I wonder how that works. Is this like a paranoid Yes/No thing? Or is there a scale?

@FaheemMitha No A/C. It's 8am and also 29.5 degrees C in the kitchen.

@Kusalananda That's quite hot for your location.

Maybe you should get an A/C. Since Swedish houses must have good insulation, it would work.

estcequecestbientotleweekend.fr

love those dumb website

@FaheemMitha Most houses in Sweden don't have AC because we so rarely need it. This summer is exceptionally hot and dry.

the fact that summer is very hot in north of europe might make it quiet comfortable for us in south then... hum let's hope for us that the balance doesn't invert suddenly. For now I'm very happy with the 30°C we have... Friends from the north could you please keep the warm sun for you this summer that would be lovely :-)

@JennyD Hi. How are you?

That exceptional might become normal, if the whole climate change thing is real.

So, as it turns out, the BFDL wasn't actually FL.

RIP the BFDL.

According to Wikipedia von Rossum is 62. Not so young, after all.

@FaheemMitha I dont know how old are you, but being almost 30, I'm sure I've never suffer from the hot weather that much between my 10 an 20 than now, also I've never ask myself before my 10 if there would be any snow when going to mountain during winter while this is a serious question now. Almost all people I know from my age experience the same, and my parents tend to agree, It's nothing scientific but from a personnal point of view, yes global warming is a true story at least

in the south of Europe

@Kiwy Well, I think it's real. But that's just my opinion.

@JennyD Not a green lawn anywhere in Örebro, it's all sunburnt and brown.

@FaheemMitha I'm good! Starting vacation on Tuesday

@Kusalananda Yeah it's the same here. My garden is mostly yellowish. Farmers are slaughtering their animals early to sell the meat to pay for feed for the remaining ones. We have to supplement the feed for the horses - normally they live well and get fat off grass for the three summer months, but there's not enough this year.

@Jesse_b Sounds like a Stéphane Chazelas question...

Yeah I'm sure he would know.

gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.66/html_node/…

"Using ‘!’ is not portable."

That page says echo is not portable and printf should be used instead. Then later it says printf is not portable and refers back to itself for alternatives

@Jesse_b Where does it say printf is not portable?

@derobert Well it doesn't say those words but it does say that there can be issues with it depending on the distribution

which is the definition of not portable

gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.66/html_node/…

Well, it lists some bugs in particular versions, and one thing to avoid (format string starting with dash)....

Everything has had bugs at some point.

echo, OTOH, has very different behaviors on current systems, ones which can't be easily worked around

Almost every one of the issues with all of these tools revolves around solaris

My companies OS is based on solaris :-/

:-(

false is more portable than true

@Jesse_b how's that even a thing true being 'not portable'

@Kiwy In some shells true is not a built in

@Jesse_b OK that's funny indeed but damn, true and false are one of the most common thing in computing

@Jesse_b "The echo utility writes its arguments to standard output, followed by a <newline>. If there are no arguments, only the <newline> is written." POSIX. I don't know about historical implementations though.

@Kusalananda Solaris probably did something strange as appears to be it's MO

I see echo "" so often I figure there has to be some reason for it.

@Jesse_b Obvious solution is to just install Linux :-D

@derobert Fine, I'll install kali

@Jesse_b Does seem traditional around here :-/

@Jesse_b No, install Windows instead. Then you can use their version of Linux. That makes more sense.

@FaheemMitha I use windows 7 on my main home pc. You can't install bash on it but I have git bash

@Jesse_b Actually... I'm not sure you should. You might actually be bright enough not to run rm -Rf /home, in which case installing Kali probably isn't for you.

@Jesse_b There is some new Windows Linux thingy.

@derobert Like I said, he should install Windows. I'm sure he'll enjoy it.

It must be the best. After all, everyone uses it.

@FaheemMitha Ah yeah I think I heard of this but haven't looked much into it. I'm not looking forward to windows 10

And none of these new features are being made available to windows 7

I suppose this must be the thing -> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux

It supports kali but not centos/fedora :-(

Can't wait to see questions from people trying to install kali over windows

@Jesse_b What supports Kali?

