Re: Resources (Re: Sed)

[toddpw@cco.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)]

vandry@CAM.ORG (Phillip Vandry) writes:

>Say I want to put OOTW on one 1.44 meg disk. The whole thing won't fit, I bet.
>But if I could just delete five or six sounds, it would probably fit.
>Unfortunately it's not as simple as rm'ing five or six files

That's a ludicrous example. I'm SURE you're going to run OOTW with some of
the sounds missing. It would ruin the game ("hey, I can hear the bullets, but
nobody says anything when they die! what's going on?"). Expecting application
writers to support all the possible contingencies when files are missing is
really unreasonable -- YOU trying writing a game as complex as OOTW and make
it oodles of files and keep it all straight. You're engaging in some serious
armchair programming here, mister.

>No, only those things that are worth it. You wouln't put an rPString in
>a seperate file, you'd stick it into the program itself.

Bzzt! Now I can't edit that rPString anymore. Suppose a French user's group
wants to translate my program's messages? They'll have loads of fun in the
sector editor trying to preserve the lengths of each message. Worse, if they
have to translate American idioms into French phrases, they're sunk because
they can't make the strings longer. With resources, the system handles the
size change and takes care of it all; the program still does a LoadResource()
and doesn't worry about anything because it already knows how to format
strings for display (that way _I_ could edit the strings with a resource
editor in order to fix spelling mistakes and improve the messages, and never
need to recompile the program to do it).

>I think the benefits outweigh those (potential) problems. There's nothing more
>flexible.

You're right, there isn't anything more flexible. If anything, it is _too_
flexible. Most of UNIX outside the kernel maps well into standalone binaries
and text-based configuration/log/data files, and occasionally private binary
data files (sendmail.fc for example). But UNIX is _not_ a GUI application,
and "what's good for the operating system is good for applications" doesn't
necessarily apply.

>And one of the reasons why UNIX stuff is very hard to manage is
>the UUCP/SLIP/whatever links, not the local stuff. And you would expect
>newtork stuff to be complex, because the network is complex!

Actually network stuff is not that complex -- it only looks that way because
it has to be configured correctly for it to work, and correct configuration
does rely on knowing where everything is. With good references, networking
stuff is a fairly masterable task (note I didn't say it was _easy_; it does
take a respectable amount of effort, which is why people can get jobs where
all they do is network management).

Phillip, you remind me of myself about four years ago. Go out and start a
company while you still know everything -- but don't quit your day job.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ cco.caltech.edu