Seattle Forrest

Most of my job is fixing accessibility bugs. Stuff like there has to be enough contrast between text and background, everything that can be done with the mouse has to be possible With the keyboard, all information in a UI must be available to screen readers. I got assigned a bug about screen readers skipping over something important, I found where in the code that UI element was created, but it's in C++ and that's all I had to say to get it reassigned. 🙂

I'm not especially good at UI development. For something without one I'd be less turned off. But still for things like reading a file, it's less code in C# and all the classes you use are part of the language so everyone will do it more it less the same way, and you can pick a lot of projects up without having to know a specific library.

Your SET example looks cool. What IDE do you like to use?

You should give C# a look, the compiler and dev environment sure free for personal use.

RubeRad

IDE is a good question. I always edit in emacs. Too deep into the fingers, no matter where I am I start CTRL-N or CTRL-P and it's not pretty. At work (C++ application for windows) it's Visual Studio and it's a pretty fantastic tool to use as a debugger. I compile from the command-line.

At home on Ubuntu it's another story. Mostly stuff I do for myself is simple enough I can get away with print statements or logging. I'm not able to use gdb raw, ddd is not much better. Googling a little, it looks like Eclipse handles C++, I should invest a few hours and figure out how to set up and use that.

The SET thing is actually about the only thing I can think of I did at home in C++, mostly it used to be perl and now it's python. (See for instance github.com/RubeRad/MarcoMD, a clone of Dr Mario)

RubeRad

Interesting -- so you must be the king of all keyboard shortcuts! When you say screen reader, do you mean tech for assisting the visually impaired?

Seattle Forrest

I use Visual Studio, at work and for any personal projects. (Don't have a github account, no link to share.) Mostly I do those for leaning purposes, or to simplify a workflow and save myself time. At work we build the code from the command line, and git from the cmd prompt too. Some people use Notepad++ instead of VS.

What do you like about emacs, besides familiarity? 🙂

Seattle Forrest

I probably use shortcuts less than other devs myself, I still use them a lot but there are some common things I just never remember the key combination for.

Yeah, exactly, there's software that can read out what's on the screen for the visually impaired. When they're doing something more complex like, say, creating a user account for the network, where they'll have to interact with different types of controls like text boxes, combo boxes, buttons, lists, etc, screen readers try their best, but you can add code to help the screen reader better understand things and so give the user a better experience. It's valuable to have, but kind of niche especially since most companies don't expect to need this. I can feel good about it though, legally blind people (for example) don't have many job options, people with poor muscle control can't stock shelves. So making software that they can use means they can work in IT.

njkayaker

For that project, C# wouldn't give you anything more than C++ (also a language you are familiar with).

C++ kind of evolved over many years. C# was more of a "clean slate" that didn't need to consider backwards compatibility.

I wrote a fairly-complicated Windows program using C# under Visual Studio and I really liked the experience.

RubeRad

Well bitd emacs was ahead of its time, in that it invented (as far as I'm aware) the concept of working with multiple files at once. Switch between buffers, split the screen to display multiple buffers, etc. Nowadays all IDE editors are tabbed and tabs can be split into separate panes, and there's syntax highlighting and automatic indentation etc etc, so I don't know that emacs has any capability distinctives anymore.

When I was in college the computer lab was just a room full of terminals to a server, and we all had tight cpu quotas. Everybody knew you had to use vi, because using emacs would burn up your quota. I don't remember when I switched. I can still vi in a pinch, but I always feel like I"m speaking a foreign language.

I'm getting kind of weaned off of emacs actually because for python I always work directly in PyCharm. Also a nice debugger to work in. And it's nice to have function-name completion and function signature popups and an optional side-pane with auto-formatted docstrings.

RubeRad

Shorter answer, I can do EVERYTHING in emacs without ever having to move my hand over to the mouse.

Rollfast

I had more mice than PCs, but I have glue traps...

dontcallmebrave

Something like 96% of the servers on the internet run linux, every android phone, chromebook and most IOT devices run on modified versions of linux as well, I wouldn't say it's a very niche product just because it doesn't have an overwhelming desktop market share lol

Lemond1985

Linux has quietly killed the OS market, there's no longer any money in it. Gates has gone into the vaccine business. The next version of Windows will be vaccine, and you're gonna love the blue screen of death when it inevitably crashes and freezes up just like the MS product.

RubeRad

I also like to say, pshaw to your 3-button mouse. I'm rockin 104 buttons

Seattle Forrest

Please don't use glue traps. That's a horrible way to die. There are more humane ways to get the job done.

wgscott

vim

I even use vi key bindings in my shell setup.

Rollfast

They rob the old fashioned traps. Quite frankly having one or more scurrying about and leaving a ton of poop in kitchen cupboards and utensil drawers and my dresser and being medically compromised is just as cruel. Believe me, I don't need the endless cleaning and my cat agrees.

When the neighborhood was overgrown with up to 3' tall growth in the spring of 2017 I had ten of them invade the house one after another. It's not like my friend that catches spiders and sets them outside.

And they are as scared of you as you are of them. Having one is having a family of them and I've seen the same baby grow and have babies.

I wish that I could dismiss it like you but I can't, and I've been relatively mouse free since the exterminator came, then after that only one found the trap and that was a few months ago.

Ants just come in now and them and try to take over as well, they too are gone.

