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The Averatec AV1050-EB1 Laptop: Broken Button, Tedious Taps, and the ... Breath Of DeathOne of LOL’s hand-me-downs, its left button had given up the ghost; it would click no more. ... On the other hand, the LOL had never figured-out how to stop it from “tapping” — that ingenious feature where you can just tap your finger on the touch pad to simulate a mouse click. ... Actually, you could simulate a click by moving your hand in the air above the pad, or perhaps looking at it funny. ... I call it the “random click” feature, and it really livens-up one’s computer experience.... The Breath of DeathAnyway I had a theory on how to fix it, which was to blow real hard into the pad area, thus breaking-up the peanut butter or cola or whatever had congealed in there. ... I will submit that I didn’t dare do this while the computer still belonged to LOL (at least not much); I knew it was an untried, even radical, procedure. ... So I did it, naturally the touch pad got a little cranky, and I shut down with a USB mouse. Whereupon it refused to turn on; no screen. ... I was very very sad.... After a few hours ’though, it magically came back to life, and has done OK for days now. ... So while I cannot entirely recommend the Breath of Death procedure, it was exciting.... |
Anders Hejlsberg and the scripts: The Great Circle Mr. Hejlsberg is the brilliant brain behind the
(Borland) Turbo Pascal
and Delphi RAD IDEs
— the latter the fierce enemy (and copycat) of
Microsoft’s Visual
Basic. Both VB and Delphi are RAD GUI
IDEs
that produce Windows GUI programs. VB, although capable of compilation
in later (post-Delphi) versions, nevertheless seemed to prefer interpreted
code, like its non-GUI predecessor Basics; that is,
it’s
a script
language — and the So Hejlsberg went to work for Microsoft around 1996.
... But what struck me, in these last days, was what a success Turbo Pascal and then Delphi were — and how totally without imitation! ... The interviewer asks Hejlsberg how he came up with this brilliant idea in the early ’80s, and Hejlsberg tries to explain it wasn’t really an idea; it’s just the obvious way people would want to develop code — edit, compile, the editor puts you right at any compile errors, and then you can breakpoint, step, run — all from within the editor — and so he tried to make it that way. ... And he did; and thousands and thousands of programmers, including me, were thrilled, for years and years and years. ... Indeed, he quietly averred Delphi still hasn’t been matched — i.e. a native-code RAD GUI IDE/compiler — which is quite correct. ... One can quibble about obscure expensive Windows offerings, but it’s particularly striking that in the ten years since Delphi, the Linux world hasn’t gotten anything as good as Turbo Pascal, much less Delphi! ... Except when Borland itself offered their ill-fated Delphi-for-Linux Kylix, which the Linuxoids scornfully disdained, supposedly because it didn’t have a GNU-enough license.... ... Indeed, I’ve always thought it’s fairly obvious that one reason Linux/Unix had so many little script languages — there’s a new one every few months — is precisely because they don’t have Turbo Pascal!1 ... And yet, no one’s bothered to make a Turbo clone, much less a GNU-licensed Delphi-like IDE (well actually the poignantly-named Lazarus has almost got there, at last!). ... I’m not sure why that is; I’m inclined to credit paranoid suspicions about guruistic know-it-all insiderist techie I’ve-got-a-secret and-you-don’t supposedly smart guys. ... The average code developer just can’t bear the idea of an EZ way for mortals to write compiled native code without the grinding intricacy that coding, and especially GUI coding, typically requires; I mean, then, anybody could write software.... The Final IronyWhatever. ... The final irony is simple: Microsoft
brought Hejlsberg over for the scripting language to end all
scripting languages: first, the aborted Microsoft Java, and then, the
towering scriptiness of C# and ... So there’s your movie, folks. For some reason, the computer world must subsist on interpreted scripts because native code is too dangerous; too expensive. ... Too useful? ... Even ’though Turbo Pascal wowed ’em in the 80s, the new millennia must have scripts.... Annoyed at ScriptsI’m annoyed at script systems mostly because they’re one more thing that can screw-up. ... If I write a Delphi program, I expect it to work on numerous machines other than the one I wrote it on. ... With a script, no matter how cute, I expect (1.) the script interpreter to be missing, (2.) the correct version etc. to be missing, (3.) the interpreter to be incompatible in some way that is beyond the comprehension of all living things, (4.) and etc. ... I concede, what with security and the ever-rushing multiplication of junk, I’m probably just delusional — i.e. everything’s like that in these latter days!... And of course, despite
seeming
like a wrong turn to me ... it’s not even that popular! ...
