People don't seem to want to help newbies in here!

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Patricia Shanahan said something like:

I was in a similar situation recently. I'm trying to improve my Perl
style,

Not possible. The language is designed for obfuscation. I mean, "$|"
and "$<" ??? Gimme a break....

and wanted to get hold of some examples of well-written Perl. If
I had a good enough feel for Perl style evaluate to code quality myself,
I would not have needed examples.

My solution was to post a request to comp.lang.perl.moderated. It was
presumably an acceptable solution, because if it were not, the request
would not have reached a moderated newsgroup. Several people made
helpful suggestions and also recommended books. Nobody told me to get
lost.

Not directed at you, but I believe that the biggest thing that many here
forget is that when you are a newbie (in anything) it is not always just a
matter of not knowing the answer to something. It is often not knowing how
to even ask the question properly, or even what the the question should
fully be. This results in very vague questions, which should not result in
admonishment.

 

[Chris Uppal]

There are two version of Avant:

- One based off of IE (http://www.avantbrowser.com)

- One based off of Mozilla. This is Orca Browser 1.0 RC 3
(http://dl.filekicker.com/send/file/166091-YKTW/osetup.exe)

So there are! I /did/ Google for it, but only found/noticed the IE-based
version, and instantly rejected that as untrustworthy

-- chris

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Chris Uppal said something like:

So there are! I /did/ Google for it, but only found/noticed the IE-based
version, and instantly rejected that as untrustworthy

-- chris

Being IE based might not mean that it brings all the baggage and
crap-notions of IE with it. It might mean that it is only using the
underlying .dll's for the rendering. Avant could well be supplying all the
additional features that IE doesn't and still use the IE dll's. {shrug} I
just don't know---in fact, I didn't even know there were two versions of
Avant.

I'm using the IE version apparently
(http://www.avantbrowser.com/download.html) and am pleased at all it can do
with resizing that IE cannot. BTW----I haven't tried the Mozilla based
version, but is that going to suffer from the same startup lag?

 

[rubinboy]

well the best tuts that i can sugest is www.java.sun.com really that
is were i learnt all of what i know from....

 

[IchBin]

So there are! I /did/ Google for it, but only found/noticed the IE-based
version, and instantly rejected that as untrustworthy

-- chris

Yea, sorry I can not remember how I tripped over the Orca browser. It
was about a year ago. I know that I was looking at the Avant version.
Orca does have a home page at http://www.orcabrowser.com. Problem is it
is not functioning yet.

As I understand it the Orca version has not had any updates for the last
seven months. It is still in it's initial Version at RC 3. I understand
that once the author get the latest Avant browser up to version 11 he
will start working on the Orca version. Maybe this is the reason the
Orca website is not functioning yet. I have never had any problems with
using the Orca RC 3 that is available now. I think new versions will
make it faster and add new functionality.

I have heard it call "Dr Orca". As i mentioned there is a website that
is not functioning yet for Orca. I think that, as with the IE version,
the DLL's are used based off the Mozilla and IE browsers respectively.
In fact I was in one of the Orca forums and someone else, not the
author, built an update for Orca that would update the Mozilla DLL's. I
think it was from 1.5.0 to 1.5.1. The place to keep up on Orca,
presently, is the Orca forums.

I am real happy with the Orca browser.

Wikipedia
http://www.answers.com/topic/avant-browser

http://digg.com/software/Orca_Browser_1.0_Release_Candidate_3_beta

Avant Browser community forum (Orca Browser Group):
http://forum.avantbrowser.com/index.php

You can google for Orca Browser. Most are not in English.

Thanks in Advance...
IchBin, Pocono Lake, Pa, USA http://weconsultants.phpnet.us
__________________________________________________________________________

'If there is one, Knowledge is the "Fountain of Youth"'
-William E. Taylor, Regular Guy (1952-)

 

[Patricia Shanahan]

Patricia Shanahan said something like: ....

