-a-a It IS odd how all but the birdy side of the
-a-a entire line disappeared so completely. Hey,
-a-a maybe it was space alien 'big game hunters' !
They fell through cracks in reality that the birds flew over?
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
On 16/03/2026 13:52, c186282 wrote:
On 3/16/26 09:06, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 15/03/2026 20:44, rbowman wrote:-a 50 million years of dinosaurs !
In a larger view I think 'survival of the fittest' really is
'survival of anything not too screwed up to live.'-a The x86
architecture wasn't the best either, but here we are.
Yes. The world is comprised of things that haven't become extinct
(yet)...
A million years of dinosaurs and now just jackdaws.
I stand corrected...
Nearer 168M years!
-a It IS odd how all but the birdy side of the
-a entire line disappeared so completely. Hey,
-a maybe it was space alien 'big game hunters' !
They fell through cracks in reality that the birds flew over?
I gather than most of the birds and rather a lot of mammals went exinct
too. A 10km asteroid will really mess a planet up.
On 14 Mar 2026 02:35:23 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
We had a programmer who loved PHP (Personal Home Page). I dipped into
the code a couple of times trying to do minor fixes and it wasn't
pretty.
Definitely would not class it as one of my favorite languages (and I've
heard tell that it was even jankier in the Bad Old Days,) but for
simple HTML preprocessor duties it does the job well enough. If I were
trying to build any kind of large-scale Web application I'd probably be
more inclined to think about my options and choice of tooling.
On 16/03/2026 14:35, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
I gather than most of the birds and rather a lot of mammals went exinct
too. A 10km asteroid will really mess a planet up.
It's amazing that the meteor missed the visitor centre in AZ ;)
On Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:06:43 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 15/03/2026 20:44, rbowman wrote:
In a larger view I think 'survival of the fittest' really is 'survival
of anything not too screwed up to live.' The x86 architecture wasn't
the best either, but here we are.
Yes. The world is comprised of things that haven't become extinct
(yet)...
A million years of dinosaurs and now just jackdaws.
When I lived in New Hampshire there was a place in one of the bays where I could catch horseshoe crabs by hand. It was strictly catch and release; I only wanted to look at an extremely successful design up close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_crab
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:02:45 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-03-16, Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
I learned that you could use them to write books from a famous SF
author from a column in Analog SF magazine. He was using CPM which was
not a cheap thing at the time.
Sounds like Jerry Pournelle. His regular Byte column was fun to read,
at least until it turned into an endless account of trying to get
Windows boxes to work. He gave each of his computers a name; the IBM PC
was called Lucy because he found that, like the Peanuts comic strip
character, it was quite a fussbudget.
I miss him and I also miss the era when Byte was more hardware oriented
with Ciacia's column. iirc he thought the sun rose on WordPerfect.
Damn Small Linux includes quite a few lightweight applications, one of
which is AbiWord. I don't have a use for a word processor but that one is more my speed than LibreOffice, OpenOffice, or OneOffice. I did use
WordStar since it was bundled on a CP/M machine and was better that vi
(the real Bill Joy vi).
Correct - do NOT piss on PHP. It was made for a particular, valuable,
niche purpose and still serves that well and simply.
This is plain wrong! (I have to suppose that you haven't learned CS if
you are uttering such nonsense. - Or else; where have you learned "your
CS"?) You have obviously no idea about its topics. - Jesus! It's really
been a very very long time that I've heard such utter nonsense spread!
PHP is a bit quicker than C. And making e.g. Apache use PHP is a well documented piece of cake. Making it run C is a lot more effort.
On 2026-03-14 12:07, Nuno Silva wrote:
The more general problem is that there's so much stuff about shell
programming on the web but most of it is sadly of very bad quality.
It's exactly a paragon for the said many sources of bad quality.
I liked the detail near the end where it's apparently *echo* that gets
rid of the whitespace in the argument, and not the shell's word
splitting.
I'm not sure what specific part you have in mind. - Close to the
end I see for example
echo zfs destroy \"$snap\"
A form with escapes that I'd never had written that way.
On 2026-03-14, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 2026-03-14 12:07, Nuno Silva wrote:
The more general problem is that there's so much stuff about shell
programming on the web but most of it is sadly of very bad quality.
It's exactly a paragon for the said many sources of bad quality.
I liked the detail near the end where it's apparently *echo* that gets
rid of the whitespace in the argument, and not the shell's word
splitting.
I'm not sure what specific part you have in mind. - Close to the
end I see for example
echo zfs destroy \"$snap\"
A form with escapes that I'd never had written that way.
In the section before that, I think.
