Clearly I am insane



  • My XCode project wouldn't compile. The error message was pretty meaningless so I ignored it, cleaned, and built again. Same problem. So I tried again. Still no success. So I kept going. Around the 25th try, the compile succeeded.

     

    Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.


  •  I am just curious as to why after about 2-3 times you didn't go and try to find a solution for your problem, rather than trying the same thing over and over again.

     



  • @pbean said:

     I am just curious as to why after about 2-3 times you didn't go and try to find a solution for your problem, rather than trying the same thing over and over again.

     

    He's insane. And we've established that insanity comes from using Apple products.



  • Because sadly I've found that if you clean-build (and occasionally restart the iMac) enough, eventually it all works again. The error I was getting just told me a certain directory didn't exist, except it does and I can view it in Finder with no problems.



  • @mott555 said:

    Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
     

    Apple:  Doing the same thing over and over, and not being surprised at different results.



  • @pbean said:

     I am just curious as to why after about 2-3 times you didn't go and try to find a solution for your problem, rather than trying the same thing over and over again.

     

    @mott555 said:

    XCode project



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @mott555 said:

    Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
     

    Apple:  Doing the same thing over and over, and not being surprised at different results.

    Why should they be surprised over success?



  • @pkmnfrk said:

    @pbean said:

     I am just curious as to why after about 2-3 times you didn't go and try to find a solution for your problem, rather than trying the same thing over and over again.

     

    @mott555 said:

    XCode project
     

    Zing!!

     



  • @pbean said:

     I am just curious as to why after about 2-3 times you didn't go and try to find a solution for your problem, rather than trying the same thing over and over again.

     


    I gave up on computers being deterministic about 1972. The IBM copy command ("IEBGENER") stopped working in April, then suddenly started working again in June. If you think that the same input will always give you the same output, you haven't worked here long enough.



  • @mott555 said:

    The error I was getting just told me a certain directory didn't exist, except it does and I can view it in Finder with no problems.
     

    Just be lucky it wasn't on Windows. Since Vista, they've added pseudo directories which only exist within Explorer (which means explorer driven file dialogues too) that don't actually exist, so any software that attempts to access it will fail. The My Documents directory is a prime example, if you try accessing it via the command prompt, it's actually a directory called Documents. I'm not sure why they've done this, but it was confusing at first to diagnose when I was having issues because of it.



  • @ASheridan said:

    I'm not sure why they've done this, but it was confusing at first to diagnose when I was having issues because of it.
    To support the 0.01% of users that change languages so the directories can appear in localized names (the functionality actually exists at least since XP, but it wasn't used there except for renaming Start Menu entries).



  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_variable#Default_Values_on_Microsoft_Windows

    Interestingly, there is no envvar for My Documents, so you have to use stuff like

    Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments);

     

    But still, you should never try to go to "My Documents". Besides localization considerations, some people like to move their documents folder to a different drive (and with a different name).

     

     



  • @Shinhan7 said:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_variable#Default_Values_on_Microsoft_Windows

    Interestingly, there is no envvar for My Documents, so you have to use stuff like

    Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments);

    But still, you should never try to go to "My Documents". Besides localization considerations, some people like to move their documents folder to a different drive (and with a different name).

     That's my point, why not just use the same mechanism that allows documents default home to be whatever they choose and leave it at that without masquerading by another name. They do the same thing with the other 'main' directories (Pictures, Videos, Music) too. That's just the user directory tree, the ones inside of C:\Windows are just as bizarre but not quite so evident as to where their real directory actually resides.

    Surely it would have been easier to just create the directories and enable the Windows equivalent of symlinks which are available in NTFS? Instead, we've got these things which are only exposed in about 70% of internal calls, so software that doesn't make use of the latest Windows file libraries can't 'see' those paths. Sure, more could be done on the part of those 3rd parties software (and should be) but realistically it's just never gonna happen for some software.



  • @AndyCanfield said:

    The IBM copy command ("IEBGENER") stopped working in April, then suddenly started working again in June.
     

    Sysprog fucks up, conceals his/her crime, carries out sneaky repair later when no-one is looking, blames IBM. Everyday occurrence in 1972 (and before and after 1972). Nothing to see here, move along now.

     



  • @ASheridan said:

    @mott555 said:
    The error I was getting just told me a certain directory didn't exist, except it does and I can view it in Finder with no problems.

