python was: transputers again was: The dissolution of Commodore 2909

Charlie Gibbs

About fifteen years ago, I might have done the same.

But that was because I lived in a tool ghetto: I did not have access to a UNIX system, only (pre-OS X) MacOS systems. (This problem still afflicts all Windows users today, unless they install something like Cygwin.)

Once you have a decent toolset, you have a much better way of solving problems like this (recent example):

"From a Subversion repository, print a list of every committer to a project and the number of their commits, sorted highest to least."

One solution:

sort uniq -c sort -n -r

I would like to see: 1) the quick 20-line C version 2) the DOS BAT or GWBASIC version 3) any GUI equivalent (i.e. not writing a program) 4) the .NET server side version (the CGI wrapper for the above is 7 or 8 lines) and since this is a.f.c, 5) the DCL version and whatever Barb would propose under TOPS-*

The "one tool" people tempted to respond "but it's silly to try and point: that a diversity of tools, selected according to problem at hand, is a healthy environment.

--Toby