Made up my mind to go win7

[GreyCloud]

I have done a lot of research into three operating systems and the
support I could get from each of them along with how well the
documentation is written.

On linux I used a VM to try it out as I don't have an appropriate PC to
do it natively on an Intel. Most things worked ok, but the support from
the OpenSuse forums were of no real help and didn't get anymore feedback
to a particular problem of getting old legacy Motif programs to be built
using the standard 'xmkmf' approach that uses Imake files. The Xorg
conf files that has the templates and rules files were not integrated
enough to accomplish the builds and I could not get any info on how to
do this from any forums. There is, unfortunately, not enough thought of
integrating everything into a useful cohesive package, say like AIX from
IBM has done.

On Sun solaris, I found the same problems. The response to the old
legacy programs is to 'upgrade to a better build system', which I then
asked "To what build system should I move to to accomplish this task?"
No answers. Documentation is now almost useless and pretty much not
found on oracles site.

On OS X I ran into the same thing. Why they put X11 into their package
and not support it thoroughly I don't know. So I purchased a few books
on trying to learn how to code in their environment using XCode. It
looks good and has an advanced package, but the documentation is
fragmented and not a cohesive document leaving one wondering where to
start first. Worse the documentation is far too wordy and really
doesn't say much. There are a few tutorials on how to do the most
rudimentary things, but doesn't cover the advanced tools necessary to
get a large program running. There are just too many learning gaps there.

So I looked into VS2010 Pro arena on support forums. Yes, MS excluded
the index of their APIs and apparently has made a lot of people angry
for this omission. As long as you have an internet connection you can
find documentation that is well presented that makes sense with a lot of
coding examples. The most important part has to do with business apps.
VS2010 has the resources to develop database programs for business
that I haven't found in the others, except for Oracles and they are
quite pricey. Since my neighbor uses VS2010 and seems to be doing well
with it, he allowed me to peruse his setup and see how things work.
Where I had questions I used to context search that went to the web for
help and found it most useful and productive. Much better. So, now I'm
going over all of my sun stuff and transferring the data to CDs in ISO
format in preparation for a new Win7 system.

 

[ray]

I have done a lot of research into three operating systems and the
support I could get from each of them along with how well the
documentation is written.

On linux I used a VM to try it out as I don't have an appropriate PC to
do it natively on an Intel. Most things worked ok, but the support from
the OpenSuse forums were of no real help and didn't get anymore feedback
to a particular problem of getting old legacy Motif programs to be built
using the standard 'xmkmf' approach that uses Imake files. The Xorg
conf files that has the templates and rules files were not integrated
enough to accomplish the builds and I could not get any info on how to
do this from any forums. There is, unfortunately, not enough thought of
integrating everything into a useful cohesive package, say like AIX from
IBM has done.

On Sun solaris, I found the same problems. The response to the old
legacy programs is to 'upgrade to a better build system', which I then
asked "To what build system should I move to to accomplish this task?"
No answers. Documentation is now almost useless and pretty much not
found on oracles site.

On OS X I ran into the same thing. Why they put X11 into their package
and not support it thoroughly I don't know. So I purchased a few books
on trying to learn how to code in their environment using XCode. It
looks good and has an advanced package, but the documentation is
fragmented and not a cohesive document leaving one wondering where to
start first. Worse the documentation is far too wordy and really
doesn't say much. There are a few tutorials on how to do the most
rudimentary things, but doesn't cover the advanced tools necessary to
get a large program running. There are just too many learning gaps
there.

So I looked into VS2010 Pro arena on support forums. Yes, MS excluded
the index of their APIs and apparently has made a lot of people angry
for this omission. As long as you have an internet connection you can
find documentation that is well presented that makes sense with a lot of
coding examples. The most important part has to do with business apps.
VS2010 has the resources to develop database programs for business
that I haven't found in the others, except for Oracles and they are
quite pricey. Since my neighbor uses VS2010 and seems to be doing well
with it, he allowed me to peruse his setup and see how things work.
Where I had questions I used to context search that went to the web for
help and found it most useful and productive. Much better. So, now I'm
going over all of my sun stuff and transferring the data to CDs in ISO
format in preparation for a new Win7 system.

Cool. That should work great with all those legacy Motif programs.

 

[Paul]

I have done a lot of research into three operating systems and the
support I could get from each of them along with how well the
documentation is written.

On linux I used a VM to try it out as I don't have an appropriate PC to
do it natively on an Intel. Most things worked ok, but the support from
the OpenSuse forums were of no real help and didn't get anymore feedback
to a particular problem of getting old legacy Motif programs to be built
using the standard 'xmkmf' approach that uses Imake files. The Xorg
conf files that has the templates and rules files were not integrated
enough to accomplish the builds and I could not get any info on how to
do this from any forums. There is, unfortunately, not enough thought of
integrating everything into a useful cohesive package, say like AIX from
IBM has done.

