Hello people. I have some questions

[Alex Martelli]

"Kemp Randy-W18971" <Randy.L.Kemp at motorola.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.999177586.6959.python-list at python.org...
> Oh, Alex.  ME is just another marketing ploy for Uncle Bill to get rich,
> just as XP is.

Well, only in the sense in which any product of a commercial firm
is "a ploy for" (its stockholders) "to get rich":-).  ME *is* too
buggy -- I'm really disappointed that they stuffed it with new
and none-too-stable features rather than making this last of the
old DOS lineage a stable/bugfix release.  As for XP, no opinion
yet on the technical merits -- we'll see how the consumers feel
about its new registration requirements.

The good news is that Python runs well on both, anyway:-).


> A friend of mind builds custom made PC's for a living, and
> so many of her customer's have problems with ME.

Yes, as I said, it *is* way buggy.  Part of it of course, as for
any other new OS release, may be buggy _drivers_ for strange pieces
of hardware -- hopefully the producers of said HW will fix those
specific parts:).  And, fortunately, _Python_ runs well:-).


> And with XP, you have to
> register everything before you use it -- via phone or internet.  I just
got
> a new version of Word, and it gives me 50 times to register, before it
boots
> me out of word.

Don't fall for the usual MS marketing idiocy -- the 'XP' adjective
used on Office and that used on Windows don't necessarily have
anything to do with each other:-).  (Python, of course, happily
runs with either, or both:-).

At least, this should help test the iconoclastic thesis that
widespread low-grade piracy has actually *helped* Microsoft
by making their products widespread -- now that Joe Consumer
needs to find a crack on the net and apply it before he can
give his cousin a pirate copy of the latest MS products, as
opposed to just copying down a few digits' worth of code, said
thesis is going to be *sorely* tested indeed:-).  Of course,
this doesn't apply to Python, since it's free -- nobody needs
to pirate it!-)


> Now Unix on the other hand, and Linux in particular.
> That's a good, solid machine.

Pretty good, although I'm getting convinced that solidity is
NOT priority number one for most consumer-grade distributions
these days (Debian may be an exception, but, IS it consumer
grade?) -- rather, a zillion flashy features appear to be
much more important.  Not as much as for MS operating systems,
no doubt, but there are similarities.

Among the similarities is that Python runs excellently well
on all of these, of course.  But maybe my attempts to keep
this conversation seemingly on-topic are becoming too
transparent?-)

I'm putting Linux on my desktop boxes at home, but OpenBSD
on my router/firewall/proxy machine sitting between the home
LAN and ADSL... I suspect I won't have cause to regret that.
(I'm also pretty sure that Python will port to it without
problems, of course:-).

However, while I *could* give the CD's of Mandrake, RedHat
or Suse to my cousin to install on his PC without more qualms
than I'd have giving him those of a MS operating system (at
least as long as said PC doesn't have some darned winmodem
or whatever that's not Linux-supported, of course:-), giving
him the OpenBSD CD's appears unfeasible (and, I suspect, the
same would hold for Debian).  Fortunately, no problem or
qualms giving him Python -- CP4E, remember?-)

> And has anyone tried the free Star Office from Sun?  It gives
> Microsoft a run for their money.

Sure, that's what I installed after due deliberation on
the new PC of my girlfriend's parents -- the savings were
just too much wrt MS Office (and of course I would not
consider piracy!), even though some doubts did remain.
They're pretty happy with Star, anyway.

The doubts come mainly from Python considerations - it's
very easy to drive/automate Microsoft Office via Python,
but I still haven't managed to do the same for StarOffice;
if it does have COM at all, it's a strange object model,
and I can't find good docs, examples, etc.  Admittedly I
haven't looked very deeply.  But maybe they're not COM-
centric *because* they're portable... it's easier for MS
(they do have COM on the Mac too, although I think it's
not available to 3rd parties).  Maybe I should look into
the Java (Jython) side of things instead.

The lack of widespread COM is Linux's major defect wrt
MS's systems -- let's hope XPCOM makes it (but with
Mozilla so late/buggy/huge one sometimes gets doubts),
because the several sort-of-componentization schemes
on Unixish machines definitely don't cut it.  Or maybe
Mono can help Linux &c jump over the COM stage and
right into the .Net Framework... whatever!  Python will
surely grow to take advantage of that when needed...


> And I run Windows 98,
> second edition, at home (which is really a bug release of Windows 95).
The
> only good Windows version for the consumer to run.

I think you're right on this -- on the DOS lineage, W98 2nd
edition is apparently the least-buggy; it still has its
instabilities (more than any of the Linux ones I complained
about, above), but all the others are worse.  /2000 and /XP
may not be too hard for the consumer, though, particularly
the latter -- cost may however be an issue.

But Python helps on any and all of those boxes anyway!-)


Alex