    Just be lucky it wasn't on Windows. Since Vista, they've added pseudo directories which only exist within Explorer (which means explorer driven file dialogues too) that don't actually exist, so any software that attempts to access it will fail. The My Documents directory is a prime example, if you try accessing it via the command prompt, it's actually a directory called Documents. I'm not sure why they've done this, but it was confusing at first to diagnose when I was having issues because of it.

    It doesn't matter what it would look like if it happened on Windows because it never happens on Windows (for me at least). Visual Studio has no problems referencing libraries and projects in a sensible manner. XCode, however, decides to make references look like this "../../../../Users/MyUser/../../SomeDir/AnotherDir/../AnotherDir/../../../asdfjh2348dsafnow3rr3/ijdfhn23r4r/MoreRandomTextBecauseInstallingTheLibraryToAnEasyToFindDirectoryWouldntMakeSense/ThirdPartyLib/bin/kd83hsmg93utklqa800111/pptghi5g4gert/" and then random parts of the build process choke on that (can't say I blame them for choking).



  • @ASheridan said:

    Just be lucky it wasn't on Windows. Since Vista, they've added pseudo directories which only exist within Explorer (which means explorer driven file dialogues too) that don't actually exist, so any software that attempts to access it will fail. The My Documents directory is a prime example, if you try accessing it via the command prompt, it's actually a directory called Documents. I'm not sure why they've done this, but it was confusing at first to diagnose when I was having issues because of it.

    In Vista, they renamed the directories to saner names (My Documents to Documents, Documents And Settings to Users etc.). Than it seems they tried to use symlinks, the new form they added in Vista, but somehow screwed it up and they don't work. In fact for me they work the other way. In cygwin, ls /cygdrive/c/Documents\ And\ Settings will list the c:\Users directory just fine, but in explorer when I click the Documents And Settings, it pops up a dialog saying C:\Documents And Settings is not accessible. Access Denied.



  • @ender said:

    @ASheridan said:
    I'm not sure why they've done this, but it was confusing at first to diagnose when I was having issues because of it.
    To support the 0.01% of users that change languages so the directories can appear in localized names (the functionality actually exists at least since XP, but it wasn't used there except for renaming Start Menu entries).

    Really, 0.01%? Where did you get that number? Are you american?



  • @ASheridan said:

    @mott555 said:

    The error I was getting just told me a certain directory didn't exist, except it does and I can view it in Finder with no problems.
     

    Just be lucky it wasn't on Windows. Since Vista, they've added pseudo directories which only exist within Explorer (which means explorer driven file dialogues too) that don't actually exist, so any software that attempts to access it will fail. The My Documents directory is a prime example, if you try accessing it via the command prompt, it's actually a directory called Documents. I'm not sure why they've done this, but it was confusing at first to diagnose when I was having issues because of it.

    Those are called Hard Links. They're designed to support compatibility with shitty programs that hard code "My Documents" instead of using the appropriate API to look up the real path. They exist in the file system, and can be navigated to however you choose. You can totally reference "C:\Users\MyName\My Documents\My Shitty Application Files\Whatever.shit". What fails is if you try to manipulate them directly or enumerate their contents. Their permissions are explicitly set to prevent said shitty programs from trapping themselves in an infinite recursive loop when a hard link points to higher up in the tree (I don't recall off hand which one it is that does it), or for using them at all



  • @LegacyCrono said:

    @ender said:
    @ASheridan said:
    I'm not sure why they've done this, but it was confusing at first to diagnose when I was having issues because of it.
    To support the 0.01% of users that change languages so the directories can appear in localized names (the functionality actually exists at least since XP, but it wasn't used there except for renaming Start Menu entries).

    Really, 0.01%? Where did you get that number? Are you american?

    I haven't done any nationalist trolling in awhile, but it's hilarious to me that Spain, Russia, China, Korea (even North!), South Sudan are all using an operating system that comes from Redmond, Washington. Some countries have an excuse (South Sudan), but what the fuck is Japan's excuse for not having a home-grown OS? What the hell is France's excuse? The UK had a couple 8-bit systems, but why did they just give-fucking-up and cede the entire market to Microsoft and Apple? What were you guys all doing during the 70s while we were over here conquering this market? Pathetic.



  • @Bulb said:

    [in Vista], in explorer when I click the Documents And Settings
     

    That's kind of weird, since there is no such item in Vista.



  • @pkmnfrk said:

    Those are called Hard Links.

    I would consider their behaviour closer to soft links, in that they get treated differently depending on where you are and what software you're using to interact with them. A hard link to me is just another pointer in the allocation table to the same point on the hard disk, which should be completely indistinguishable from the original file. Essentially, every file is just a hard link to the location on disk, and you can create extra ones as necessary. This is possible in NTFS, although not widely used. Vista came along and added yet another way of achiving the same thing, but only seemed to get half way with the implementation before they gave up.