Not possible. The language is designed for obfuscation. I mean, "$|"
and "$<" ??? Gimme a break....

All Perl programs are obscure, but some are more obscure than others,
and wanting to write to the less obscure end is a reasonable ambition.

One of my proudest moments as a programmer was when I got back to the
office after being away for a day, and found that one of my colleagues,
an EE who knew some Perl, had added code to cover an extra case to one
of my scripts. When I looked that the code, he had not only managed to
make it work - his code fitted into the structure I intended, just as
though I had written it.

....

Not directed at you, but I believe that the biggest thing that many here
forget is that when you are a newbie (in anything) it is not always just a
matter of not knowing the answer to something. It is often not knowing how
to even ask the question properly, or even what the the question should
fully be. This results in very vague questions, which should not result in
admonishment.

That's a good point. Asking the right question is a skill in its own
right, and one that improves with experience. New programmers are often
also new programming question framers.

Patricia

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Patricia Shanahan said something like:

....[thwack]...

That's a good point. Asking the right question is a skill in its own
right, and one that improves with experience. New programmers are often
also new programming question framers.

Patricia

Of course, but go beyond that. New basket weavers are often new basket
weaver question framers. So it goes for all endeavors, and we should have
that tattooed in mirror writing on our foreheads.

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

IchBin said something like:

Yea, sorry I can not remember how I tripped over the Orca browser. It
was about a year ago. I know that I was looking at the Avant version.
Orca does have a home page at http://www.orcabrowser.com. Problem is it
is not functioning yet.

As I understand it the Orca version has not had any updates for the last
seven months. It is still in it's initial Version at RC 3. I understand
that once the author get the latest Avant browser up to version 11 he
will start working on the Orca version. Maybe this is the reason the
Orca website is not functioning yet. I have never had any problems with
using the Orca RC 3 that is available now. I think new versions will
make it faster and add new functionality.

I have heard it call "Dr Orca".

"dorka" ? lol....

Seriously though, I'm missing the /why/ . Is their an advantage to an
Avant/mozilla over Avant/IE? You need not convince me of mozilla vs. IE,
but having Avant on top is hardly just a sugar coating.


....[ker-snip]...

 

[Chris Uppal]

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

[me:]

Being IE based might not mean that it brings all the baggage and
crap-notions of IE with it.

"Might not" isn't /nearly/ a strong enough reassurance -- remember we are
talking about security here, not functionality. "It seems to work" is a fine
test in practice for functionality; it is of no value whatsoever for security.

Actually, I would go further than that. [The rest of this is based on my
limited attempts to master the MS APIs for the IE HTML component] The security
model of the HTML component is obscure and ill documented. That is /fatal/ for
security. The model has to be clear and precise -- MS's is neither. I admit I
didn't spend long looking at it (on the grounds that if I /do/ have to spend a
long time looking at it, then it is not trustworthy), but I didn't even manage
to find out what my responsibilities were as a programmer using the control and
desiring complete control over the thing's external actions.

Also the security model has to be designed in from the start -- and (as a
matter of history) MS didn't do that. Indeed, they choose a basic execution
model that was almost impossible to make even moderately secure since they
/wanted/ the HTML rendering process to have full access to the power of the
computer.

Note that even just /parsing/ HTML is a major problem (not specifically to MS's
products), since the JavaScript stuff determines what the HTML actually is --
so it has to run in tandem with the parser. It is that, plus the fact that
MS's JavaScript stuff is part of its system-level scripting stuff, which makes
me refuse to consider that component for any production use except where the
text to be parsed is generated by the application itself.

I'm not claiming that MS's control is inherently worse than the engine in
Firefox/Mozilla -- I don't have enough data about the latter. I very much
doubt whether the Gecko engine is as safe as it might appear at first glance
(the JavaScript problem again). However, all things considered (including
non-functional aspects such as relative popularity), I'm happier using a Gecko
based browser for my own web wanderings, and would be /less/ reluctant to use
it as the basis of an application requiring HTML rendering.

