The "loop and a half"

[bartc]

On 09/10/2017 01:37, boB Stepp wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 5:36 AM, bartc <bc at freeuk.com> wrote:

> And Bart, when large numbers of technical experts in their fields have
> spent many hours/months/years, yea, even several decades, developing
> these software systems, why do you think that you, all by yourself,
> know better?

In some fields, then yes!

The problem with experts is that they do like to pile layer upon layer, 
plus another layer to deal with the complexity created by the previous 
layers!

For example, I write compilers, including a C compiler. But I couldn't 
start compiling the CPython sources (with any compiler actually), 
because the first step was running a 30,000-line configure script, for 
Linux. I work on Windows.

However there is now a solution using VS2015. There was a thread on this 
subject in May 2017, and there I recounted my attempts at using VS2015 
to build CPython. A copy of that I've put here:

  https://pastebin.com/raw/V76WP1Ha (Raw text so no adverts.)

CPython is 250K lines I think; a fast compiler ought to be able to deal 
with a program like that in one second (depending on how many files it's 
split up into). Now look at that link.

Experts....

Building big cumbersome, complicated systems is easy. Making them small 
and simple is harder.

> Can you not see how frustrating this is for people who
> have spent good chunks of their lives trying to do the best they can
> on these software systems?

Only if they concede I might have a point. I haven't seen much sign of that!

I doubt anyone using *nix systems, which are massively popular, is going 
to start feeling insecure due to the opinions of one guy.

You say (in a bit I see I've snipped), that non *nix people read these 
forums. But my experience is that the majority of people who post (in 
c.l.p and comp.lang.c) are using *nix. It's unbalanced.

-- 
bartc