Posts Tagged ‘linux’

Tabs vs. Spaces

December 1st, 2009

Every time I’ve seen one of these “vs” posts its gone into great length about the philosophy behind such and such.  You’ll never convince someone based on ‘religious argument’. So I’m going to take a different approach here and state who does what and hopefully the weight of ‘who does what’ will make the point quite clear.

Screw the Scientific Method!!

Language/Organisation Spaces Tabs Reference
PHP Pear * [1]
Zend (PHP) * [1]
Python * [1]
Ruby * [1]
Java * * [1]
.Net * [1]
C# * [1 Philips (PDF)] [2 - Microsoft]
Lua * [1]
Erlang * * [1]
Object Pascal * [1]
Adobe Flex * [1]
Ada 95 * [1]
Mozilla (Javascript) * [1]
Mozilla * [1]
Google * [1] [2]
Mono Project * [1]
Webkit * [1]
NASA * [1]
Apache (C) * [1]
Linux Kernel * [1]
Gnome * [1]
KDE Libs * [1]
Joomla * [1]
Wordpress * [1]
Zope * [1]
Django * [1]

Notes:

  • Tabs may be rendered differently on different editors and systems.  So they make for less friendly code sharing.
  • Its interesting to note that the ones using tabs all have histories of mental instability, cannibalism, Morris Dancing, witchcraft and heresy.

Clear win for Spaces, which happens to be what I use.

Best Linux Filesystem?

August 2nd, 2009

The executive summary in my own words of which filesystem to pick if you’re wondering which is best. I’m avoiding jargon or anything overly technical. I also provide some made-up* graphs to help with quick decision making.

Overview

  • Ext2 – Old. Don’t bother.
  • Ext3 – Lacking in performance though very solid and reliable with a huge number of tools to fiddle with.
  • Ext4 – More reliability and a little extra speed over ext3.
  • XFS – Sci-fi name and also very fast but lacks the same level of error protection as some others. Undelete is almost impossible. Doesn’t like powercuts.
  • JFS – Like XFS but more reliable after a powercut. Very fast and low CPU usage making it ideal for old PCs and new alike.
  • ReiserFS – Was good, but showing its age and no longer actively developed.

What do you want?

Speed

  1. XFS
  2. JFS
  3. ReiserFS
  4. ext4
  5. ext3
  6. ext2

Reliability

  1. ext3
  2. ext4
  3. JFS
  4. ReiserFS
  5. ext2
  6. XFS

Epic Graphs

Linux Filesystem Speeds


The effects of a powercut on the filesystems


JFS Speed-o-meter

* when I say made-up I mean that. They’re from my own experiences and reading various contradictary benchmarks. There are so many contradictions on speed and reliability out there that I think a rough guide is just as good as any of the other meticulously biased graphs out there. They can be argued as innacurate. But this is my blog – my goddamn rules! If I want pretty graphs I will HAVE pretty graphs!

13 OS Reviews in Seconds

November 13th, 2008

Operating System ComparisonAfter the success of my previous quick-fire review on Ajax frameworks I decided to do another on operating systems. I’m taking a good chunk of Linux, Windows and Mac here. So here’s the no-holds barred reviews on the major OSs.

  • Debian – A proper man’s OS and although the installer doesn’t look friendly its got everything you’ll ever need.
  • Ubuntu – Fisher Price OS for children and senile grandparents.
  • Mint Linux – Ubuntu with some wicked guns and lasers and whirring wizzy bits that go some way to redeeming Ubuntu.
  • Mepis - Gone a bit dull and boring.
  • NetBSD - Rock solid slut that’ll work everywhere.
  • Windows XP – Does its job and its a hell of a lot better than Vista.
  • Windows Vista – Lets not go there.
  • RedHat – Overly expensive cumbersome bull.
  • Mac OSX – Made for homosexual web designers and hairstylists.
  • Slackware – For people who grew up programming with punch cards.
  • Gentoo - Tries to be clever and fast but fails miserably and slowly.
  • FreeBSD – Just because part of MacOSX is based on it doens’t make it MacOSX!
  • Haiku OS – The answer to: “What is the sound of one hand clapping”.

Ubuntu – Fisher Price OS

November 6th, 2008

I wish I could take credit for this image because I’ve wanted to do something like this for a while.  The creator and some other OS images can be found at Best Techie forums.