Dave Uhring wrote:
> On Sat, 10 May 2008 14:43:25 +0200, Dick Hoogendijk wrote:
>
>> So far universal languages/dates are only used in SF books.
>
> And units, too. I had a friend in Vancouver, BC, who after hearing the
> weather forecast using SI units on radio asked what the temperature was in
> REAL units.
>

It's all about what you are used to! I can convert Fahrenheit to
Celsius or vice versa but, having grown up with Fahrenheit I'm used to
68 degrees as "room temperature" and 98.6 degrees as the "normal"
temperature of the human body. I FEEL Fahrenheit whereas Celsius is
merely an intellectual exercise.

SI units are how the English units are defined but milk is sold in
quarts rather than liters and gasoline is sold in gallons. Butter is
sold by the pound rather than the kilogram. There was a brief period in
the late 1980s or early 1990s when an effort was made to sell gasoline
by the liter instead of the gallon. The idea failed to receive "popular
acceptance"! Things are marked with the SI units as well as English
units but that's about as far was we have gotten!

On Sat, 10 May 2008 15:55:43 -0500, Chris Mattern wrote:
> On 2008-05-10, Dave Uhring <daveuhring@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> And units, too. I had a friend in Vancouver, BC, who after hearing the
>> weather forecast using SI units on radio asked what the temperature was in
>> REAL units.
>>
> I'm sorry, but I'm with your friend on this one. I can't understand
> whether I need to wear a coat or not until I convert the temperature
> to Fahrenheit.

I'd like to be with her again, too

But I didn't have any problem converting the units for her. After years
of using SI and translating those units to what I grew up with I could
answer her within a couple of seconds.

"Greg Menke" <gusenet@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:86r6cd5832.fsf@apshai.pienet...
>
> Ramon F Herrera <ramon@conexus.net> writes:
>
>> On May 6, 6:18 pm, Chris Mattern <sys...@sumire.gwu.edu> wrote:
>>> On 2008-05-05, Ramon F Herrera <ra...@conexus.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> > The best server OS in the history of computing, together with the best
>>> > desktop.
>>>
>>
>>> Yes, but what would Apple contribute?
>>>
>>
>> (1) The best desktop OS
>
> lol!
>
> In its own way OSX is as miserable as Windows. Which would be fine if
> it wasn't also so weird on the command-line. Leopard is a lot better
> than prev editions but theres a LOT of weirdness in OSX. Authentication
> & daemon management to name two are bizarre, poorly or undocumented and
> quite user-unfriendly- the XML you have to wade through in OSX is a real
> PITA- and don't get me started on how obnoxious Finder is.

XML is permeating Solaris too. And I think it stupid. Up until Solaris 8
there was not a tangent in Solaris development, it seemed UNIX like all the
way.

In Solaris 9 there was a hint of trouble to come. More have and
"directoryserver" to start LDAP. Now no self respecting UNIX guru would
create a command that long. A sign of newbees at the OS development table.

Solaris 10, oh the XML. You soon realize there just are some places XML is
just a pain in the back side. And configuration files is one. Ditto Java,
because some developer can't write C or C++ does not mean writting it in
Java is the best way to go.

Hoping Solaris 11 gets back on track. But becoming more proficient on Linux
just in case.

And nothing is as miserable as MS-Windows Vista. Take OSX in a heart beat.

Canuck57 wrote:
> "Greg Menke" <gusenet@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:86r6cd5832.fsf@apshai.pienet...
>> Ramon F Herrera <ramon@conexus.net> writes:
>>
>>> On May 6, 6:18 pm, Chris Mattern <sys...@sumire.gwu.edu> wrote:
>>>> On 2008-05-05, Ramon F Herrera <ra...@conexus.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> The best server OS in the history of computing, together with the best
>>>>> desktop.
>>>> Yes, but what would Apple contribute?
>>>>
>>> (1) The best desktop OS
>> lol!
>>
>> In its own way OSX is as miserable as Windows. Which would be fine if
>> it wasn't also so weird on the command-line. Leopard is a lot better
>> than prev editions but theres a LOT of weirdness in OSX. Authentication
>> & daemon management to name two are bizarre, poorly or undocumented and
>> quite user-unfriendly- the XML you have to wade through in OSX is a real
>> PITA- and don't get me started on how obnoxious Finder is.
>
> XML is permeating Solaris too. And I think it stupid. Up until Solaris 8
> there was not a tangent in Solaris development, it seemed UNIX like all the
> way.
>
> In Solaris 9 there was a hint of trouble to come. More have and
> "directoryserver" to start LDAP. Now no self respecting UNIX guru would
> create a command that long. A sign of newbees at the OS development table.
>

I suppose you would have preferred something like
lqp \/!x;z?/
Definitely more "Unix like". The trouble is, people have to read it and
type it; hopefully without error!

If you had to type "directoryserver" five or six times a day, I could,
maybe, understand the hardship. It seems to me, though, that it's
something that would go in a startup script somewhere and be forgotten.

On 2008-05-10 21:55:43 +0100, Chris Mattern <syscjm@sumire.gwu.edu> said:

> On 2008-05-10, Dave Uhring <daveuhring@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 10 May 2008 14:43:25 +0200, Dick Hoogendijk wrote:
>>
>>> So far universal languages/dates are only used in SF books.
>>
>> And units, too. I had a friend in Vancouver, BC, who after hearing the
>> weather forecast using SI units on radio asked what the temperature was in
>> REAL units.
>>
> I'm sorry, but I'm with your friend on this one. I can't understand
> whether I need to wear a coat or not until I convert the temperature
> to Fahrenheit.

Wow, their radio station gives temperatures in kelvin?

Cheers,

Chris

On Sun, 11 May 2008, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:

> > In Solaris 9 there was a hint of trouble to come. More have and
> > "directoryserver" to start LDAP. Now no self respecting UNIX guru would
> > create a command that long. A sign of newbees at the OS development table.
> >
>
> I suppose you would have preferred something like
> lqp \/!x;z?/
> Definitely more "Unix like". The trouble is, people have to read it and type
> it; hopefully without error!

"ldapd" would be the canonical UNIX-like choice for this example, I think.
Nothing hard about that...

--
Rich Teer, SCSA, SCNA, SCSECA

CEO,
My Online Home Inventory

URLs: http://www.rite-group.com/rich
http://www.linkedin.com/in/richteer
http://www.myonlinehomeinventory.com

On 2008-05-11 18:37:01 +0100, Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> said:

> On Sun, 11 May 2008, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>
>>> In Solaris 9 there was a hint of trouble to come. More have and
>>> "directoryserver" to start LDAP. Now no self respecting UNIX guru would
>>> create a command that long. A sign of newbees at the OS development table.
>>>
>>
>> I suppose you would have preferred something like
>> lqp \/!x;z?/
>> Definitely more "Unix like". The trouble is, people have to read it and type
>> it; hopefully without error!
>
> "ldapd" would be the canonical UNIX-like choice for this example, I think.
> Nothing hard about that...

Except in practice it is the LDAP to DAP gateway daemon, and the
LDAP-only server you were probably thinking of is called slapd :-)

Cheers,

Chris