Unix commands

[Andrew DeFaria]

But I did:

"Maybe reread "<[email protected]>" were I
"clearly wrote: "Depends on what you're doing of course.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

After that I wrote a kind of rhetorical part: "Why would I copy a program
that does already its work perfectly and reinvent the wheel?"

To which you replied (paraphrased): fork overhead & non-portable

Maybe you want to carefully (this time) read
<[email protected]>?

There's nothing to more carefully read. You're being obtuse and
argumentative for reasons that are beyond me.

Again, if the overhead of fork forces you to copy a well working
program in Perl you're very likely on the wrong track to begin with.
Hourly rates of skilled Perl programmers exceed the price of a faster
computer in a short time. Using an external program in a way
outsources part of the solution you're working on. And in many cases
the external program has been more widely tested then you can manage
on your own.

Argh! You just like to argue don't you.

Only if I severely misrepresent your argument.

Which you have, over and over again...

After carefully rereading your attacks (since that's how I read them,
which again is not a strawman)

No, which again is a strawman...

I am even more convinced that I am right.

Because you apparently need to be.

There is nothing wrong with being lazy. It stops one very often from
doing stupid things :-D.

Right. Bragging that you're lazy.... That's rich!

Sure, every programmer calls the work of many others utter crap. And
very often they are right. But there are also programmers who think
that because they have seen it used wrong in many cases that there is
a need to educate other programmers even when those other programmers
clearly have a very good argument why they are using it in the first
place.

Right, the "I'm lazy" argument...

I am not a big fan of "foo considered harmful" when it's written like
it's against the law.

Great! Go argue with that other guy.

To me programming is about flexibily and freedom of expressing
oneself. Creativity and such. IMNSHO you tried to make a too strong
case against calling external programs missing a bit what I originally
wrote.

I ain't missed nothing here. It's you who doesn't have a clue.

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

Like the perl executable is not guaranteed to be available for
execution? Tell me something new.

Ugh your circularly illogical arguments are really tiring...

Yes, and hence I argue with you. You'd argue with a rock!
Moreover you just confirmed that I was right with my reading between
the lines instead of using a straw man
:-D (not a surprise there).

You're reading between the lines was that there's some hard and fast
rule. I didn't say that rather I would say that I tend more toward
writing things in the language that you are using than relying on
platform specific utilities that create dependencies for not native
platforms, lesson portability and decrease efficiency. IOW you claim I
say 100% and that quite frankly isn't true.

This is Usenet. You jumped in (agree with him), so I discuss with you
and am aware that as a side effect I might reach David as well.

Right, yet you put words in my mouth (and David's BTW) that I've said
"thou must rigidly adhere to this rule" when neither of us said that.
You obviously don't understand that there is indeed a real difference
between "In general this is a good idea" to "thou must do X" but you'll
argue with a rock that they are exactly the same thing!

And by and large I'd say that 70-80% of the time the implementor does
not spend even a second of time making an informed and thoughtful
decision between "should I implement this in an efficient and portable
manner or should I just call X". Often they call X because that's the
only way they know to do it. They do it, as you freely admit to, because
they are lazy and it's "easier" than thinking or typing (still wish to
brag about being lazy - you probably do. Do you realize how foolish that
makes you appear?). And often when confronted why they chose to use X
instead of something more efficient or portable they often don't have
any particularly convincing argument other than "well it was
easy/quick/a one time script/I'm lazy/etc". I know, I've asked and these
are the answers I receive 70-80% of the time.

It's you who should read better.

"
"

How that can refer to a specific set of examples is a bit beyond me.
Maybe you can clarify?

God you are exceptionally obtuse and argumentative. Let's be complete
shall we?

Here's the whole quote:

Depends on what you're doing of course. Why would I copy a program
that does already its work perfectly and reinvent the wheel?
Increase development time, and make many mistakes while doing so?

Because 1) it's inefficient in that you are forking and exec'ing a
process to do it and 2) portability - there's no guarantee that the
next platform you port this to has the same commands. For example,
you use "ls" above. But there is no "ls" under Windows. If instead
you use a more Perl like way your Perl script will immediately port
without and issue.

Do you see any example Perl code in there? I see two. One is `cat
somefile.txt` and the other is `ls /some/directory`. Those were the
examples I was talking about you nimrod! You sir are an intellectually
dishonest man and really not worth arguing with.

"Depends on what you're doing of course."

