Make your minds up!

In article <mn.d0847d719d3d6580.67894.TakeThisOut@privacy.net>,
Mike <me.TakeThisOut@privacy.net> wrote:

> One minute you're all bleating about how wonderful the Mac and OS X is,
> and the next you're all installing 'Parallels' and Windows XP!
>
> I know I can do anything on my Windows PC that a Mac and OS X can do,

Wrong. While it's abstractly correct at the very lowest level of
computational technology, there do exist some tasks for which the
expense and effort of achieving them on Windows recommend strongly in
favor of a Mac-based solution. And vice-versa.

What you probably meant to say is that anything _you_ want to do you can
do on a Windows machine, but that doesn't mean everything that everyone
wants to do is achievable that way. Verifying correct behavior of a web
page in Safari, for example, is rather difficult to do without OS X.


> so what can't you do on OS X that drives you to use Parallels &
> Windows?

Most of them, I believe, do it so they can run specific programs that
are Windows-only. There are vertical markets that so strongly favor
either platform over the other that it makes more sense to just use that
platform. And in some cases even if there's a theoretical alternative
it's not sufficient. Sometimes even the same product for two platforms
doesn't offer identical behavior. Like the version of IE 6 for NT and
the version of IE 6 for XP.

--
The best intentions in the world don't make a flawed argument magically valid.
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

On Jan 26, 3:12 pm, Mike <m....RemoveThis@privacy.net> wrote:
> One minute you're all bleating about how wonderful the Mac and OS X is,
> and the next you're all installing 'Parallels' and Windows XP!
>
> I know I can do anything on my Windows PC that a Mac and OS X can do,
> so what can't you do on OS X that drives you to use Parallels &
> Windows?
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

In article <mn.d0847d719d3d6580.67894.RemoveThis@privacy.net>,
Mike <me.RemoveThis@privacy.net> wrote:

> I know I can do anything on my Windows PC

Yeah, like troll, troll, and troll. Get a job.
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

> One minute you're all bleating about how wonderful the Mac and OS X is,
> and the next you're all installing 'Parallels' and Windows XP!
Not me, Mike. I will never install these things on my Mac--should I
ever be lucky enough to have a Mac that will install them, that is.
(I'm still using a B&W G3.) I've finally stopped using Word 5.1 and I'm
free of Microsoft forever. Feels real great!

Laraine
http://lbarker.orcon.net.nz/
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

TaliesinSoft formulated the question :
> On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:12:26 -0600, Mike wrote
> (in article <mn.d0847d719d3d6580.67894 RemoveThis @privacy.net>):
>
>> One minute you're all bleating about how wonderful the Mac and OS X is,
>> and the next you're all installing 'Parallels' and Windows XP!
>>
>> I know I can do anything on my Windows PC that a Mac and OS X can do,
>> so what can't you do on OS X that drives you to use Parallels &
>> Windows?
>
> I've installed Parallels Desktop on my MacBook Pro for two reasons. First to
> be able to run Dyalog APL, an application development environment, and second
> to run the latest version of Internet Explorer in order to see how well
> websites run under it.

This may be a silly question, and I have no idea what Dyalog is, but
why do you need to run "Dyalog APL"? Is it Windows specific? Is there
no Mac equivalent?

> Interestingly the benchmarks I've run for Dyalog APL show that its
> performance under Parallels Desktop compares quite favorably with the same
> application running on a PC, in both cases the host environment is
> Windows XP.

Oh, so reading into that, it is Windows specific.

Why?
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:22:20 -0600, Mike wrote (in article
<mn.d0ca7d71caeb5071.67894.RemoveThis@privacy.net>):

> TaliesinSoft formulated the question :
>> On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:12:26 -0600, Mike wrote (in article
>> <mn.d0847d719d3d6580.67894.RemoveThis@privacy.net>):
>>
>>> One minute you're all bleating about how wonderful the Mac and OS X is,
>>> and the next you're all installing 'Parallels' and Windows XP!
>>>
>>> I know I can do anything on my Windows PC that a Mac and OS X can do, so
>>> what can't you do on OS X that drives you to use Parallels & Windows?
>>
>> I've installed Parallels Desktop on my MacBook Pro for two reasons. First
>> to be able to run Dyalog APL, an application development environment, and
>> second to run the latest version of Internet Explorer in order to see how
>> well websites run under it.
>
> This may be a silly question, and I have no idea what Dyalog is, but why
> do you need to run "Dyalog APL"? Is it Windows specific? Is there no Mac
> equivalent?
>
>> Interestingly the benchmarks I've run for Dyalog APL show that its
>> performance under Parallels Desktop compares quite favorably with the
>> same application running on a PC, in both cases the host environment is
>> Windows XP.
>
> Oh, so reading into that, it is Windows specific.
>
> Why?

Dyalog APL is one of several versions of an APL (A Programming Language first
defined by Kenneth Iverson and subsequently implemented and amplified by a
number of others) environment currently available, and which offers features
not available in other APL environments, features which I consider essential.
Dyalog APL is available in versions for running under several operating
systems, Windows and Linux being perhaps the most popular. It is not
available in a native Mac OS X version, which is why I chose to run it under
Windows XP Pro which in turn is run under Parallels Desktop. Prior to my
switching to an Intel based Mac I ran Dyalog APL for a number of years under
Virtual PC.

As an aside, the programming language APL was first available in mainframe
versions in the late '60s. APL has an avid but somewhat small following, and
I include myself amongst those followers. As computing moved from the
mainframe to the desktop so did APL.

