__/ [ ed ] on Monday 06 November 2006 18:41 \__
> On Mon, 06 Nov 2006 17:26:01 +0000
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Searchmonkey balances command-line power and desktop ease of use
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | Searchmonkey, formerly known as Xsearch, is a graphical search
>> | tool whose main page describes it as the combining of Beagle's
>> | simplicity of use with the exactness of the find and grep commands.
>> `----
>>
>> http://applications.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/10/18/1617228&from=rss
>
> take one of the most integral parts of the command line and put it in a
> gui, that's just damn awful.
>
> grep is pretty much useless outside the command line, it becomes more of
> a 'find string in file' program rather than 'find regexp in stdin'.
>
> find and grep work well together. i dont see this remaining on the
> desktop for any length of time.
About 3-4 years ago I installed a GREP front-end that use/emulates grep in
Win32. I needed it at work where, at the time, Windows, Mac OS 9, or
Mandrake 9.2 on an old Pentium were my only choices (I used Mandrake for
GIMP'ing). I only had those three boxes at my office and it was only later
that I was permitted to put Linux on the stronger hardware. So why did I
need grep on Windows? Wasn't Windows' search/find feature sufficiently good?
Heck no. It's a joke! And it gets worse in that RTM which is coming shortly
[1,2].
Google Desktop came out a long time later (installed it on my Supervisor's
machine the day it came out) and Beagle was almost unheard of (under
development at all?) at the time. But all those GUI's are not useful because
they are not flexible. Searches with indexing are fuzzy. You can't pipe the
I/O, you can script things, and thus you can forget about automation. My
experience with GREP GUI for Windows was (yet another) proof that the
command-line is here to stay. Look at Vista. While Microsoft still wants a
/real/ command-line (Monad), it's unable to deliver it on time. Truly
shameful given the size of the S/W behemoth. They have been trying to
abolish the command-line since the early versions of Windows and yet...
increasingly you find that ping, ipconfig and the line just have no proper
substitute. You need verbosity. You need free-form expression. But in
Windows, without Cygwin and the likes of it, you are hopeless and highly
confined. Seen a colleague doing this at the switch room for network
diagnostics a few hours ago. Sure... Windows doesn't need the command-line.
*LMAO*
People are scared of complexity... even where it helps or where it can easily
be studies and mastered.
Best wishes,
Roy
[1] Desktop search is rotten in Vista
,----[ Quote ]
| Ever since I installed Vista, Windows desktop search
| hasn't worked very well. My normal laser-guided ability
| to hone in on any information on my computer at the
| drop of my boss's hat has been mamed. I'm hobbling
| round like a war veteran who still has a stump of a
| mouse-clicking hand but prefers to type with his nose.
|
| [...]
|
| The promise of Vista is that desktop search is
| beautifully simple and integrated into the OS. After
| all, it's what we got after Microsoft skittled
| the over-ambitious WinFS plan. It should have been so
| easy... one tap of the Windows key, start typing,
| get results.
|
| It's not. It sucks.
|
| [...]
|
| Based on search performance alone, Vista is nowhere near
| ready for release.
|
| [...]
|
| XP... I didn't know how much I loved thee until I lost thee.
`----
http://www.apcstart.com/site/dwarne/2006/10/1296/somethings-rotten-with-desktop-search-in-vista
[2] Why Did Microsoft Decimate Search in Vista?
,----[ Quote ]
| Until RC2, one of the best features of Vista was its speedy,
| exceedingly powerful Search features. But with RC2, Microsoft
| essentially threw Search under the train, making some of the most
| bizarre user interface decisions imaginable. Why did Microsoft decide
| to decimate the great Search tool?
`----
http://www.oreillynet.com/windows/blog/2006/11/why_did_microsoft_decimate_sea.html
PS - I usually write quickly in a single pass. Please don't mind the typos
and the grammatical inconsistencies.
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Seeing bad movies only encourages them"
http://Schestowitz.com | Open Prospects ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Tasks: 142 total, 1 running, 140 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
http://iuron.com - knowledge engine, not a search engine
|
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