If you need an example, Abigail mentioned one involving grep. I know,
it's not ls and I hope you can live with that.

So, IOW, when confronted with a direct question you avoid it. This
combined with the above obvious misquotation, lack of reading and
comprehension skills or pure intellectual dishonesty severely lowers
your credibility in many people's eyes.

But like I said earlier, you seem to agree with it (I wrote something
along "read it between the lines"). You just confirmed that you *do*
agree with it (few paragraphs up). I disagree with "generally
preferable" which sounds to me too much like: "Using external programs
from Perl programs considered harmful". People (like you, I am afraid)
take it too serious.

There's a world of difference between a recommendation and a rigid rule
as you claim. You're all over the map in your argument, use strawmen
arguments, deliberately misquote context and you are evasive when asked
a direct question. In short you're not worth arguing with as you are
dishonest at best.

Also, if you agree with someone, and jump into a public discussion,
don't be so amazed that people start to agree or disagree with you.
This is Usenet, remember.

From what I can tell this is where a bunch of losers who like to argue
hang out. Which is why I rarely post. However I thought that
occasionally I could make a point and people who have more integrity
than you have shown here would benefit. Apparently I misjudged the
number of people here with integrity! Either that or they are very quiet...

Indeed however the part that I wrote was obviously directed at your
question about why somebody would do such a thing. A "because" is an
answer to a "why" question, not an answer to a "depends" statement.

If you write a Perl program that has to be portable "a [external]
program that does already its work perfectly" implies that it's available.

No it doesn't. English is definitely not your forte ("a program that
does already its work perfectly" is awkward at best) Then again honesty
isn't either.

So your second point (portability) is void,

No it's not because your premise was incorrect to start with.

unless you want to imply that every Perl program has to be written
portable because you can.

It's a good thing to do - despite what you think. Does it have to be
done 100% of the time. Obviously not.

As for your first point: I have a gut feeling ....but no data...
that fork overhead is overrated and in cases it plays an important
role it might be very well the case that Perl itself is an option,
making your first point somewhat void as well. Right...
Yet I seem to have less problems with it.

No you have a lot of problems with it as anybody who has a firm grip of
it and a grip of logic can see here...

But even if you're right, we're talking about programming here.

While we are talking about programming here we are arguing about
semantic misunderstandings caused by our usage of English prose here.
Your misunderstandings, misquotings and the like plainly show this.

 

[John Bokma]

John Bokma wrote:

There's nothing to more carefully read.

I was afraid so. Maybe you should. You know now how to read "email" ;-)

Argh! You just like to argue don't you.

Yes, of course. You too, otherwise you would not even have cared to
reply to me in the first place.

Also I like to show that there is no such thing as "generally
preferable" regarding not calling external programs.

[ straw man ]

Which you have, over and over again...

Since you admitted that you agree with David's earlier statement I
haven't. Conclusion: I read correctly between the lines that you have in
general disagree on calling external programs from Perl.

Also, if you think I misrepresent your argument just quote your
argument, my misrepresentation and your clarification on my
misrepresentation. Picture, or it didn't happen.

No, which again is a strawman...

Picture, or it didn't happen.

Because you apparently need to be.

Ah, and you don't? Is that why you on purpose posted in HTML and lowered
yourself to argumentum ad hominem on several occasions?

Right. Bragging that you're lazy.... That's rich!

Calling people lazy because you disagree isn't?

I prefer to deliver the best possible solution to my customers. That
means that I shop at CPAN and many other places whenever possible,
including the use of external 3rd party programs. Yes, I am lazy. I
prefer to work as short as possible on a project.

"Laziness drives one to work very hard to avoid future work for a future
self. Impatience has the same endgame."

Right, the "I'm lazy" argument...

Which you don't seem to understand. Which is odd, because it's closely
related to Perl culture, at least that's how I see it.

Great! Go argue with that other guy.

You seem to be the argumentive one, which is more fun :-D.

I ain't missed nothing here. It's you who doesn't have a clue.

Picture, or it didn't happen ;-)

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

Since you admitted that you agree with David's earlier statement I
haven't. Conclusion: I read correctly between the lines that you have
in general disagree on calling external programs from Perl.

You claimed that I stated I have a rigid rule. This is patently false.
I've asked you to point out where I said that. You've failed to do so.
Thinking something is generally a good idea is not a rigid rule.