    @pkmnfrk said:

    Their permissions are explicitly set to prevent said shitty programs from trapping themselves in an infinite recursive loop

    I wouldn't consider the app shitty because of behaviour like this. How is the app meant to know if it's trapped in a recursive loop unless it has some indication that it is? Ideally, you wouldn't create symlinks and hardlinks that would be in a position to cause this sort of problem, but if you do, then sure, the OS should allow some way of preventing problems. This doesn't make the app any more shitty than a car caught in a cities one-way system (this can happen quite easily in central London if you don't know where you're going beforehand)

     

     

     



  • @blakeyrat said:

    but what the fuck is Japan's excuse for not having a home-grown OS?

    I know you are trolling but there is TRON

    @blakeyrat said:

    What the hell is France's excuse?

    Dunno, I had years ago a french archiver and it was shit

    @blakeyrat said:

    why did they just give-fucking-up and cede the entire market to Microsoft and Apple?

    I'm not an economist so I have no idea but I'm told that they should focus on things that they have an edge (like food or surrendering), maybe it was not cost effective.



  • @ASheridan said:

    @pkmnfrk said:

    Their permissions are explicitly set to prevent said shitty programs from trapping themselves in an infinite recursive loop

    I wouldn't consider the app shitty because of behaviour like this. How is the app meant to know if it's trapped in a recursive loop unless it has some indication that it is?

    The app's not shitty because it gets in a loop. The app's shitty because it doesn't look up the name of the special folder the correct way, therefore Windows has to "cover for it" and fake it out with a fake special folder, and as a side-effect its possible for the app to get stuck in a loop.

    Getting stuck in a loop is an unfortunate side effect of the OS's compatibility layer going way out of its way to make the shitty app work. It's not why the app is shitty. Only shitty, wrong, software can get in a state where enumerating the files and folders in the Documents folder leads to an infinite loop. That is not possible for well-written apps.

    Clear now?

    (Actually I just remembered I triggered the loop once with a badly written batch file running as Administrator. ... I don't think that really changes the point I'm making here though.)



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @ASheridan said:

    @pkmnfrk said:

    Their permissions are explicitly set to prevent said shitty programs from trapping themselves in an infinite recursive loop

    I wouldn't consider the app shitty because of behaviour like this. How is the app meant to know if it's trapped in a recursive loop unless it has some indication that it is?

    The app's not shitty because it gets in a loop. The app's shitty because it doesn't look up the name of the special folder the correct way, therefore Windows has to "cover for it" and fake it out with a fake special folder, and as a side-effect its possible for the app to get stuck in a loop.

    Getting stuck in a loop is an unfortunate side effect of the OS's compatibility layer going way out of its way to make the shitty app work. It's not why the app is shitty. Only shitty, wrong, software can get in a state where enumerating the files and folders in the Documents folder leads to an infinite loop. That is not possible for well-written apps.

    Clear now?

     

    So an app written pre-Vista is shitty because it was having problems because it's not aware of the new directories in Vista. Yes very clear.

     For the record Blakey, if you'd read this thread properly you'd notice I mentioned that third party software would be required to change. If the software is just making assumptions based on the previous decades worth of versions of Windows and then Windows changes a bunch of stuff, the app isn't shitty. I'm saying that Microsoft could have done a little bit more than a half-assed attempt at making this change. It's not really a problem with the majority of software, jsut a few things that either a) haven't had the time to catch up, b) are in enterprise versions and will never catch up c) from companies that have since died and will never catch up or d) a mix of these reasons or any that I've not thought of just now.

    Getting stuck in a loop is not the OS's compatibility layer. If these are actual file links (hard or soft) then it's just the normal fucking behaviour. If it requires special compatibility layer logic just to work, then something is seriously very wrong.

    If the software wasn't even expecting the possibility of recursive directories (which is a fairly safe assumption on Windows because Microsoft never really made it easy to use, so people have avoided it because they expected problems) then how can it be called shitty because someone moved the goalposts?

     



  • @ASheridan said:

    So an app written pre-Vista is shitty because it was having problems because it's not aware of the new directories in Vista. Yes very clear.

    God you're stupid.

