"Portable" C compilers?

[James Kuyper]

Not really. What it boils down to is that a useable, manageable,
controllable network, in a more-than-a-couple-of-dozens-of-users
environment, where the average user has access to that CLI, cannot be
perfectly safe.

How does that differ from a network where the average user doesn't have
access to a CLI? Of course nothing is perfectly safe, but I presume that
you're suggesting that having CLI access lowers the safety. That implies
that the CLI poses some unique dangers that are not available through
GUIs. What would those dangers be? Virtually anything I can do with a
CLI can also be done by using a GUI text editor to create a shell script
containing those same commands, and then executing that shell script
from a GUI file browser.

The average user should not have the permissions needed to do anything
more dangerous than deleting or corrupting every file he owns, or
accidentally installing a virus, and it's just as feasible to do those
things from a GUI as from a CLI. In fact, I think it's probably easier
to accidentally install a virus with a GUI.

 

[Kenny McCormack]

Especially since the big headed twit claims Linux knowledge and refers
to Windows as "windoze" despite posting from Windows. Falconer is a
troll - pure and simple.

No. We do not take him as one of our own.

 

[Antoninus Twink]

why insult CBFalconer?

Have you ever actually read any of his posts?

for what i think if someone insult people i think i will plonk him or
not read his [yours] posts for some time

Then I hope Richard Heathfield is at the top of your killfile, closely
followed by his cronies Mackintyre, Ambull, "Old wolf", etc. who have
conducted a systematic campaign of bullying in this group, in which
they've dragged a certain compiler writer's name through the mud and
even insulted his daughter.

because if in the ng anyone insult anyone, all it goes to noise

The greatest noise in this group is people moaning about "trolls" and
about how they (supposedly) "plonk" and "killfile" these "trolls" -
after all, the "trolls" have the nerve to actually answer people's
questions about C, and that would never do in clc!

 

[Rafael]

Antoninus Twink escreveu:

after all, the "trolls" have the nerve to actually answer people's
questions about C, and that would never do in clc!

I belive you consider yourself one of this who answer people questions
here, right?

 

[Richard Bos]

Richard Bos wrote:

How does that differ from a network where the average user doesn't have
access to a CLI? Of course nothing is perfectly safe, but I presume that
you're suggesting that having CLI access lowers the safety. That implies
that the CLI poses some unique dangers that are not available through
GUIs. What would those dangers be? Virtually anything I can do with a
CLI can also be done by using a GUI text editor to create a shell script
containing those same commands, and then executing that shell script
from a GUI file browser.

True, limiting access to the CLI does not protect you against competent
users who wish you ill. However, it does protect you against not-nearly-
as-competent-as-they-think-they-are lusers who "were only trying to help
out" (especially when what they were really trying to do is erase
evidence of their own illegal file-sharing, or other disallowed but in
themselves usually harmless behaviour).
Just as panicking reactions to virus rumours usually do a lot more
damage than the virus itself would ever have done, ordinary users being
stupid or selfish are almost always more dangerous than outside or even
inside crackers. _Especially_ when said ordinary users are students who
consider themselves expert enough programmers to complain about the
tools they were given.

Richard

 

[Albert]

it's a bad idea to
enter contests that require such stupid practices, because they will
tend to ruin your computer programming skills.

What contests are you referring to? Programming contests don't ruin
computer programming skills, period.

 

[Albert]

Could you please list some C compilers that do not need installation via
double-clicking a file of type exe and contain gcc?

Dev-Cpp Portable. Just dump it onto a USB.

 

[James Kuyper]

What contests are you referring to? Programming contests don't ruin
computer programming skills, period.

The ones that you referred to in the only line you wrote in the message
that I was responding to:

> Except in programming contests.

A programming contest that requires, as you yourself described two
messages farther back, that you must "... write one huge source file
with a huge main function with little function breakdown, a lot of
global variables, ..." is implicitly teaching you that you should accept
that these are reasonable characteristics for a program to have.

You could successfully resist learning that lesson, but that would
require being adequately aware of the fact that it is a bad lesson to
learn. That you were willing to waste your time by entering such a
contest suggests that you may not be sufficiently aware of that fact.

 

[Albert]

<snip>...is implicitly teaching you that you should accept
that these are reasonable characteristics for a program to have.

You could successfully resist learning that lesson, but that would
require being adequately aware of the fact that it is a bad lesson to
learn.

This 'bad lesson' doesn't justify you to say that programming contests
are bad. I would consider the good points (as well).

 

[James Kuyper]

This 'bad lesson' doesn't justify you to say that programming contests
are bad. I would consider the good points (as well).

Good, because I made no such assertion. I said only that programming
contests such as the one you described, which impose requirements that
teach you bad programming practices, are bad. That's a much more
restricted statement than "programming contests are bad" - it does not
include programming contest that do not impose such restrictions. As a
result of the restriction, it is also a more accurate statement.

 

[James Kuyper]

IOCCC: good or bad?

Bad, in the sense described above, but it redeems itself somewhat by
explicitly denigrating the winning code as "obfuscated".

IOCCC programs are read by newbies, and often give them more confusion
than enlightenment. They need someone to tell them: "you're supposed to
be confused - that's what's wrong with writing code like this". This
would seem to be obvious, but some of those newbies post questions here
about IOCCC code which show a lack of awareness of that fact.

 

[Antoninus Twink]

Antoninus Twink escreveu:

I belive you consider yourself one of this who answer people questions
here, right?

That's right.