-- chris

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Chris Uppal said something like:

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

[me:]

Being IE based might not mean that it brings all the baggage and
crap-notions of IE with it.

"Might not" isn't /nearly/ a strong enough reassurance -- remember we are
talking about security here, not functionality. "It seems to work" is a
fine
test in practice for functionality; it is of no value whatsoever for
security.

Something you feel strongly about Chris? lol....ok

Thanks for information, you've given me something to think about.

....[informative post snipped]...

--
Puzzle: You are given a deck of cards all face down
except for 10 cards mixed in which are face up.
If you are in a pitch black room, how do you divide
the deck into two piles (may be uneven) that each
contain the same number of face-up cards?
Answer (rot13): Sebz naljurer va gur qrpx, qrny bhg
gra pneqf naq syvc gurz bire.

 

[Oliver Wong]

message

Unfortunately, what is, to a beginner, a difficult question is often, to
experienced programmers, a FAQ or a setup/configuration problem. e.g.
NoClassDefFound.

I think the intended distinction is:

If you're having problems with a program that you are writing, post to
".programmer".
If you're an end user and just want to get the damn thing to work, post
to ".help".

- Oliver

 

[Oliver Wong]

PofN said something like:


There is *everything* wrong with that.

Let's take the OP's example of asking for suggestions for good tutorials.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with asking for such things in that regard
because he would be asking the audience of java experts what their
opinions were. If you were to ask a group of folks at lunch if they knew
of any good tutorials in something you're a newbie at, I'm sure you'd
*love* to hear "google it first" with the implication that you've just
done something wrong.

Actually, I've done exactly that:

Friend: "I wanna buy a G4 Mac."
Me: "Why? They're expensive."
Friend: "The OS looks pretty sweet."
Me: "They've got OSX for x86 now, you know..."
Friend: "Really? Sweet, I'll go check it out."
Me: "Yeah, but you need like a specific Intel chipset or something..."
Friend: "Oh, that sucks."
Me: "I heard they hacked it so it can run on other Intel chips, but not AMD
yet."
Friend: "How do you do that?"
Me: "I don't remember the URL off the top of my head. I'm sure if you google
for 'OSX on x86' you'll find something."

and also:

Friend: "[forgot what he said that triggered this]."
Me: "Yeah, they actually have entire computer systems that calculate traffic
flow and optimize the traffic light schedules based on time of day and
stuff."
Friend: "Really?"
Me: "Yeah, go to Wikipedia and look up 'traffic system' or something like
that."

so I don't find it unreasonable at all to direct someone to a search
engine even in a face-to-face conversation.

- Oliver

 

[Oliver Wong]

Being IE based might not mean that it brings all the baggage and
crap-notions of IE with it. It might mean that it is only using the
underlying .dll's for the rendering.

To me, this is enough of a reason to reject it, as IE's rendering system
is broken.

- Oliver

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Oliver Wong said something like:

"Thomas G. Marshall"

PofN said something like:


There is *everything* wrong with that.

Let's take the OP's example of asking for suggestions for good tutorials.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with asking for such things in that regard
because he would be asking the audience of java experts what their
opinions were. If you were to ask a group of folks at lunch if they knew
of any good tutorials in something you're a newbie at, I'm sure you'd
*love* to hear "google it first" with the implication that you've just
done something wrong.