It's the last paragraph before the code block(s) before the heading
"Putting it all together":
-2One last note: echo itself will mangle leading spaces, so if you
just echo $x instead of echo "$x" (note the quotation marks), yourCOll
see stripped leading and trailing spaces, even though the content of
the variable itself isnrCOt stripped. This is the very devil to figure
out if you donrCOt already know whatrCOs going on!-+
-2One last note: echo itself will mangle leading spaces,
C-Shell is maybe a little more interesting, as it kinda-sorta has a
'C' look and feel. Indeed it is one of the things that first
attracted me to the Unix/Linux world.
On Sat, 14 Mar 2026 22:14:50 -0400, c186282 wrote:
C-Shell is maybe a little more interesting, as it kinda-sorta has a
'C' look and feel. Indeed it is one of the things that first
attracted me to the Unix/Linux world.
My preference was tcsh, but in the early '90s bash conquered the Linux domain.
Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote or quoted:
-2One last note: echo itself will mangle leading spaces,
When you input "echo $x", the shell substitutes "$x" by the value of
x with leading and trailing spaces stripped. The shell, not echo!
On 3/15/26 00:55, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 14 Mar 2026 22:14:50 -0400, c186282 wrote:
C-Shell is maybe a little more interesting, as it kinda-sorta has a
'C' look and feel. Indeed it is one of the things that first
attracted me to the Unix/Linux world.
My preference was tcsh, but in the early '90s bash conquered the Linux
domain.
It did.
But that doesn't make it "best" :-)
On 3/15/26 00:55, rbowman wrote:
My preference was tcsh, but in the early '90s bash conquered the Linux
domain.
-a It did.
-a But that doesn't make it "best"-a :-)
But that doesn't make it "best" EfOeActually, it does. But being "the best" doesn't mean it is any good.
And, the thing is, this last applies to a lot of things in life. People
will say "Our system is the best" and they are right, only because, unfortunately, no one has yet found anything better. But that doesn't mean that system is any good, and, in fact, often it is really lousy.
On 2026-03-15, Stefan Ram wrote:
Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote or quoted:
One last note: echo itself will mangle leading spaces,
When you input "echo $x", the shell substitutes "$x" by the value of
x with leading and trailing spaces stripped. The shell, not echo!
Indeed. Sounds like the kind of thing to explain properly in a
tutorial. The actual explanation might actually be less complex or
confusing (or surprising) than this.
On 3/15/26 00:55, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 14 Mar 2026 22:14:50 -0400, c186282 wrote:
C-Shell is maybe a little more interesting, as it kinda-sorta has
a 'C' look and feel. Indeed it is one of the things that first
attracted me to the Unix/Linux world.
My preference was tcsh, but in the early '90s bash conquered the Linux
domain.
It did.
But that doesn't make it "best" :-)
Disclaimer: I actually think bash is a pretty good and useful tool/shell/language, but it does have a lot of, um, er, quirks.
On 15/03/2026 08:01, c186282 wrote:
On 3/15/26 00:55, rbowman wrote:
Ah, that's deep philosophy.My preference was tcsh, but in the early '90s bash conquered the Linux
domain.
-a It did.
-a But that doesn't make it "best"-a :-)
Survival not of the best and fittest, but just the ones that happened to
be in the right place at the right time...
On Sun, 15 Mar 2026 12:30:16 -0000 (UTC), Kenny McCormack wrote:
Disclaimer: I actually think bash is a pretty good and useful
tool/shell/language, but it does have a lot of, um, er, quirks.
The biggest thing I hit was my tcsh aliases had to be converted to >functions.
Yeah, aliases in bash are a real foo-up, because they can't
(meaningfully)
take parameters. It would have been better (IMHO) not to have had them
in the language at all. Note that the syntax for accessing alias
parameters in [t]csh is totally weird, but it does work.
On Sun, 15 Mar 2026 23:20:30 -0000 (UTC), Kenny McCormack wrote:
Yeah, aliases in bash are a real foo-up, because they can't
(meaningfully)
take parameters. It would have been better (IMHO) not to have had them
in the language at all. Note that the syntax for accessing alias
parameters in [t]csh is totally weird, but it does work.
Not that weird in the context of sed, awk, Perl, and so forth.
On Sun, 15 Mar 2026 04:01:10 -0400, c186282 wrote:
On 3/15/26 00:55, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 14 Mar 2026 22:14:50 -0400, c186282 wrote:
C-Shell is maybe a little more interesting, as it kinda-sorta has >>>> a 'C' look and feel. Indeed it is one of the things that first
attracted me to the Unix/Linux world.
My preference was tcsh, but in the early '90s bash conquered the Linux
domain.
It did.
But that doesn't make it "best" :-)
In a larger view I think 'survival of the fittest' really is 'survival of anything not too screwed up to live.' The x86 architecture wasn't the
best either, but here we are.
Biggest thing I ever wrote in Bash was a version of my company backup
plan, about 600 active lines. However the job was kind of 'modular'
so I could copy and slightly tweak the backup sections above. It
worked fine, but was very annoying to mod. Went back to a Python,
then Pascal, version.
