Re: gEDA-user: geda cygwin package

["David C. Kerber" <dkerber@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: geda-user-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:geda-user-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of al davis
> Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 9:42 PM
> To: geda-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: gEDA-user: geda cygwin package
> 
> On Thursday 14 May 2009, David C. Kerber wrote:
> > I generally agree with your treatise, but here, we part ways just a 
> > bit.  Why would you specify the OS that I have to be able 
> to work with 
> > (Unix)?  I can and routinely do do everything else in your 
> paragraph 
> > above, all of it self-taught, but I do it on Windows, either at its 
> > command line, or by programming or scripting it.  Why 
> should it have 
> > to be *nix?
> 
> Why are you here?

My degree is in EE, but current profession is as a programmer, database designer and administrator, and network engineer.

 
> I said "be able to ...".  If you are able to work with 
> something other than one particular proprietary operating 
> system, you have a choice, and you might understand why some 
> people prefer the one you don't choose.

Absolutely, I do understand.  I was simply pointing out that your statement that "The EE's should be able to work with unix, with the command line." is overly strong, IMO.  I agree with you that anybody who wants to work efficiently with a computer pretty much needs to be able to use a command line, but it doesn't have to be Unix.  Maybe you're not familiar with the command-line and scripting capabilities of current windows systems?


> 
> If you can really do all of those things, you should easily 
> be able to take care of the gEDA windows port.

If I had ever done anything in C or any variation thereof, I probably could, but my experience is in VB, Java, Delphi and SQL, none of which are much use with gEDA from what I've seen.  Learning C just for that purpose wouldn't be a good use of my company's time, and I don't have enough of my own time to dedicate to that either.  

I have nothing against any of the *nix systems; I've been pushing for trying some Linux systems in my company for a while, but I finally got some support from another of our developers, so we're at long last looking at porting some of our stuff to Linux.  None of us are experienced with it yet, but we love learning new stuff.

I guess what bothers me is that many (not all, of course) engineers and developers who are used to working on *nix with C, seem to think that anything windows-based is a toy for somebody who can't handle their chosen path.  And that's just as unhelpful an attitude as those who say, without even giving it a real try, that anything that doesn't work the way they're used to on windows is too hard, or is "for geeks only".

Neither one of those attitudes represent enough of the full picture to be useful for planning a way forward...

Dave


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