@Marko

If H is mean to mean HIDE - hide where exactly?

As far as I'm aware there was just one application that ever thought of using H as hide, and that was old DirectoryOpus, AFAIK the entire HIDE thing is something GPSoft invented all on their own. For the programs that come with AmigaOS, it doesn't make any sense. Workench by default hides files to which there are no corresponding .info files, neither C:list nor C:dir have any flags to display "hidden" files (and why would anyone want to hide files anyhow?) If a file is "hidden", but its .info is not "hidden", what is workbench supposed to do? Or a file does not have any .info, and is hidden - is workbench then supposed to display it when "show all files", or must there be another level "show all hidden files as well"? To introduce a "hidden" flag opens a can of worms, really - alot of stuff will need to be changed

If anything, I really fail to see what use a hidden flag would have, other than to confuse new and old user alike.

And on second note, I find it slighly strange that noone has attacked the A (archived) flag yet. Is there any software that respects it? And with respect it I mean remove it when file is altered and have backup software add it when file is backed up.

And thirdly, I don't want _all_ programs that are pure to automatically become resident just because they're pure, I want to be able to control that myself, thank you, so please keep the two apart.

Quote: Really - so you suggest I have to modify the binary executables themselve instead of using filesystem flags? Using what exactly... does OS4 come with a hex editor I can use?

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From where did you get those gastly silly and nondescriptive endings?

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What do you mean "unlike AmigaOS3"? It works perfectly well in OS3 thank you very much - what broken installation are you referring to?

And so what if you can check what the few first bytes are - that's not the point - the point is that _I_ - THE USER - can decide what files I want to have executable or not. It was just a few weeks ago that someone asked how he could prevent guests from accidently formatting a partition - well, the solution is simply to remove the E flag from the format command - THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THESE FLAGS ARE FOR!!111oneone

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Whywhat? Why would I not need P and H on OS4? Why should I not be able to myself mark reentrant binaries with P, and unmark those that end up not being really pure despite the lame programmer claiming them to be? Why should I not be able to decide that I want certain binaries to automatically become resident when ran the first time?

And why should OS4 be different from MorphOS and OS3 in this respect, even AROS will most likely align with OS3 and MorphOS on these things in a not too distant future, why must OS4 stick out as the oddball, for _no_ sane reason at all?

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This is not even a strawman argument, it's a sillyman argument. And for what it matters - I _do_ need Workbench to use a 4-colour screenmode every now and then, but _not_ to save chip RAM.

Who are you to tell me what I need and not?

Quote:

OK, fair enough:

P - pure - to mark in the filesystem that a binary is pure, reentrant, can be resident in memory and be run multiple times, even simultaniously, from memory, without changing its own structures and thereby crashing. To make a binary resident, you use the command "resident", or you can mark it with the H flag - hold - which makes the binary automatically become resident when run the first time.

Why is it practical to have commands resident?

So you don't have to rely on filesystem access to run the commands. This simplifies alot of things, such as

* quick access to certain commands that are used very often, for example I have rx, list, zshell, assign, execute, setenv, lha, copy, tee, foreach .. and many others that I use quite extensively, resident. Not because I'm worried about slow disk access, but because...

* I avoid the risk of running some flawed version of a common command if I stand in a directory that just happens to have the same command around in it, since resident commands have precedence. It's funny what a malicious "dir" or "list" can do in an lha archive.

* moving system files and assigns around between different devices, including the system assigns, without "loosing" your commands (since they've become resident).

* it becomes easier to create tiny temporary boot systems that can be removed completely after bootup, be it floppy, usb stick, memory card, RAD, or even network device.

And seriously, the one who's to decide whether a command shall have P and H flags is _I_ - THE USER - not some jackass coder who didn't check his code/binaries well enough and added pure bit because he think it's leet.

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So does that mean you want to get rid of c:edit also? If yes - why? If no - why not?

(What, Picasso96Mode? me worry? What does it have to do with anything in this context)

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First - I typically execute rexx scripts from CLI, allthough I do have some that are I start from Workbench, but with them I use the provided tooltype that tells _Workbench_ that it shall be loaded with RX. And it's not true that all .ced scripts are solely meant to be used from within CED, they are typically used to address CED to do something specific, and they can be launched from just about anywhere. Likewise with scrips from other applications.

This is how we use rexx as glue between applications, I can from CLI, or some other application - for examply WordsWorth - tell CED to paste from clipboard to a new buffer, run a certain filter on the content and save the result, or dumpe it back to paste buffer so that I can paste back into WordsWorth, or whatever.

Of course, since Workbench (at least in 3.9, and Ambient on MorphOS, and DOpus Magellan) also has rexx port, one can control the desktop itself from scripts. And it doesn't matter what the name of those scripts are, that's for THE USER to decide.

And you want to remove my powers over the OS I love, and replace it with some dysfunctional fluffy nonsense to attract (non-existing) new users, making sure everything is as much identical to Windows as possible so that they will feel at home from first second...

Well, I have only one reaction to that - screw you guys... I'm going home.