On Sun, 15 Mar 2026 23:36:31 -0400, c186282 wrote:backup
Biggest thing I ever wrote in Bash was a version of my company
plan, about 600 active lines. However the job was kind of 'modular'
so I could copy and slightly tweak the backup sections above. It
worked fine, but was very annoying to mod. Went back to a Python,
then Pascal, version.
All I've ever done w.r.t bash is tweaks to .bashrc. By the time I reluctantly moved to bash I was already using Python for most tasks.
Didn't need to learn a new shell.
I stumble into enough unwanted learning experiences. I install Damn Small Linux in a VM on the Fedora box. No problem. The terminal is URxvtand the
damn thing was semi-transparent. .Xresources includes a file downhalf-transparent.
the .config rathole that had transparent set to false. However there's
also a 'shade' that was set to 50 which apparently means
0 did the trick. It also gives you a choice of Fluxbox or JWM.I always use LXDE or XFCE ... and both use LightDM.
DSL has gotten fatter since its reboot and is up to 900 MB which stillMy original DSL wasn't terrible, version 2 could
isn't bad in the time of 4 GB+ isos.
OTOH, CNC-style machines for milling/printing
-a circuit boards HAVE become much cheaper. Not
-a as clean as a Weller soldering iron, but they
-a maybe CAN get it done in some cases.
-a My old employer ... betcha they still have all
-a my corrosive stuff for etching circuit boards
-a in the box marked "toxic/hazardous" in the
-a back room somewhere .....
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 23:30:29 -0400, c186282 wrote:
My old employer ... betcha they still have all my corrosive stuff for
etching circuit boards in the box marked "toxic/hazardous" in the
back room somewhere .....
Ferrous oxide? Stuff is evil.
LOVED the early 20th tax forms ... "How much
did you make this year ? See chart. Pay the
indicated amount" ... half a page ... no
bullshit, no deductions, no games.
Actually it's a concentrated ferrous chloride solution with a little
hydrochloric acid added.
On Thu, 19 Mar 2026 03:59:20 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Actually it's a concentrated ferrous chloride solution with a little
hydrochloric acid added.
Brain spasm. Rust wouldn't do much. I didn't add the HCL.
On Thu, 19 Mar 2026 03:59:20 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Actually it's a concentrated ferrous chloride solution with a little
hydrochloric acid added.
Brain spasm. Rust wouldn't do much. I didn't add the HCL.
On 2026-03-19 20:16, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 19 Mar 2026 03:59:20 -0400, c186282 wrote:
-a-a-a Actually it's a concentrated ferrous chloride solution with a little >>> -a-a-a hydrochloric acid added.
Brain spasm. Rust wouldn't do much. I didn't add the HCL.
If I wouldn't know better the keyword "Rust" could make us hope that
the thread has finally found its way back to a topical post about
shell or Linux. Alas, with HCl mentioned you're still speaking about
physical corrosion, I suppose. - Or is that all-caps "HCL" rather an abbreviation for some Hypervised Command Language?
On 3/19/26 15:34, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
On 2026-03-19 20:16, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 19 Mar 2026 03:59:20 -0400, c186282 wrote:
-a-a-a Actually it's a concentrated ferrous chloride solution with a
little
-a-a-a hydrochloric acid added.
Brain spasm. Rust wouldn't do much. I didn't add the HCL.
If I wouldn't know better the keyword "Rust" could make us hope that
the thread has finally found its way back to a topical post about
shell or Linux. Alas, with HCl mentioned you're still speaking about
physical corrosion, I suppose. - Or is that all-caps "HCL" rather an
abbreviation for some Hypervised Command Language?
-a Computers run on electronics - and this is
-a an 'electronics' sub-topic.
I kept buying Circuit Cellar mag until the very end.
On 3/16/26 10:35, Richard Kettlewell wrote:
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
On 16/03/2026 13:52, c186282 wrote:
On 3/16/26 09:06, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 15/03/2026 20:44, rbowman wrote:-a 50 million years of dinosaurs !
In a larger view I think 'survival of the fittest' really is
'survival of anything not too screwed up to live.'-a The x86
architecture wasn't the best either, but here we are.
Yes. The world is comprised of things that haven't become extinct
(yet)...
A million years of dinosaurs and now just jackdaws.
I stand corrected...
Nearer 168M years!
Depends on def of 'dinosaur'. There were 'family'
going back that far ... but the ones WE usually
think of were of later origin - Jurassic/Triassic.
Anyway - no cities, no pyramids, no tablets, no
industrial waste ... 168 million years of NO GAIN.
"Intelligence" is SERIOUSLY ABNORMAL in the DarwinVerse.