Actually, I've done exactly that:

Friend: "I wanna buy a G4 Mac."
Me: "Why? They're expensive."
Friend: "The OS looks pretty sweet."
Me: "They've got OSX for x86 now, you know..."
Friend: "Really? Sweet, I'll go check it out."
Me: "Yeah, but you need like a specific Intel chipset or something..."
Friend: "Oh, that sucks."
Me: "I heard they hacked it so it can run on other Intel chips, but not
AMD
yet."
Friend: "How do you do that?"
Me: "I don't remember the URL off the top of my head. I'm sure if you
google
for 'OSX on x86' you'll find something."

and also:

Friend: "[forgot what he said that triggered this]."
Me: "Yeah, they actually have entire computer systems that calculate
traffic
flow and optimize the traffic light schedules based on time of day and
stuff."
Friend: "Really?"
Me: "Yeah, go to Wikipedia and look up 'traffic system' or something like
that."

so I don't find it unreasonable at all to direct someone to a search
engine even in a face-to-face conversation.

- Oliver

......Which isn't the point at all; please re-read the conversation. The
issue is whether or not to *insist* that someone do the research on google
first. Your examples had no such insistence.

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Oliver Wong said something like:

"Thomas G. Marshall"


To me, this is enough of a reason to reject it, as IE's rendering
system
is broken.

- Oliver

Perhaps. But an interesting thing has happened in that regard. When people
design web sites, they almost always design *for* IE first. The reason has
to do simply with numbers.

Thus to a large extent, whatever IE does ends up becoming a standard unto
its own. Broken or not.

 

[Oliver Wong]

Oliver Wong said something like:

Perhaps. But an interesting thing has happened in that regard. When
people design web sites, they almost always design *for* IE first. The
reason has to do simply with numbers.

When I design sites, I design them for W3C's HTML standard first, and
then apply tweaks to get them to look decently in IE6. I'm not alone in this
(as a link I will post in a moment will demonstrate).

Thus to a large extent, whatever IE does ends up becoming a standard unto
its own. Broken or not.

Apparently IE7 will not stick to the same "defacto" standard that IE6
created. See http://www.acko.net/blog/the-ie7-myth

Thus, if you coded for IE6, you'll have to redesign your site when IE7
comes out.

- Oliver

 

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Oliver Wong said something like:

....[rip]...

When I design sites, I design them for W3C's HTML standard first, and
then apply tweaks to get them to look decently in IE6. I'm not alone in
this
(as a link I will post in a moment will demonstrate).

If you design for a unified HTML standard and then concentrate first on
applying the correct tweaks on getting it to work with IE, then you are most
certainly in effect coding it first for IE.

Tangentally, if you are designing for a unified HTML standard and then not
directing your attention afterwards toward IE first, then you are shooting
yourself in the foot, due to sheer numbers alone.

Apparently IE7 will not stick to the same "defacto" standard that IE6
created. See http://www.acko.net/blog/the-ie7-myth

Thus, if you coded for IE6, you'll have to redesign your site when IE7
comes out.

I don't doubt that for a second. However whenever IE rev X comes out, *it*
will be the primary focus until rev X+1 comes out, at which point X+1 is the
primary focus. That E7 establishes a differing set of requirements, and
puts IE as an insane moving target is profoundly aggravating, but doesn't
change the motivation for using it (at whatever rev.) as a "standard" to aim
for.

No matter how much redesign it causes.

 

[Bjorn Borud]

[Martin Gregorie <[email protected]>]
|
| In my experience its hard to go wrong with an O'Reilly book if you
| don't have a personal recommendation for something else.

well, I've never liked "Java in a nutshell". the API doc parts are
redundant and the rest of the text is neither good for beginners nor
of any use for more seasoned Java-developers.

writing a book for beginners is hard. especially since there is more
than one kind of beginner. I am currently learning Ruby, which is a
completely new language to me, and I am constantly annoyed with things
that are left out or prematurely included in the first part of
"Programming Ruby, the pragmatic programmers guide". but on the whole,
this is one of the better books I've seen.

I liked the O'Reilly "Learning <...>"-books I've seen. I have bought
several of them for friends in order to help them learn additional
languages.

| The only bad O'Reilly book I've seen, and I've bought several, is the
| "Sendmail" one - and that's a real clunker.

the Sendmail book is bad mainly because of Sendmail. Sendmail is a
"rite of passage"-sort of thing. young men become hackers once
they've written a Sendmail config entirely from scratch. then they
become proper professionals the day they discover that Sendmail
represents unnecessary complexity and exorcise it from their systems.