Also, if you think I misrepresent your argument just quote your
argument, my misrepresentation and your clarification on my
misrepresentation.

Huh?!? You claim I said something. I claim I didn't. How exactly do I
show you I didn't? No sir it's up to you to show me that I did. I cannot
produce that which doesn't exist. The challenge is still outstanding.
Again, saying that in general something is a good idea is in no way a
rigid rule. You are misrepresenting me by using words I never used and
claiming that I did. As such the burden is on you to produce evidence of
what you claim. Otherwise you're just lying.

Picture, or it didn't happen.

What? This doesn't even make sense!

Which you don't seem to understand. Which is odd, because it's closely
related to Perl culture, at least that's how I see it.

Really, where did I say that? I understand why people are lazy. I don't
think it's a good thing.

 

[John Bokma]

Ugh your circularly illogical arguments are really tiring...

Just a side note: I hope your source code uses more white space compared
to your Usenet posts. You even remove the white space I have included
for readability. Let me guess, you spend a lot of time when working in a
team on "correcting" the /style/ of others. And you call that working
very hard on a project ;-)

You'd argue with a rock!

If that rock is stupid enough to keep coming back for more, sure why
not?

You're reading between the lines was that there's some hard and fast
rule.

"In general it's preferable"
How flexible is that? Also your other statements showed that you have
quite a rigid opinion on using external tools (lazy (in a bad way) was
one of them)

Right, yet you put words in my mouth (and David's BTW) that I've said
"thou must rigidly adhere to this rule" when neither of us said that.

"In general it's preferable" sounds quite rigid to me. Even if it's not
rigid, the way it was expressed it can be used as a straw man at all
times. You know, when one programmer looks over the code of someone else
and just for the sake of argument says: you n00b don't call external
programs because there is a huge fork overhead, and it's not portable
(even if neither are an issue). You probably recognize the first
programmer.

You obviously don't understand that there is indeed a real difference
between "In general this is a good idea" to "thou must do X" but
you'll argue with a rock that they are exactly the same thing!

They might mean different things, but the former is often used in
various arguments like it's the latter. I have surely read your posts
this way. I doubt it's my bad.

And by and large I'd say that 70-80% of the time the implementor does
not spend even a second of time making an informed and thoughtful
decision between "should I implement this in an efficient and portable
manner or should I just call X". Often they call X because that's the
only way they know to do it.

I am convinced that there is more Perl (or any code in general) out
there that suffers from the implementor writing a very bad
implementation of something that is already available either as a
library or as an external tool. "Rules" (for your sake) like "In general
it's preferable" only give them a few meters more rope to hang
themselves (and everybody else involved).

They do it, as you freely admit to,
because they are lazy and it's "easier" than thinking or typing (still
wish to brag about being lazy - you probably do. Do you realize how
foolish that makes you appear?).

No, because I don't call that lazy but underskilled.

And often when confronted why they
chose to use X instead of something more efficient or portable they
often don't have any particularly convincing argument other than "well
it was easy/quick/a one time script/I'm lazy/etc".

Yup, for the same reason people come up with /huge/ fork overheads and
"but the ZX Spectrum doesn't have ls built in ROM".

I know, I've asked
and these are the answers I receive 70-80% of the time.

So you're just saying that a majority of the programmers are
underskilled. Doesn't amaze me the least. Question is: how often did
people say that they did it and you disagreed with them without even
taken into account the real situation and just grabbed at straws like
"fork overhead" and "non-portable" just because of "your" "in general".

God you are exceptionally obtuse and argumentative. Let's be complete
shall we?

Here's the whole quote:

It's /generally/



Depends on what you're doing of course.

Do you see any example Perl code in there? I see two. One is `cat
somefile.txt` and the other is `ls /some/directory`. Those were the
examples I was talking about you nimrod! You sir are an intellectually
dishonest man and really not worth arguing with.

Yet I am convinced you can't resist replying 5 more times ;-). But even
with cat and ls: "it depends on what you're doing of course".

So, IOW, when confronted with a direct question you avoid it.

Nope: I said: depends on what you're doing.

This
combined with the above obvious misquotation, lack of reading and
comprehension skills or pure intellectual dishonesty severely lowers
your credibility in many people's eyes.

Ah, you are now representing a group of people? Or do you think your
argument gets better the more you drag into it? Like I said, Abigail
provided an example involving grep. I did miss your reply to that
however.

There's a world of difference between a recommendation and a rigid
rule as you claim.