-a It IS odd how all but the birdy side of the
-a entire line disappeared so completely. Hey,
-a maybe it was space alien 'big game hunters' !
They fell through cracks in reality that the birds flew over?
I gather than most of the birds and rather a lot of mammals went exinct
too. A 10km asteroid will really mess a planet up.
But ALL the Dinos went out - SUCH a numerous/diverse
base. Big ones, medium ones, little ones ... ALL gone.
Reptiles survived. Amphibians survived. Mammals survived.
Crabs and octopi too.
So, what's up here ???
On Tue, 17 Mar 2026 03:18:35 -0400, c186282 wrote:
I kept buying Circuit Cellar mag until the very end.
What end?
https://circuitcellar.com/
I let my subscription lapse but should pick it up again. I had a big stack
of back issues and figured I'd get around to them when I retired. Most of
the stuff is history now, PIC vs. AVR and so forth.
Alas, 'the tech' has become much different now.
Steve always said his favorite programming language was 'solder'.
Today the tech is two or three levels more complex, all ICs. With the
ultra-shrinking of chips now Normal Humans can't even do-it-yourself.
3mm thru-hole is about the practical limit even for younger eyes and
hands (did a bunch of those, Dremel drill-press and micro-bits and
pointy irons).
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 03:00:08 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Alas, 'the tech' has become much different now.
Steve always said his favorite programming language was 'solder'.
Today the tech is two or three levels more complex, all ICs. With the
ultra-shrinking of chips now Normal Humans can't even do-it-yourself.
3mm thru-hole is about the practical limit even for younger eyes and
hands (did a bunch of those, Dremel drill-press and micro-bits and
pointy irons).
Soldering the headers on boards like the Pico if I screw up and order the headerless version is about the limit of my soldering abilities any more. Even for that I use a magnifier. I never even tried surface mount.
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 03:00:08 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Alas, 'the tech' has become much different now.
Steve always said his favorite programming language was 'solder'.
Today the tech is two or three levels more complex, all ICs. With the
ultra-shrinking of chips now Normal Humans can't even do-it-yourself.
3mm thru-hole is about the practical limit even for younger eyes and
hands (did a bunch of those, Dremel drill-press and micro-bits and
pointy irons).
Soldering the headers on boards like the Pico if I screw up and order the headerless version is about the limit of my soldering abilities any more. Even for that I use a magnifier. I never even tried surface mount.
On 18/03/2026 18:19, rbowman wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 03:00:08 -0400, c186282 wrote:
-a-a-a Alas, 'the tech' has become much different now.
-a-a-a Steve always said his favorite programming language was 'solder'. >>> -a-a-a Today the tech is two or three levels more complex, all ICs. With >>> the
-a-a-a ultra-shrinking of chips now Normal Humans can't even do-it-
yourself.
-a-a-a 3mm thru-hole is about the practical limit even for younger eyes and >>> -a-a-a hands (did a bunch of those, Dremel drill-press and micro-bits and >>> -a-a-a pointy irons).
Soldering the headers on boards like the Pico if I screw up and order the
headerless version is about the limit of my soldering abilities any more.
Even for that I use a magnifier. I never even tried surface mount.
That's about where I stand too. 0.1" pitch I can just about-a handle
Solder paste, solder balls and hot air is above my pay grade
My old employer ... betcha they still have all my corrosive stuff for
etching circuit boards in the box marked "toxic/hazardous" in the
back room somewhere .....
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 23:30:29 -0400, c186282 wrote:
My old employer ... betcha they still have all my corrosive stuff for
etching circuit boards in the box marked "toxic/hazardous" in the
back room somewhere .....
Ferrous oxide? Stuff is evil.
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 23:30:29 -0400, c186282 wrote:
My old employer ... betcha they still have all my corrosive stuff for
etching circuit boards in the box marked "toxic/hazardous" in the
back room somewhere .....
Ferrous oxide? Stuff is evil.
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 03:00:08 -0400, c186282 wrote:
Alas, 'the tech' has become much different now.
Steve always said his favorite programming language was 'solder'.
Today the tech is two or three levels more complex, all ICs. With the
ultra-shrinking of chips now Normal Humans can't even do-it-yourself.
3mm thru-hole is about the practical limit even for younger eyes and
hands (did a bunch of those, Dremel drill-press and micro-bits and
pointy irons).
Soldering the headers on boards like the Pico if I screw up and order the headerless version is about the limit of my soldering abilities any more. Even for that I use a magnifier. I never even tried surface mount.
On 2026-03-19, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Wed, 18 Mar 2026 23:30:29 -0400, c186282 wrote:
My old employer ... betcha they still have all my corrosive stuff for >>> etching circuit boards in the box marked "toxic/hazardous" in the
back room somewhere .....
Ferrous oxide? Stuff is evil.
FeO - hey, I just realized that in Spanish "feo" means "ugly".
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