(Luckily the people who actually write OS4 are not quite as .... dee dee dee ... as some of the vocal zealots in the community, so fat chance any of the wild stuff suggested will be implemented)

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Not really, most of them have extension depening on what application they came with, for example arexx script that came with ced typically are named .ced.

I have lots of arexx scripts that don't have any extension, they just have +SE protection bits and are located in path. Or in sys:wbstartup, to be launched on startup.

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What do you mean? Are you saying that I'm not supposed to able to use OS4 the same way I've been using OS3.x? I do not see any fundamental difference.

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You _really_ have no concept of what its use is for, do you. It has nothing to do with slow I/O, that it helps there is just a bonus.

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It's not an argument, it's a question - do you want to get rid of c:edit also? If yes - why? If not - why not?

@ChrisH

I do not care that you don't use those flags, nor do I care if "most users" have no need for them (who again? seriously, new users? who are you kidding?)

The point, for me, is that _I_ use them, every single one of them. I guess I must be really leet for knowing my ways around the system, huh?

I also use c:edit, but I suppose you want to get rid of that too, huh? Anything else you want to get rid of while we're at it? How about assigns? Only VMS has something vaguely similar, and we can't expect new users to come from VMS these days, so I suggest we get rid of assigns too. And ram-disk, it serves absolutely no practical purpose these days. And envarc:/env: should obviously be replaced with a database and a dedicated editor. And when you have a database, why not get rid of the various nonsense files inside devs:? And C: L: LIBS: S: - who cares? Why not just toss them all together into the system folder? Ditto for classes, fonts, prefs and anything else that any random n00b would not understand.

Yes, I too was once a new user, and all this stuff was _exactly_ what made me like the OS. They are tools that very rapidly allowed me to put together my own custom systems that did exactly what I wanted them to. Are you suggesting people today are more stupid than we were when we started? I don't they are.

What Amiga shell really is lacking is user definable shell functions, something slightly more advanced than aliases.

(EDIT: delete some nonsense I wrote here)

In OS3.9, I just tested:

$> type ram:test
echo myscript
ram:test2
echo $RC
quit 2

$> type ram:test2
echo test2
quit 7

$> ram:test
myscript
test2
7
$> echo $RC
2

This looks just like what was originally asked for, right?

As mentioned, Amiga "Execute" has supported hashbanging (#! /) for more than a decade already. It was added in either OS3.5 or 3.9, and existed long before that as various patches.

@gregthecanuck

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But you wrote that this was not enough, that the datatype system was to determine _how_ to execute the files. Well, they will not be capable of doing that anyways when they're not loaded.

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If people cannot fathom the simplest concepts of the OS, then why on earth are they bothering with it in the first place? Why do we always have to use the non-existing feeble minded "most users" as the measure for usability? I find it highly annoying.

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So you want to attract ignorants who have no real interest in learning the OS just to grow the user base, and in the process alienate actual long time existing users by messing up everything. What was the point again?

@gregthecanuck

So how do you initialize the datatypes when the datatypes are needed to run the programs needed to inititialize the datatypes?

Seriously, this yet another non-issue that doesn't need any clever solution.

@sundown

That's not a new shell, that's a new console handler.
Why do people constantly mix this up?

Quote:

And 130 euros more for OS4.1

Alot more than what was originally announced anyways.

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Did I suggest that I would expect that?

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Must suck to pay those extra 130 euros for AmigaOS when all you want is an embedded developer board for Linux.

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I'm not here to destroy the good news, I just pointed out that it is good news for more camps. I had plans to buy SAM-EP460, but various things have happened:
* the pricetag for the 460 has gone up alot since its initial "Euro 600 - 650" - it's now "Euro 765", and mandatory additional 130,- for OS4.1.
* OS4.1 is now announced for hardware I already have, so I can test run it on that instead.

The new price tag will no doubt make at least some people change their minds regarding the SAM460, people who will then perhaps look at alternatives. Why this is regarded off topic is beyond me.

Mods note: Removed as off-topic in this thread.

Quote:

Please elaborate how FLAC and WavPack are in any way related to what diskimage.device is supposed to do - are you setting a new standard for bloatware?

Quote: I'd rather say they introduce a heck lot more difficulty to the already conceptually challanged OS. Or to put it bluntly, it creates a much unneeded mess.

On Linux it works because one can recompile just about anything anyways, and programs that are not opensource _do_ cause pain - just look at latest GoogleEarth for Linux that suffers from a silly symbol namespace crash with expat library (googleearth comes with its own) that Google for some weird reason seems unable to fix (at least it wasn't fixed just a few weeks ago, after having been reported and identified way back in May or so).

If OS4 will be anything like OS3, recompiling all programs that link against old versions of libraries will not be an option, sadly. So hence it will become very messy over time. The sooner OS4 gets rid of SObjs, the better.

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Typically by recompiling programs that are linked against the old library so that they after the recompile are linked against the new one. Then you remove the old one. That's how I prefer to do it at least.

[removed off topic post]

@ChrisH

Quote:
Hah, if by modern you mean 15 years ago, perhaps.

@Tuxedo

What? How can the MorphOS team not allow it?