    Look, IF YOU WANT THE PATH TO A SPECIAL FOLDER, YOU ASK THE OS FOR THE PATH TO THE SPECIAL FOLDER. If you hard-code a path, you're WRONG. If you ask the OS for another special folder path, then traverse it to find the folder you actually want, you're WRONG. (That's what Netbeans and Eclipse do.) In fact, IF YOU DO ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT, YOUR SOFTWARE IS FUCKING BUGGY AND WRONG. There is no debate about this, no question, no confusion.

    This is not new. It has been this way since Windows 95, or possibly earlier. If you were doing it in XP, your software was WRONG. If you were doing it in Vista, your software was WRONG. The only difference is that Vista tries to cover your ass and make it work regardless. (XP, under a limited user account, would just spit out an error.) That means Vista is more compatible than XP.

    This is not unique to Windows. The ONLY OS that DOESN'T do it this way, AFAIK, is Linux and that's because Linux sucks shit and only has one huge monolithic "home folder". OS X works the same way. Mac Classic worked the same way. Fucking BeOS, since we were talking about it last week, works the same fucking way.

    @ASheridan said:

    For the record Blakey, if you'd read this thread properly you'd notice I mentioned that third party software would be required to change.

    That doesn't work. The user upgrades to Vista. Program X stops working. The user doesn't say "oh man Program X sucks!" they say, "Vista sucks!" They tell their friends, Vista sales go down. (In fact, that actually did happen to Vista, despite Microsoft's compatibility efforts.)

    Microsoft has no mechanism to force a third-party developer to fix their software. Fuck, if you've used Microsoft software, they have enough trouble fixing their own products-- the Windows Live-branded products make tons of errors similar to the one we're talking about.

    @ASheridan said:

    If the software is just making assumptions based on the previous decades worth of versions of Windows and then Windows changes a bunch of stuff, the app isn't shitty.

    Yes it is, because it never should have been making those assumptions in the first place. Those assumptions have always been wrong, and the software has always been buggy, even if it "just so happened to work" up until XP. (And even then, it would have busted without Admin permissions on XP. So it's still clearly and obviously broken, as even the most basic QA would have shown.)

    @ASheridan said:

    I'm saying that Microsoft could have done a little bit more than a half-assed attempt at making this change.

    Like...?

    @ASheridan said:

    It's not really a problem with the majority of software, jsut a few things that either a) haven't had the time to catch up, b) are in enterprise versions and will never catch up c) from companies that have since died and will never catch up or d) a mix of these reasons or any that I've not thought of just now.

    a) is bullshit because these programs have been wrong since Windows 95-- HOW MANY DECADES IS ENOUGH?

    b) is bullshit for the same reason as a).

    c) is valid, and one of the main reasons Microsoft goes through these exercises in compatibility. But, again, the company would have to have NEVER made a Windows 95 release for this to be considered a valid compatibility issue, and not an application bug.

    @ASheridan said:

    Getting stuck in a loop is not the OS's compatibility layer. If these are actual file links (hard or soft) then it's just the normal fucking behaviour. If it requires special compatibility layer logic just to work, then something is seriously very wrong.

    It's a non-issue unless the app is running as Admin. Unfortunately, the same sort of shitty apps that need this "invisible folder renaming" to work also tend to need Admin permissions to work.

    @ASheridan said:

    If the software wasn't even expecting the possibility of recursive directories (which is a fairly safe assumption on Windows because Microsoft never really made it easy to use, so people have avoided it because they expected problems) then how can it be called shitty because someone moved the goalposts?

    The goalposts were never move.

    Look, I can be a real dick and say "NTFS has always allowed recursive directories, so they should have handled that!" but no, I agree with you, that's not a good argument.

    What IS a good argument is:
    1) If your program requires Admin permissions to run, that is a bug. That's the original position of the goalpost.
    2) If your program hard-codes directory names, that is a bug. Also the original position of the goalpost.

    So no, the goalposts have not moved. The two things I just mentioned? For business-class software, both of those applied in NT4. For home-class software, they both applied in Windows 2000. These are not new requirements, by any reasonable definition of the word "new". No goalposts have been moved.



  • @ASheridan said:

    So an app written pre-Vista is shitty because it was having problems because it's not aware of the new directories in Vista. Yes very clear.
     

    No, these apps are shitty because the location of Special Directories (SystemRoot, ProgramFiles, Desktop, StartMenu, Documents, etc) have been specified in the registry since at least Win2k (perhaps earlie)r and the applications in question either did not query the registry or use the languages helper methods to get the paths.  Instead they just hardcoded "c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\blah\blah\blah" or whatever.  This breaks when dealing with MUI or someone redirects or moves their profile or special directories to another location.