Throngs
are not
rushing
to embrace C# and — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 10:56 am 1. After a 2-hour session with BASH for a minor script change, I would have to submit another likely suspect for the ubiquity of the little Linux script languages: the ABSOLUTE AWFUL STUPID SCUMMY MORONIC BASH oral-tradition alleged script language. ... It’s that good. ... It’s not really Unix’s fault, but it is a pitifully annoying public shame, especially after years of these snooty morons’ august put downs of the pathetic MSDOS batch language — which has a known limited set of rules, and can actually be used by mortals without 10 years of trench experience. ... That, of course, is why Microsoft has been furiously imitating Linux with new super-script languages and a thousand syntactical rules; the latest, I believe, is “power shell”. ... But they’ll never catch up; BASH has special syntactical rules for every single punctuation mark; numbers of them; constellations! ... I was foolishly trying to allow the user — me — to query the proc like “proc ?” but “?” of course is a wild card — one BASH book didn’t even have it in the index! They forgot — which is one of the many extreme annoyances of this briliant script chaos, as I have already whined-about in my brilliant essay on recursive grep.
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Dr. Dobbs: The Last of the Programming Magazines?At least, the last of the old programming magazines. ... Visual Studio Magazine is supposedly still going, but I haven’t seen a newsstand copy in a while; there are a few Java and Microsoft magazines, but their focus is rarely programming per se, but more how to use whatever features have been introduced in the latest Sun or Microsoft product announcement. ... And then of course I hope I’ve missed some newcomer — but if so, they’re not in Barnes & Noble or Borders.... And I’m afraid Dobbs itself isn’t long for this vale of tears. ... I’ve only picked up an issue now and then over recent years at least, because their algorithm focus has never appealed; shockingly, I’ve found programming is rarely about finding the latest cleverest way to do something, but more like finding some feasible reliable relatively nonbuggy way. ... Anyway, somewhere in the interval they’ve dropped the letters column, a sure sign the end is near. ... One of the minor puzzles about the Dobbs debacle is how the publisher CMP (1.) shut-down Software Development Magazine first; then (2.) transferred many of the SDM features to Dobbs; and finally (3.) didn’t transfer the excellent SDM editor Alexandra Morales, who apparently was just let to wander off into the night. ... I suppose since the magazines are all closing anyway, it’s hardly important.... The obvious place all these magazines are going is the internet (but see my other cranky theories), and indeed the last few magazine collapses I’ve attended included relentless promotion of the magazine’s “web page” or “portal”, and Dobbs is no exception; indeed, their portal just froze up Firefox! ... So sad. ... It’s true when I’m looking for technical information, I turn to the internet first, and I suppose these programming magazines have survived for years at least in part by persuading newcomers to pay them to learn about programming, which doesn’t work anymore since everyone knows about the internet.... But one of the things I learned early-on in my internet years — and before, in the days of dial-up bulletin boards! — was that positively the worst sites were the magazines’; they were often out-of-date and broken. The best sites have been — and as far as I know, continue to be — low- or non-profits, run at least to some extent for the amusement of the web master. It does not do to rail against fate, but I will miss the magazines — perhaps as much for their snooty pretensions as anything else! ... My goodness, the latest Dobbs finally admitted that Java occasionally stops for a few seconds to garbage collect — just like my 6809 Radio Shack Color Computer Microsoft Basic! ... I’ve never seen that admission in any magazine before! How many years did it take to ’fess up!? ... And to whom do I complain now? No letters column and, soon, no magazine! ... Oh how I loved to fume and write cranky letters to the editor!... —
the
autumnal programmer
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So
What
Happened to
|
|
NET incarnation of the product,
although
it
discarded much of the barbaric syntax of its nominal ancestor, has
returned to its roots to the extent that interpreted script output
is again the only mode, like the other 
In an
interview I saw — somewhere around 