Sure. The said thing is people forget that often when they look over the
code of someone else. Then suddenly overheads and portability is dragged
into the discussion even if it's not important. You, in my opinion, did
this.

You're all over the map in your argument, use
strawmen arguments, deliberately misquote context and you are evasive
when asked a direct question. In short you're not worth arguing with
as you are dishonest at best.

argumentum ad hominem or: picture, or it didn't happen.

[ Usenet ]

From what I can tell this is where a bunch of losers who like to
argue
hang out. Which is why I rarely post. However I thought that
occasionally I could make a point and people who have more integrity
than you have shown here would benefit. Apparently I misjudged the
number of people here with integrity! Either that or they are very
quiet...

Maybe if you stop making all that noise. A lot of people have kill filed
you just because you ignored the posting guidelines on purpose.

I agree that one shouldn't stick to rules for the sake of rules. But
ignoring a guideline just because you consider it losing face /is/
losing face big time. Can you explain what the use is of posting both in
plain text and HTML in a group that prefers for several reasons plain
text? Ignoring a guide line because you can is as stupid as turning a
gut feeling in a guide line wether it's strict and rigid or not.

If you write a Perl program that has to be portable "a [external]
program that does already its work perfectly" implies that it's
available.

No it doesn't.

Odd, how can it work perfectly if it isn't available?

It's a good thing to do - despite what you think. Does it have to be
done 100% of the time. Obviously not.

It's only a good thing to do when it's a requirement. If it's not then I
prefer to code as I consider it the best. Which means that if I consider
a non-portable piece of code the best I just do it.

Just writing portable code because "It's a good thing" is silly to say
the least.

...but no data...

Nor have you. Abigail has, but you ignored that. Says a lot.

While we are talking about programming here we are arguing about
semantic misunderstandings caused by our usage of English prose here.
Your misunderstandings, misquotings and the like plainly show this.

I have the feeling that the lead cause of what you consider
"misunderstandings" is that you put your head in your ass a bit too
strong, and now it's stuck. Or maybe it has been stuck there for a
while, it's a bit hard to see the difference without an actual picture.

 

[Uri Guttman]

A> || > opendir my $dh => '/some/directory' or die "opendir: $!";
A> || > my @files = grep {!/^\./} readdir $dh;
A> || > closedir $dh;

A> Because glob expands like the csh does. And the csh often does things
A> I don't expect. So I avoid glob. Besides, glob() has changed subtlety
A> between perl versions.

then you should look at file::slurp's read_dir sub. it already
filters out . and .. for you as well. one feature i want to add to is
supporting filters but that is just an internal call to grep which is
not a major win.

uri

 

[Joe Smith]

I am sooooo sorry. I'll get right on making all my code non-portable and
inefficient! Give me a break!

You missed the point entirely.
Abigail has been posting to the perl newsgroups (and the perl-porters list)
for several years. We know of Abigail's accomplishments.

Listen sonny, I've probably worked at far more companies than you

That statement is why we are laughing at you.

 

[Joe Smith]

You can answer that question yourself.

Yes, you're right about that.
I several people who I respect responding on this thread, and one person
who I don't know but is acting in an insulting manner. From his actions,
I can determine that Andrew DeFarina is someone who should be ignored.

 

[axel]

John Bokma wrote:

That's funny because I just seen it done! And I've seen it done many times.

Oh you mean some people don't like it. I know. I don't agree with them.

Really... why do you want to make your posts awkward for others to read?

Axel

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

Yet I am convinced you can't resist replying 5 more times ;-). But
even with cat and ls: "it depends on what you're doing of course".

You sir are a frigging moron and not worth my time anymore.

 

[Martijn Lievaart]

Listen sonny, I've probably worked at far more companies than you,

You're fired very frequently? I'm not surprised.

M4

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

You're fired very frequently? I'm not surprised.

I've never been fired.

 

[John Bokma]

I've never been fired.

Yup, people just started to ignore you and then you moved on.

 

[Tad McClellan]

I can determine that Andrew DeFarina is someone who should be ignored.

I determined that 30 months ago.

 

[Tad McClellan]

Yup, people just started to ignore you and then you moved on.

We can only hope that history will repeat itself here.

 

[Andrew DeFaria]

We can only hope that history will repeat itself here.

No problem. After all you guys aren't paying very well!

 

[John Bokma]

We can only hope that history will repeat itself here.

:-D