On Sun solaris, I found the same problems. The response to the old
legacy programs is to 'upgrade to a better build system', which I then
asked "To what build system should I move to to accomplish this task?"
No answers. Documentation is now almost useless and pretty much not
found on oracles site.

On OS X I ran into the same thing. Why they put X11 into their package
and not support it thoroughly I don't know. So I purchased a few books
on trying to learn how to code in their environment using XCode. It
looks good and has an advanced package, but the documentation is
fragmented and not a cohesive document leaving one wondering where to
start first. Worse the documentation is far too wordy and really
doesn't say much. There are a few tutorials on how to do the most
rudimentary things, but doesn't cover the advanced tools necessary to
get a large program running. There are just too many learning gaps there.

So I looked into VS2010 Pro arena on support forums. Yes, MS excluded
the index of their APIs and apparently has made a lot of people angry
for this omission. As long as you have an internet connection you can
find documentation that is well presented that makes sense with a lot of
coding examples. The most important part has to do with business apps.
VS2010 has the resources to develop database programs for business that
I haven't found in the others, except for Oracles and they are quite
pricey. Since my neighbor uses VS2010 and seems to be doing well with
it, he allowed me to peruse his setup and see how things work. Where I
had questions I used to context search that went to the web for help and
found it most useful and productive. Much better. So, now I'm going
over all of my sun stuff and transferring the data to CDs in ISO format
in preparation for a new Win7 system.

You've painted the landscape in your post, but not explained what the
objective of your project is.

To build existing programs in the Linux world, for the most part they've
made it as simple as:

../configure
make

Configure does test compiles, and sees whether the OS has certain
flavors of threading or the like. It then passes the result, by means
of the makefile.

With various Package Managers, you can even install binaries that download
from the network. Even Solaris, if you register your copy, has some way to
deliver things like security updates or the like.

One OS that's a bit different, is Gentoo (Linux), where the packaging system
downloads source, and compiles that for you, with no work on your part
(it just takes time, like up to ten hours, for a new desktop windowing
environment and utilities). Using USE flags, you can specify any options
you might want. For example, when I wanted an environment, without a whiff
or smell of PulseAudio in it, I went with Gentoo and all the audio apps
now don't know anything about Pulse. If you can follow a recipe book
step by step, you can get Gentoo working.

It sounds like you've coded for a Motif windowing environment of some
sort. Do you want to re-code, for more and different situations ? Or
is the objective to find some computer that will run your stuff
with minimal extra work ? At one time, Motif was commercial (at least,
at work I was told my department would be billed $50 if I had the libraries
installed on my desktop - but that was a long long time ago).

https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/jsp/publications/PublicationDetails.jsp?publicationid=12140

VS2010 sounds like a development environment. Some OSes come with a text
editor and a copy of gcc/g++, which is not quite the same thing. A text
editor and a copy of gcc is enough to write simple programs, but doesn't have
all the features of a development environment.

Historically, Solaris/SunOS has been well documented. For what little I've been
doing so far with Solaris, I've been able to find answers. (They used to have
AnswerBook, which was integrated into the desktop, but I haven't gone looking
for that. They may have given up on that, as a delivery vehicle.)

Each development environment, will try to lock you into doing things
their way. But without knowing what your objective is (commercial
success, want to code small home projects etc), it's hard to say
what the answer for you would be. I've always considered myself
pretty spoiled, when I find a free compiler on any OS, because
at one time, that was optional. GCC kinda broke the shackles and
allowed more people to experiment.

On Windows, you can use things like DJGPP, for simple projects. I find
it easier, to just fire up a virtual machine, and do the project in some
other OS.

Paul

 

[GreyCloud]

You've painted the landscape in your post, but not explained what the
objective of your project is.

To make a few business database oriented programs that won't take a
whole year to do.
I know that it is a bit risky to make the move and I will have a steep
learning curve to overcome.

To build existing programs in the Linux world, for the most part they've
made it as simple as:

./configure
make

I've had troubles with some.

Configure does test compiles, and sees whether the OS has certain
flavors of threading or the like. It then passes the result, by means
of the makefile.

I've used configure successfully on OS X and other times nothing worked.
I've read in a solaris newsgroup that configure is worse than any Imake
build environment. Plus it is fairly easy to write an Imake file and
they are usually fairly short. The downside is that all your include
files and libs has to be in the expected places.
Tho this is a simplified example, I can even do xmkmf hello.c on the old
hello world program and get an executable.
So, for me it would be easier to let VS2010 just make its own makefile
under its own rules. At least it works.

With various Package Managers, you can even install binaries that download
from the network. Even Solaris, if you register your copy, has some way to
deliver things like security updates or the like.

That has changed when Oracle took over. I have to pay a price to get
security updates... and that price will easily buy a nice PC.
Plus my cousin, (he hates computers but has to use them in his business)
wants something that someone else could maintain if I'm not around. All
centered around database management of his business records plus
business contacts.