--
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft.RemoveThis@mac.com
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

In article <0001HW.C1DED34300567EFBB02D594F.TakeThisOut@news.supernews.com>,
TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft.TakeThisOut@mac.com> wrote:

> As an aside, the programming language APL was first available in mainframe
> versions in the late '60s. APL has an avid but somewhat small following, and
> I include myself amongst those followers. As computing moved from the
> mainframe to the desktop so did APL.

As someone who fell out of that following about ten years ago, I'm
curious what kinds of things you're using APL for today.

I once had an APL environment that ran in what was essentially an
emulated 360, running under MS-DOS. That instance of DOS was running on
a "PC" that was an 8086 board in my Mac SE.

Remember Iverson's follow-up to APL? A language called J? I had a great
little chuckle when Microsoft released something they decided to call
J++.

--
The best intentions in the world don't make a flawed argument magically valid.
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:05:34 -0600, Gregory Weston wrote (in article
<uce-26DB03.23053425012007.DeleteThis@comcast.dca.giganews.com>):

> In article <0001HW.C1DED34300567EFBB02D594F.DeleteThis@news.supernews.com>,
> TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft.DeleteThis@mac.com> wrote:
>
>> As an aside, the programming language APL was first available in
>> mainframe versions in the late '60s. APL has an avid but somewhat small
>> following, and I include myself amongst those followers. As computing
>> moved from the mainframe to the desktop so did APL.
>
> As someone who fell out of that following about ten years ago, I'm curious
> what kinds of things you're using APL for today.

My current main use of Dyalog APL has been as the vehicle for implementation
of a "true" relational database primarily intended for those wishing to make
spontaneous queries into collections of data. My database (Q5 is its name and
which stands for the famous five queries, who, what, where, when, and why) is
in use in a number of research organizations.

> I once had an APL environment that ran in what was essentially an emulated
> 360, running under MS-DOS. That instance of DOS was running on a "PC" that
> was an 8086 board in my Mac SE.

As an aside I was project leader for two separate implementations of APL,
APL\700 for Burroughs and The APL Machine for Analogic.

> Remember Iverson's follow-up to APL? A language called J? I had a great
> little chuckle when Microsoft released something they decided to call J++.

Although there were certainly many things in J that were an improvement over
the then dialects of APL I personally felt that the substitution of ASCII
characters for the APL character set was a step backwards, a cure to a
problem that no longer existed by the time J was released.

--
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft.DeleteThis@mac.com
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

TaliesinSoft wrote:
> As an aside, the programming language APL was first available in mainframe
> versions in the late '60s. APL has an avid but somewhat small following, and
> I include myself amongst those followers. As computing moved from the
> mainframe to the desktop so did APL.
>
Very interesting...I remember learning APL in grad school in, er,
probably 1977...on a UNIVAC 1108....along with LISP, SNOBOL, ALGOL
and PL/1. Good memories.....
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

In article <0001HW.C1DEE065005992F7B028394F DeleteThis @news.supernews.com>,
TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft DeleteThis @mac.com> wrote:

> > Remember Iverson's follow-up to APL? A language called J? I had a great
> > little chuckle when Microsoft released something they decided to call J++.
>
> Although there were certainly many things in J that were an improvement over
> the then dialects of APL I personally felt that the substitution of ASCII
> characters for the APL character set was a step backwards, a cure to a
> problem that no longer existed by the time J was released.

I found J substantially harder to read than APL. For me the cure wasn't
unnecessary, it was harmful.

--
The best intentions in the world don't make a flawed argument magically valid.
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

Mike wrote:
> One minute you're all bleating about how wonderful the Mac and OS X is,
> and the next you're all installing 'Parallels' and Windows XP!
>
> I know I can do anything on my Windows PC that a Mac and OS X can do, so
> what can't you do on OS X that drives you to use Parallels & Windows?
>
Apparently, people do this just to confuse and alarm you. There
obviously can't be any reason why someone might want to use a different
tool for a different job. No reason at all.

Anyway, choice is stupid.
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 02:12:26 +0000, Mike wrote
(in article <mn.d0847d719d3d6580.67894.TakeThisOut@privacy.net>):

> I know I can do anything on my Windows PC that a Mac and OS X can do,
> so what can't you do on OS X that drives you to use Parallels &
> Windows?

Run Outlook 2003 to connect to corporate email based on Exchange server
so that I can communicate effectively with my colleagues. Plus some
software for a chemistry course I'm doing that requires Windows.

For everything else I use MacOS software. Choice is good though.

Ian

--
Ian Robinson, Belfast, UK
<http://www.canicula.com/wp/>
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up! 

On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 07:27:47 -0600, Graham J Lee wrote
(in article <12rk0ele6thc2fd.DeleteThis@corp.supernews.com>):

> My keyboard doesn't have enough keys to be able to represent all the APL
> character set. I presume that they're all in the Unicode table somewhere
> though ;-)

The APL character set is indeed tucked away in Unicode. In my own case I use
the Dyalog APL unified keyboard which has the ASCII glyphs in their regular
keytop places, both unshifted and shifted, and has the additional unique to
APL glyphs on (most always) their usual keytops albeit they are accessed by
using the control and shift-control keys. If one is already an APL touch
typist on a conventional APL keyboard it takes only a short while to become
just as proficient on the Dyalog APL unified keyboard.

--
James Leo Ryan ..... Austin, Texas ..... taliesinsoft.DeleteThis@mac.com
 >> Stay informed about: Make your minds up!