PS They stick to you as well, you know, that's some kind of superglue.

burnfatburn

I just updated from 16.04 to 18.04 ubuntu. still much to learn and a lot of thing confusing. its kinda like learning magic

RubeRad

?? Just? 20.04 is coming out in literally a few days

Rollfast

20.04 is Windows 10 upgrade 2004 (or APRIL 2020), It has already filled the bit bucket.

Zedoo

I don't code, but I left Windows around a decade ago. Now I need lightweight distros, since I usually have some cheap old PC. I recently upgraded to 64 bit. I currently like Lubuntu and Peppermint.

mtb_addict

how many kinds of Linux is there?

my Linux computer...
it has Linux kernel, but it is not really "Linux" as far as software or hardware is concerned.
just like Android and iOS claim to be Linux based; but they is not really Linux.
you cannot run a x86 Linux executables on these. so you find a piece of Linux software you need, but it won't run on your kind of Linux.
my Rasp Pi wont run these Linux executables eiher.
my Rasp Pi only run programs from the Rasp Pi repository.
Hardware manufacturers dont make drivers for Rasp Pi.
so it is limiting.

so i think this is a problem with Linux. Too many different kinds. Ubuntu, Debian, Redhat, Raspberrypi, etc. Too confusing. result in limiting, frustrating user experience. on other hand, when you buy any Windows pc, it pretty much work right out of the box, because theres only one Windows. and every vendors make software and drivers and hardware for Windows.

so many people try "Linux"... give up...then go back to Windows.

njkayaker

This is kind of a mess.

=================

Android is its own system that happens to run on top of Linux. So, you are correct, it really isn't Linux to the end user.

IOS is kind of similar but it runs on top of BSD Unix (not Linux). Like the case with Android, it really isn't BSD Unix to the end user.

It's sort of like running Excel on Windows: using/programming Excel is its own thing and has little to do with running it on Windows or a Machintosh.

=========================

The problem you are talking about about "x86 executables" is related to differences in architecture (not differences in Linux versions/distros).
​​​​
Linux is an operating system that runs on many different computer "architectures". There are two architectures in common use: x86 and ARM.

There are different operating systems (Windows, Linux, etc) which can run on the same architecture (as well as different ones).

To be able to copy and use an executable file both things must match: the executable must be built ("compiled") using the same operating system and the same architecture. **

The different flavors ("distros") of Linux are mostly equivalent. In the same way that different versions (XP, 7, 8, 10) of Windows are equivalent. You can often/usually copy executables between different versions of the same operating system IF the architecture is the same.

You can (generally) copy executables between Linux versions when the architecture is the same (I do this regularly for work).

"Drivers" are another thing. The have the same issues as executable but additional ones as well.

They are small bits of code (like executable files) that communicate between the operating system and a piece of hardware. They are typically custom-written by the hardware manufacturer, which they won't do if they expect not enough people using a particular operating system) architecture will buy the hardware.

----------------------------------
** There are ways of getting around this using "emulators" and such but it's unusual and not the normal case.

wgscott

One.

The distributions differ, but the underlying stuff is largely the same.

The main differences between the distributions are typically how they do package management.

For example, one of the main (and maybe the oldest) such system is called debian, and the packages are distributed in the form of what are called debian archive files, having a suffix .deb. They are basically just tar archives with a listing of contents and a script to tell the installation software what to put where, and a list of dependencies, so if you install vim or scientific-python, it will make sure all the libraries and stuff those rely upon get installed along with it. Ubuntu is based on debian, but tries to be a bit more user-friendly. Another set of distributions is based on "Red Hat" and its package management system, which keeps changing. I think the current one is yum. These are all similar enough that you can convert a .deb archive into a .rh archive, and so forth.

So basically, there is one meal on the menu, but it can be served in a bunch of different ways. Kind of like Santa Cruz bikes. Except it is (usually) free.

enine

I started with Dos and Windows 3.1 and went to 95 then NT4 and Windows 2000 and finally XP. Every version of Windows through 2000 was an improvement in speed and stability. Then XP came and it took twice as long from bootup to being useable on the same hardware. XP could only run two Vmware guests before it started running into performance issues, the same workstation I was running 4-6 under 2000. Then there was the integration of IE and we started getting hit with malware. Two infections within the first year of using XP myself, bad enough that I had to reinstall both times. Then there was the suspend/resume unreliability as well as USB issues. I was at a smaller company and we setup RedHat and Netsaint (now Nagios) for server monitoring. I tried it out on my XP laptop dual booting. I could run Windows under vmware under RedHat as fast as it was native. Got back the stability I had with windows 2000 again. I tried a couple distros and finally settled on Slackware and have stayed there ever since. It does everything I need without the constant problems Windows has. Family still has Windows since they need for school/games, still nothing but problems with it.

Blues

I've been using various versions of Linux for two decades. The first few years, I still needed a Window$ machine for some software like CAD. For about 15 years, I have used some flavor of Ubuntu Linux exclusively. I use it for word processing, sound editing, html code editing, manipulating files for a website, web browsing, photo editing, spreadsheet work, photo organization, file backup synchronization, 2D CAD, video editing, video playing, email and video conferencing.

You don't have to be a computer guru to get practical use out of a Linux system. It gets more user friendly each year. There are a lot of software packages available.

enine

Any more I find Linux easier to use than Windows, just trying to get my wife's laptop reconnect to the wifi every couple months wastes a couple hours of time. For some reason it decides there is no wifi despite there being like 50 points in then neighborhood so I have to do the repair/uninstall/reinstall crap.