One OS that's a bit different, is Gentoo (Linux), where the packaging
system
downloads source, and compiles that for you, with no work on your part
(it just takes time, like up to ten hours, for a new desktop windowing
environment and utilities). Using USE flags, you can specify any options
you might want. For example, when I wanted an environment, without a whiff
or smell of PulseAudio in it, I went with Gentoo and all the audio apps
now don't know anything about Pulse. If you can follow a recipe book
step by step, you can get Gentoo working.

I've looked into Gentoo, but found that a lot of things can go wrong
without really leaving you a hint as to a solution. Sometimes the
solution on a forum may never get offered... especially Suse.
On Fedora, the audio was broken up pretty bad no matter what I tried.
Could've been the VM.

It sounds like you've coded for a Motif windowing environment of some
sort. Do you want to re-code, for more and different situations ?

No, I was coding for it, but finally gave up on it. Too time consuming.
I've decided to take a more direct route where everything is at your
fingertips inside the development environment. If I run into a
question, I can then click for the on-line docs with support that gives
some idea on how it is used. In OpenVMS I had plenty of useful docs,
but that environment seems to be long gone and also quite pricey.

Or

is the objective to find some computer that will run your stuff
with minimal extra work ? At one time, Motif was commercial (at least,
at work I was told my department would be billed $50 if I had the libraries
installed on my desktop - but that was a long long time ago).

https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/jsp/publications/PublicationDetails.jsp?publicationid=12140

Ah yes. I've seen smatterings of this inside the XCode docs.

VS2010 sounds like a development environment. Some OSes come with a text
editor and a copy of gcc/g++, which is not quite the same thing. A text
editor and a copy of gcc is enough to write simple programs, but doesn't
have
all the features of a development environment.

I've used Netbeans on Solaris and OpenSuse as a development environment,
but there seems to be some minor bugs, but it is pretty good if you have
the compilers and the plugins to use it. But it doesn't have anything
that incrementally parses your code and shows where there is a problem
before compiling.
VS2010 is a complete development environment, and yes you are locked in,
but then consider the environment you are using it in. You need the MFC
apis and docs plus support, which I've found to be better than the others.

Historically, Solaris/SunOS has been well documented. For what little
I've been
doing so far with Solaris, I've been able to find answers. (They used to
have
AnswerBook, which was integrated into the desktop, but I haven't gone
looking
for that. They may have given up on that, as a delivery vehicle.)

They dropped in I believe in Solaris 9. I've got Solaris 10 and you
have to rely on their web site, which for the time being for the docs is
not there. Their C++ compiler has many holes in it as to be almost
useless. I liked the lint libs tho.

Each development environment, will try to lock you into doing things
their way. But without knowing what your objective is (commercial
success, want to code small home projects etc), it's hard to say
what the answer for you would be. I've always considered myself
pretty spoiled, when I find a free compiler on any OS, because
at one time, that was optional. GCC kinda broke the shackles and
allowed more people to experiment.

GCC is ok, but the documentation is a bit incomplete in many areas. For
example, under what conditions do you use certain compiler switches?
One has to learn the hard way thru frustration, and that isn't a good
way if you are in a hurry. Some code, like fortran2008, isn't readily
supported by gfortran. Doing business software you have to look up
either mysql or postgresql docs and try and figure it out.
But I know what you mean by lock in. OS X locks you into Cocoa and that
is a bit too evasive in regards to looking up the appropriate API for a
certain task or how it really should be handled. Plus their docs are
quite a bit fragmented into pieces and it is hard to get XCode to spit
out the correct doc on what you are looking for. Their internal editor
is also a bit picky if you want to add another function to a project in
that it won't do tabbing. (Like when you hit the tab key and nothing
happens)

 

[Big Steel]

So I looked into VS2010 Pro arena on support forums. Yes, MS excluded
the index of their APIs and apparently has made a lot of people angry
for this omission. As long as you have an internet connection you can
find documentation that is well presented that makes sense with a lot of
coding examples. The most important part has to do with business apps.
VS2010 has the resources to develop database programs for business that
I haven't found in the others, except for Oracles and they are quite
pricey. Since my neighbor uses VS2010 and seems to be doing well with
it, he allowed me to peruse his setup and see how things work. Where I
had questions I used to context search that went to the web for help and
found it most useful and productive. Much better. So, now I'm going over
all of my sun stuff and transferring the data to CDs in ISO format in
preparation for a new Win7 system.

Yes .NET is very good. For enterprise level business solutions, using
WCF, ADO.NET Entity Framework, .NET nHibernate, TDD (Test Driven
Design), DDD (Domain Driven Design) there is nothing better. .NET
programmers are in high demand, that's what the contracting firms are
saying as the look for qualified people to work contracts.

 

[Parko]

To build existing programs in the Linux world, for the most part they've
made it as simple as:

./configure
make

sudo make install

HTH

 

[GreyCloud]

sudo make install

And for old Motif apps... xmkmf -a