     



  • This breaks when dealing with MUI or someone redirects or moves their profile or special directories to another location.

    It may 'break' in the sense that the files appear at a different location from where the user would expect them, but at least they are there.

    The 'fix' however, makes it appear like there is a 'Documents and Settings' and then errors out as you can't do anything with it. I'd rather they didn't 'fix' it and let me use a not-so-randomly-named normal folder which isn't located inside my 'special' folder instead of appearing to fix it and _really_ break those so-called 'broken' programs.



  • Getting the special folders from the registry is WRONG. That is already a compat hack. Fuck, this is not hard, people!

    I already outlined the only correct way.



  • @pnieuwkamp said:

    I'd rather they let me use a not-so-randomly-named normal folder
     

    By "use", you mean hard-code "Documents And Settings"?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    IF YOU DO ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT, YOUR SOFTWARE IS FUCKING BUGGY AND WRONG
     @blakeyrat said:
    That doesn't work. The user upgrades to Vista. Program X stops working. The user doesn't say "oh man Program X sucks!" they say, "Vista sucks!" They tell their friends, Vista sales go down. (In fact, that actually *did* happen to Vista, despite Microsoft's compatibility efforts.)

    Make up your fucking mind. Either the software sucks and needs to be updated and fixed, or the problem is with Windows. You can't argue both points because they're completely opposite.@blakeyrat said:

    a) is bullshit because these programs have been wrong since Windows 95-- HOW MANY DECADES IS ENOUGH?

     In your opinion, which we've discussed before, is stupid at the best of times. @blakeyrat said:

    b) is bullshit for the same reason as a).

     As anyone who has ever read anything on this website knows, as soon as something becomes an enterprise version, the ability to adapt is one of the first things to go. @blakeyrat said:

    It's a non-issue unless the app is running as Admin.
    If it's a non-issue, why the fuck did you bring it up? I said first that it wasn't shitty if it got stuck in a loop, and you were the one arguing that it was shitty because the OS was doing compatibility-level stuff. If it's a non-issue, then don't bring it in. God you're stupid.

    @blakeyrat said:

    The goalposts were never move.
    You meant 'moved' I presume?@blakeyrat said:
    Look, I can be a real dick and say "NTFS has always allowed recursive directories, so they should have handled that!" but no, I agree with you, that's not a good argument.
    It's not an original argument either, I already mentioned NTFS had this capability.@blakeyrat said:
    1) If your program requires Admin permissions to run, that is a bug. That's the original position of the goalpost.
    Why are you bringing admin permissions into this? This isn't an issue about admin permissions. Take your red herring and go fish someplace else.@blakeyrat said:
    2) If your program hard-codes directory names, that is a bug. Also the original position of the goalpost.
    Yes, that is a problem, but a lot of softwaredid this pre-Vista and things worked. I think it's a safe bet that Microsoft was aware of this, hence adding in the half-assed attempt to allow things to work with hard-coded directory names. What I'm saying is that they could have either done more in their efforts or not changed the directory names from what they were and added the new whatever-the-hell-type-of-links they added for Vista in for the new paths.

     

     

     

     

     

     



  • @lpope187 said:

    @ASheridan said:

    So an app written pre-Vista is shitty because it was having problems because it's not aware of the new directories in Vista. Yes very clear.
     

    No, these apps are shitty because the location of Special Directories (SystemRoot, ProgramFiles, Desktop, StartMenu, Documents, etc) have been specified in the registry since at least Win2k (perhaps earlie)r and the applications in question either did not query the registry or use the languages helper methods to get the paths.  Instead they just hardcoded "c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\blah\blah\blah" or whatever.  This breaks when dealing with MUI or someone redirects or moves their profile or special directories to another location.

     

     

    That's not what I'm getting at. To illustrate this a bit better, open Explorer and navigate to the home directory, and take a note of all the 'My whatever' directories. Now open up a command prompt in your home directory and do a 'dir' and note that those directories all show with different names. That's the problem I'm going on about, not hard-coding a path like you're talking about.

     



  • @ASheridan said:

    That's not what I'm getting at. To illustrate this a bit better, open Explorer and navigate to the home directory, and take a note of all the 'My whatever' directories. Now open up a command prompt in your home directory and do a 'dir' and note that those directories all show with different names. That's the problem I'm going on about, not hard-coding a path like you're talking about.

    So your problem is that the file browser has aliases? And this is a problem why? Because we've already established you shouldn't be hard-coding the goddamn paths.



