Re: programming on Windows (was RE: Any support/suggestions for a blind student)

  • From: Chris Hofstader <cdh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 05:12:26 -0400

Correct me if I am wrong but I think someone ported bash and most of the 
popular utilities over to the Windows platform. I used a bash clone way back on 
DOS and it had most of the more interesting utilities of its day as well.

I wouldn't know where to look but you might/could find this with google.

If you don't know, bash is the GNU Born Again Shell and it is by far and away 
the most popular and powerful on GNU/Linux out there.

cdh

On Aug 28, 2010, at 8:25 PM, Jamal Mazrui wrote:

> On Linux, command-line power tends to ve valued at least as much as GUI 
> power, while on Windows, the reverse is true.  Thus, Windows command-line 
> programs tend to be less advanced than their GUI counterparts.  Still, much 
> is available from the Windows command line, including the DOS-like batch 
> language, VBScript or JScript files run with the Windows Script Host, or the 
> .NET-based PowerShell, which is very powerful.
> 
> Jamal
> 
> On 8/27/2010 5:44 PM, arachna@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> I ran across the following post in the list archives by accident when 
>> searching for something with Google and it piqued my curiosity:
>>  "DaShiell, Jude T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26" wrote on 16 March 2010:
>>> As I see it, Microsoft made two mistakes with Windows which until they're 
>>> corrected the best software for those
>> of us with no memory of vision to program for will be Linux in its varied 
>> forms.
>>> First, the command line interface was made into a very poorly equipped 
>>> environment for software development.
>>> Second, if someone does console-based development of software within 
>>> Windows to my knowledge to date no xenity equivalents yet exist for any 
>>> supported software development package now running on Windows; I would love 
>>> to be
>> corrected on this point if at all possible even if packages under active 
>> development are all that can be offered as suggestions.
>> 
>> 
>> Would dialog be a decent replacement for zenity on Windows?  I have a how-to 
>> on building dialog for OpenWatcom here:
>> http://www.openwatcom.org/index.php/Dialog_howto
>> It's very similar to build it on mingw and msys.  There are just a few less 
>> places to patches.  I can put together the mingw patch if someone needs it.
>> 
>> By the way, did a quick search of zenity and win32 to check if someone had 
>> ported it yet and ran across this:
>> http://www.placella.com/software/zenity/
>> 
>> I've been experimenting with the idea of using dialog with bash or v8cgi to 
>> create menus that will work in or out of X Windows on FreeBSD and Linux.  
>> Since I like to program cross-platform, the menus would work on Windows just 
>> as well.
>> 
>> There are at least 3 versions of bash I know of for Windows.  Cygwin, djgpp 
>> and msys all have one.
>> Here's a stand-alone package based on Cygwin:
>> http://www.steve.org.uk/Software/bash/
>> 
>> The other tool I've been looking at for cross-platform scripting that I'm 
>> really starting to like is v8cgi:
>> http://code.google.com/p/v8cgi/
>> Syntax will be more familiar to C/C++ programmers than bash is.
>> 
>> Since I'm not a blind user, I've been wondering just how the visually 
>> impaired use console based tools.  Does the terminal emulator or some such 
>> software read the information out loud, because the programs themselves 
>> usually don't add speech capability?  Read an example on the INX list where 
>> someone used tee and sent the information to espeak as well as the menu.  I 
>> was wondering how hard it would be to add an option to dialog that sent the 
>> information it drew out to another program like espeak.  However, if a 
>> screen reader program already exists and works fine with dialog and other 
>> software, that would be a more general purpose solution.
>> 
>> The other option I've been checking into is using the browser and Javascript 
>> for the programming environment, but the one thing still lacking is being 
>> able to shell out to other local programs and use the results.  There are 
>> some work-arounds for this specific to browsers, but I'm waiting to find out 
>> if a more portable solution becomes available.  What I'd really like is a 
>> merge of a Javascript server side language like v8cgi with the ability to 
>> create an interface like a browser can.  Of course, since it could do local 
>> file access, the Internet access part should probably be shut off for 
>> security reasons.  The other drawback to the browser approach is that 
>> relatively few console based or light weight browsers fully support 
>> Javascript and css standards.
>> 
>> Would be curious to know what's lacking in the Windows console environment 
>> for software development that's available in other environments like Linux.  
>> I use mingw and msys all the time for quick console development.  I use the 
>> DOS command prompt and have customized it to a way I'm comfortable with, but 
>> other options like Console 2 are available and I believe Cygwin has a 
>> limited port of rxvt.  There are a number of good compilers that work from 
>> console mode, including mingw, djgpp and OpenWatcom.  There are also some 
>> decent shell script languages such as bash if batch files aren't enough.  I 
>> haven't found any information on ncurses working on Windows, but you do have 
>> pdcurses.  I also I read about a Windows port of vifm to Windows, so I would 
>> guess that means s-lang is available as well.
>> 
>> Couldn't resist discussing this topic even though the original post was from 
>> some time ago.  I've been very interested in some of the subjects and would 
>> enjoy hearing other programmers viewpoints on them as well.
>> 
>> Sincerely,
>> Laura
>> http://www.distasis.com/cpp
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