Yotam Medini's Software Page

Contributions

• Xorg input driver for Alps touch-pad.
• Gedit - special symbols plugin.
• STL Quick Reference.
• TFMPK ---- TeX fonts viewer.
• HDFV ---- HDF viewer.
• PED ---- Path Editor.

Random Thoughts

Personally, I am interested in the programming aspects of software more than software as end user tools. I actually believe that fear of programming will decrease in generations ro come. This is why I expect free software popularity to surpass eventually that of closed proprietary.

What do I think of ...?

• Microsoft Windows sucks. It does not respect intelligent users. I am not against fancy graphical user interface. But why treat all users as retarded.
• Gnu/Linux - The best thing happened to operating systems. Go Linux, Go!
• Emacs - My one and only editor. I also run my shells and send my mail from it.
• Shells. For interactive work use the shell you like. But please do not write scripts in C-Shell (/bin/csh).
• C++ - Given its almost C backward compatibility it is a very powerful language. The main disadvantages:
  • Many compilers horribly (Visual C++) suck.
  • One frequently needs to be lawyer to clarify inheritance, overloading and constness issues.
  Still, for the past 6 years this is the language I use the most and I have made guide lines for myself. May be for you too.
• Perl - A great quick and dirty scripting language. But if it takes more than say 300 lines, I would use something else.
• Tcl/Tk - A good extension language. Its syntax and backslahed end of lines are ugly. It is object-oriented fobic - unless you use the [incr Tcl] extension. Its widgets are poor relative the other GUI toolkits. Nevertheless, I still frequently use it. May be because I still did not yet seriously learn Python.

• ClearCase - a too sophisticated source control system. It is dependent on operating system's device drivers, kernel configuration, servers, what not? Its online documentation is very limited.

  Among the many problems:

  • It requires special file systems (mvfs?) which is sensitive to flock system calls. I experienced files and processes that lock each other and cannot be removed as a result. Recently I had on several occasions a file that mysteriously got some tail of null characters which was seen only on some machines.
  • In the default model, others can change your files view contents.
  • Operating system upgrade has to be synchronized with ClearCase upgrade.
  • It can be unbelievably slow.
  • A version for Linux is not really ready yet. Actually, may be it's an advantage (:for Linux:).

  Unfortunately, where I work, I am forced to use it. I really miss using the lean and mean CVS. Hopefully we will move back.

• Literate Programming - Yet another pioneer idea of Donald Knuth's. His CWEB tool is somewhat restrictive to a specific style. Noweb is simpler and more general. Unfortunately, most industries have not yet picked this concept.

Please feel free to email me to [email protected].

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