  •  @morbiuswilters said:

    So your problem is that the file browser has aliases? And this is a problem why? Because we've already established you shouldn't be hard-coding the goddamn paths.
    My problem is that different programs are seeing different directories/aliases. A little consistency would be nice, and was my original point. I don't know of another OS that does this.



  • @ASheridan said:

    My problem is that different programs are seeing different directories/aliases.

    It sounds like it's only Explorer that sees the aliases and that they're only meant to make human reading comprehension easier.

    @ASheridan said:

    I don't know of another OS that does this.

    If Windows had to stoop to only including the functionality of crap like Linux everyone would be configuring their machines with vim. Thank God Microsoft actually gives enough of a shit to focus on making a good product instead of desperately trying to meet your (low) standards.



  •  @morbiuswilters said:

    If Windows had to stoop to only including the functionality of crap like Linux everyone would be configuring their machines with vim. Thank God Microsoft actually gives enough of a shit to focus on making a good product instead of desperately trying to meet your (low) standards.
    Yes, because Microsoft showing different aliases for different dictories only in Explorer is directly because of Linux? I never mentioned Linux, this doesn't really have anything to do with Linux. How about we stick to the point without bringing an OS flame war to this too? Constantly going on about how much you dislike it when nobody else brought it up makes you out to be somewhat of a fanboy, which is never a good thing.



  • Shit man, just turn off hidden files.  They're hidden so they don't confuse people that don't understand why they're there.  And they're there for compatibility with shitty apps that hardcode the My Docs, etc. paths.  Just like everyone keeps telling you.

    Damn, I would hate for you to realize what happens when you try to write user-created data under the Program Files folder with UAC enabled...  That will blow your fucking mind.  And again, it's done that way because shitty software writes data outside of the profile path and that fucks things up (like it can cause data loss when using system restore; and only an elevated admin should be able to write to Program Files).

    I doubt that other OSs would be able to handle shitty apps working outside the OS specs so gracefully.  The software would just stop working.  But since everything is Microsoft's fault, they have to do all of this shit so they don't get blamed when other software stops working because it wasn't coded for Windows correctly.



  • @ASheridan said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    IF YOU DO ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT, YOUR SOFTWARE IS FUCKING BUGGY AND WRONG
     @blakeyrat said:
    That doesn't work. The user upgrades to Vista. Program X stops working. The user doesn't say "oh man Program X sucks!" they say, "Vista sucks!" They tell their friends, Vista sales go down. (In fact, that actually did happen to Vista, despite Microsoft's compatibility efforts.)

    Make up your fucking mind. Either the software sucks and needs to be updated and fixed, or the problem is with Windows. You can't argue both points because they're completely opposite.

    I have no idea whatsoever how what you just typed related to what you quoted from me.

    1) I never said that "the problem is with Windows".
    2) I don't see how "the software sucks" and "the problem is with Windows" are mutually-exclusive. Which is moot, since I never said "the problem is with Windows" in the first place.

    @ASheridan said:

    In your opinion, which we've discussed before, is stupid at the best of times.

    There's no "opinion" involved here. Windows 95 folder names were internationalized, which means even the most cursory QA would have exposed the type of bugs we're talking about here.

    @ASheridan said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    It's a non-issue unless the app is running as Admin.
    If it's a non-issue, why the fuck did you bring it up? I said first that it wasn't shitty if it got stuck in a loop, and you were the one arguing that it was shitty because the OS was doing compatibility-level stuff. If it's a non-issue, then don't bring it in. God you're stupid.

    Textbook example of selective quoting. Congratulations. Now read that sentence and the following one.

    @ASheridan said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    The goalposts were never move.
    You meant 'moved' I presume?

    And... we're down to the level of complaining about typos. Thanks for once again raising the level of discourse.

    @ASheridan said:

    Yes, that is a problem, but a lot of softwaredid this pre-Vista and things worked.

    As I've stated multiple times, even the most cursory testing (running as a limited user, running on a non-English version of Windows) would have revealed these bugs. These apps never "worked" except by decreeing in their documentation: "only supported on English, only supported when run as Admin."



  • @ASheridan said:

    @blakeyrat said:

    IF YOU DO ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT, YOUR SOFTWARE IS FUCKING BUGGY AND WRONG
     @blakeyrat said:
    That doesn't work. The user upgrades to Vista. Program X stops working. The user doesn't say "oh man Program X sucks!" they say, "Vista sucks!" They tell their friends, Vista sales go down. (In fact, that actually *did* happen to Vista, despite Microsoft's compatibility efforts.)

    Make up your fucking mind. Either the software sucks and needs to be updated and fixed, or the problem is with Windows. You can't argue both points because they're completely opposite.

