python programming help

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 4:10 PM,  <rurpy at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Windows-only is hardly the norm. There's at least as much software
>> that's Mac-only or Linux-only as Windows-only.
>
> As much Mac-only software as Windows-only? Possibly, but I doubt
> it although I acknowledge things are moving in that direction.
> As much Linux-only software as Windows-only?  You must be smoking
> crack. :-)

Or just using Linux. Stuff that runs only on Linux is actually a bit
of a problem at times - coders making assumptions about the
environment that aren't guaranteed, and merely happen to be correct on
all current versions of the Linux kernel.

>> And far far more that's
>> cross-platform or at least multi-platform. The most important thing is
>> interoperability - sometimes that means stuff like Samba (specifically
>> written to talk to a "foreign" system), but more often it means coding
>> to the pre-written standards. I can write all sorts of TELNET servers
>> and clients, and I can be confident that they'll work nicely with
>> other people's clients and servers, and that they'll understand each
>> other when they say IAC DO NAWS or IAC SB TERMTYPE IS "Gypsum" IAC SE.
>> If one of them is buggy, it must be fixed, or it must not be used.
>
> TELNET?  Does any one still use that except perhaps on secure,
> controlled legacy intranets?  We nuked that and other protocols
> of it's era (FTP etc) for ssh and other (more) secure protocols
> ages ago.

TELNET protocol is the fundamental basis of MUDs. Doesn't mean there's
a TELNET server at the other end.

ChrisA