I think the first really bad O'Reilly book I saw was the "Writing GNU
Emacs extensions". I wish O'Reilly would get someone to write a
completely new one and get an author who actually knows how to write
Emacs extensions.

-Bjørn

 

[Martin Gregorie]

[Martin Gregorie <[email protected]>]
| The only bad O'Reilly book I've seen, and I've bought several, is the
| "Sendmail" one - and that's a real clunker.

the Sendmail book is bad mainly because of Sendmail. Sendmail is a
"rite of passage"-sort of thing. young men become hackers once
they've written a Sendmail config entirely from scratch. then they
become proper professionals the day they discover that Sendmail
represents unnecessary complexity and exorcise it from their systems.

This is, of course, true.

However, the book is additionally bad because its badly organised, fails
to talk about the forest while describing trees in detail and then
compounds the problem by referring to several trees it never describes.

Good O'Reilly books I've used are:

- Unix Systems Programming
- Programming Perl (the camel book)
- Using Samba
- DNS and Bind
- sed & awk
- lex & yacc

I'm less impressed by the Nutshell series, but IMO they are intended as
references, not as beginners books.

Looking at authors, I think some of the best computing books I've read
have all involved Brian Kernighan. "The C programming language" together
with the 2nd edition for ANSI C are brilliant and are excellent examples
for anybody aspiring to write technical computing books. "The Practice
of Programming" by Kernighan and Pike should be on the desk of anybody
who is learning to program in C, C++ or Java.

To get back on topic, I like Ivor Horton's style in "Beginning Java 2"
and found it considerably superior to Sun's 1 week Java course as a way
into the language. There may be better authors and Java books, but this
worked for me.

I think the first really bad O'Reilly book I saw was the "Writing GNU
Emacs extensions". I wish O'Reilly would get someone to write a
completely new one and get an author who actually knows how to write
Emacs extensions.

I haven't had that pleasure, but Bjarne Stroustroup's original C++ book
belongs somewhere in the black list.

 

[Bjorn Borud]

[Martin Gregorie <[email protected]>]
|
| However, the book is additionally bad because its badly organised,
| fails to talk about the forest while describing trees in detail and
| then compounds the problem by referring to several trees it never
| describes.

you may be right. I have to say I haven't had to open it for years.
I did manage to construct a non-trivial Sendmail configuration for an
I ISP with the help of this book, so it isn't completely useless, but,
as you say, the quality might have been worse than I remember.

I have to confess I am not tempted to get the thing off the shelf
again. I might fumble and drop it on my cat, and that would be a real
shame.

| I'm less impressed by the Nutshell series, but IMO they are intended
| as references, not as beginners books.

indeed, and thus the "Java in a nutshell"-book is largely redundant
since the documentation package that comes with Java (along with the
source code, I would say), is usually much more practical since this
type of documentation benefits greatly from hyperlinking.

(I often find myself looking to the Java source

| Looking at authors, I think some of the best computing books I've read
| have all involved Brian Kernighan. "The C programming language"
| together with the 2nd edition for ANSI C are brilliant and are
| excellent examples for anybody aspiring to write technical computing
| books. "The Practice of Programming" by Kernighan and Pike should be
| on the desk of anybody who is learning to program in C, C++ or Java.

don't forget the books of W. Richard Stevens. to anyone who wants to
write networking software or UNIX software, these are essential.

| [...], but Bjarne Stroustroup's original C++ book belongs somewhere
| in the black list.

I have a fairly recent edition and it is by far one of the *worst*
typeset programming books I have ever seen. you really have to wonder
what sort of reasoning went behind decisions like typesetting code in
italicized proportional fonts, for example.

-Bjørn