    ...

    ...

    I just

    ...

    Did you even read what is going on?  Reading comprehension is your friend.  Blakey is saying that BECAUSE OF THE BUGGY PROGRAM, the USERS can't get it to work, and then blame it on Microsoft because it worked in a previous version, even though it's THE BUGGY PROGRAM'S FAULT.



  • @ASheridan said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    If Windows had to stoop to only including the functionality of crap like Linux everyone would be configuring their machines with vim. Thank God Microsoft actually gives enough of a shit to focus on making a good product instead of desperately trying to meet your (low) standards.
    Yes, because Microsoft showing different aliases for different dictories only in Explorer is directly because of Linux? I never mentioned Linux, this doesn't really have anything to do with Linux.

    Okay, I'm calling it: ASheridan is a retard. You specifically mentioned other OSes and how no other OS shows aliases in a file browser that don't exist in filesystem. My reply was exactly to that point: Windows doesn't need to exclude a feature simply because other OSes lack it. And since I know you're a Linux uber-fanboy (who apparently doesn't even know that much about Linux or Windows) I called out Linux.

    Oh, and since we're on the subject: Nautilus does the same exact thing Explorer does. It shows a folder named "Home Folder" in the left-hand tree view pane. There is no folder on my system called "Home Folder". Even more embarrassing, there's no consistency between the names. It says "Home Folder" in the tree view but the window title says "morbs" (the actual name of my home dir) as does the breadcrumb at the top. There's a shortcut button in the toolbar that looks like a folder with a house on it; when hovered over it says "Open your personal folder". Of course, nowhere else in Nautilus (or Unix in general) is it called a "personal folder".


  • :belt_onion:

    @blakeyrat said:

    Look, IF YOU WANT THE PATH TO A SPECIAL FOLDER, YOU ASK THE OS FOR THE PATH TO THE SPECIAL FOLDER.
    [. . .] The ONLY OS that DOESN'T do it this way, AFAIK, is Linux and that's because Linux sucks shit and only has one huge monolithic "home folder".

    Even Linux does it this way. The path to the home folder is stored in the $HOME environment variable; if you assume /home/$USER, you will immediately find out you're wrong, as root's home folder is /root (in case /home isn't mounted).

    Also, I think ASheridan has just displayed the biggest failure in reading comprehension I've ever seen on this forum.

     



  • @AndyCanfield said:

    The IBM copy command ("IEBGENER") stopped working in April, then suddenly started working again in June.

    I vaguely remember applying a PUT (Program Update Tape) that fixed that very issue. But it was always the FORTRAN compiler error fixes that were the funniest, usually being a sorry list of things like "integer variables with values greater than ±254 cause a data exception ABEND." (!)


  • BINNED

    @morbiuswilters said:

    who apparently doesn't even know that much about Linux
    Especially since he totally missed the howler about using vim to configure machines. No one does that any more unless they really really want to (or they use Slackware, which amounts to the same thing).



  • @blakeyrat said:

    what the fuck is Japan's excuse for not having a home-grown OS? What the hell is France's excuse? The UK had a couple 8-bit systems, but why did they just give-fucking-up and cede the entire market to Microsoft and Apple? What were you guys all doing during the 70s while we were over here conquering this market? Pathetic.

    Well, firstly, the 'conquering of the market' by Microsoft and Apple didn't start happening until the 1980s. Secondly, in the UK during the 1970s, our only native mainframe manufacturer (ICL) was struggling aginst several hostile takeover bids, but Fujitsu won in the end. Thirdly, we were still five years behind the the USA in terms of smoking weed, which the said Microsoft/Apple personnel had clearly done some years earlier. Fourthly, by '8-bit systems,' I assume you mean the UK software written for the likes of the DEC PDP range? Even by the late 1970s, those machines were becoming obsolete, as PCs started being a real possibility for serious work and killing their market.



  • @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    who apparently doesn't even know that much about Linux
    Especially since he totally missed the howler about using vim to configure machines. No one does that any more unless they really really want to (or they use Slackware, which amounts to the same thing).
     

    A minimal install of CentOS only includes vi (which I assume is similar to vim somehow) and because of that I'm forced to use it until I can get the network configuration done and download nano. Our Linux servers at work run on CentOS 6 and I always start from a minimal install.



  • @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    who apparently doesn't even know that much about Linux
    Especially since he totally missed the howler about using vim to configure machines. No one does that any more unless they really really want to (or they use Slackware, which amounts to the same thing).

    This is true; you also can choose to configure from several buggy, clunky GUIs. I gravitate towards vim because at least it works reliably, which is more than can be said about any other Linux GUI config tool.



  • Let us not forget Mac OS and its "Bundles and Packages," where the OS pretends it's a file but it's really a directory (which may have a different name) and a bunch of files.

    And anyway, thy're just junctions with some funny permissions. Try this: create a folder, add permission "List folder contents/DENY" to "Everyone." You can no longer see what's in it, but you can copy and save to it and read anything you already know the name of.



  • @Bulb said:

    Than it seems they tried to use symlinks, the new form they added in Vista, but somehow screwed it up and they don't work.
    They work just fine - you can't go to C:\Documents and Settings, but you can go to C:\Documents and Settings<username>. This was made to prevent old backup programs from backing up every file twice, and to prevent programs that enumerate the complete drive from going in infinite loop (C:\ProgramData\Application Data points back to C:\Program Data - try going to C:\ProgramData\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data\Microsoft).
    @pkmnfrk said:
    Those are called Hard Links.
    Nope, they're junctions. You can only hardlink files (although junctions [which have been available since Windows 2000] do act kind of like directory hardlinks).
    @LegacyCrono said:
    Really, 0.01%? Where did you get that number? Are you american?
    Don't you know that 95% of statistics are made up on the spot? (for the record, no, I'm not American, and I don't use English Windows - but I don't switch languages either, and I sincerely doubt that most users do, simply because Microsoft doesn't allow you to switch languages on the most common editions of Windows).
    @lpope187 said:
    No, these apps are shitty because the location of Special Directories (SystemRoot, ProgramFiles, Desktop, StartMenu, Documents, etc) have been specified in the registry since at least Win2k
    No, they haven't, and if you're reading them from some undocumented registry key (which just happens to contain a hint that you really shouldn't be doing that), you're just as broken as the programs that hardcode the names. Use the shell folder functions - that's the only correct way since Windows 95 shipped.
    @pnieuwkamp said:
    The 'fix' however, makes it appear like there is a 'Documents and Settings' and then errors out as you can't do anything with it.
    The localized folders behave somewhat strangely - some parts of the UI let you use them (eg. the address bar in Explorer works with both on-disk and localized name), and others don't - and there's no real indication when it works or not (eg. in common dialog boxes, typing C:\Programske datoteke (localized C:\Program Files, in case it's not obvious) won't autocomplete, but the moment I add a backslash, it'll start autocompleting - but then it'll complain that the file or folder doesn't exist.



  • @Bulb said:

    @ASheridan said:
    Just be lucky it wasn't on Windows. Since Vista, they've added pseudo directories which only exist within Explorer (which means explorer driven file dialogues too) that don't actually exist, so any software that attempts to access it will fail. The My Documents directory is a prime example, if you try accessing it via the command prompt, it's actually a directory called Documents. I'm not sure why they've done this, but it was confusing at first to diagnose when I was having issues because of it.
    In Vista, they renamed the directories to saner names (My Documents to Documents, Documents And Settings to Users etc.). Than it seems they tried to use symlinks, the new form they added in Vista, but somehow screwed it up and they don't work. In fact for me they work the other way. In cygwin, ls /cygdrive/c/Documents\ And\ Settings will list the c:\Users directory just fine, but in explorer when I click the Documents And Settings, it pops up a dialog saying C:\Documents And Settings is not accessible. Access Denied.

    TRWTF: The symlinks in question work just fine (and appear as perfectly ordinary symlinks) if you mount the Windows drive in question from within Linux.



  • @pauly said:

    Shit man, just turn off hidden files.
     

    They're not hidden files, have you been following the conversation at all?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I have no idea whatsoever how what you just typed related to what you quoted from me.

     You first say that the problem is with the software, and the second quote insinuates the problem is with Windows. As it's the same problem we're talking about, these things are mutually exclusive. Maybe I misunderstood you? Maybe you just mentioned about the user saying Windows was the problem because you just wanted to throw in something completely unrelated in an attempt to throw the conversation in a different direction. If that was the intention, then congratulations.@blakeyrat said:

    Textbook example of selective quoting. Congratulations. Now read that sentence and the following one.

     I did, and still stand by what I said.@blakeyrat said:

    And... we're down to the level of complaining about typos. Thanks for once again raising the level of discourse.
    Hey, I'm just taking a leaf out of your book. In-fact, one of the first times you ranted at me was to pick up on a typo because I'd missed a space out between a word. Why so surprised now?

     

     

     


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