That microsoft linux subsystem thing

Progress! After upgrading this web server, now have 403 and 404 errors instead of the default 'it works' page...

@Jesse_b Oh, I see it does.

I mean, at least linux users will get to experience the blue screen of death now

@derobert Is that progress?

@Jesse_b Yes, that's progress.

Yep. Before it wasn't even loading the vhosts, now it is

@derobert Should host it in node ;-)

@Jesse_b Bah! How about that webserver you used to be able to run out of an Oracle database?

I have no idea if they still have that misfeature.

@derobert Not familiar with that

My companies storage system can sort of host out web servers

@derobert Or coreutils and use gecho.

I never thought I would see the day that @Kusalananda recommends coreutils as a solution to portability problems

@Jesse_b :-) It's better than "just install Linux"...

@Jesse_b BTW, what echo does not work without arguments on Solaris?

[root@JBSNODES001 ~]# /bin/sh -c 'echo "\n" | wc -l'
2
[root@JBSNODES001 ~]# /bin/bash -c 'echo "\n" | wc -l'
1

@Jesse_b What Solaris? I get two lines in Solaris 11.4 for both.

@Kusalananda It's actually smartos but is forked from opensolaris 10

Ah. The bash on Solaris 11.4 is verison 4.4.12.

@Kusalananda What is your sh though? I think the issue is with the ksh on solaris

ksh 93u+

mine has 93t+

Regarding ksh93. The ksh93 repo has apparently moved from github.com/att/ksh to github.com/att/ast. I noticed when someone was kind enough to migrate an issue of mine from the old to the new repo.

Aloha @Jesse_b

Hola @FaheemMitha

@PrabhjotSingh Wat it do

@PrabhjotSingh Hey.

@Jesse_b see, you're infectious.

@FaheemMitha Yeah but I'm not a lethal disease, I'm more like herpes...just a minor annoyance

I think this site should allow new users to comment on questions

You can't really get mad at a 1 rep user for posting a comment as an answer when they are unable to comment

@Jesse_b It's probably an anti-spam precaution.

It is, yes

What's the minimum for posting a comment? 10 rep?

50

What is to prevent them from spamming answers though? I think spam comments are less intrusive than answers

@Jesse_b Spamming answers?

Yeah they could just answer a bunch of questions with their spam...there is no minimum rep for posting an answer

We have much better methods of removing those.

@Jesse_b My guess is that it's easier to keep track of answers than comments.

For one thing, people can upvote and downvote answers.

Which makes it easier to flush out spam, I expect. Can a comment even be flagged as spam?

Just seems odd that a new user comes trying to help out an asker and gets bombarded with downvotes/delete votes on their "answer"

probably deters a lot of people from continuing to use the site

By design, comments are second class citizens on SE, so there is less functionality associated with them. But that also makes it more difficult to keep track of them.

@Jesse_b They won't get downvotes/deletes if their answer is good.

it's also kind of funny that the close vote for it says: "Once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post"

Okay but what do I do in the meantime?

Not comment?

That's what I did.

@terdon Yeah but that also means not help

Oh, you mean they don't get the option to drop a hint in a comment? Well, you can't have it every way. There are always tradeoffs.

I wonder how they came by the 50 rep figure. Even 10 rep might have been enough.

I mean, spammers are unlikely to stick around to try to pick up rep.

I suppose it might happen. Just don't think I've seen it.

I think it would deter almost any bot

@Jesse_b What do you mean? If you need help, you ask a question.

@FaheemMitha It's not only spam. It's also to give people some time to understand how the site works and how comments aren't for random musings or whatever you feel like sharing.

@terdon No these are users trying to help someone that asked a question. They are usually asking for clarification from the user so they can formulate a proper answer

@Jesse_b There might be a little trimming of the long tail, it's true. SE doesn't make casual contributions particularly easy, but that's part of its model. Making casual contributions easier also makes spamming easier.

@terdon ok

@Jesse_b Yes, but 50 rep is really easy to get. Just go and answer some questions that don't need clarification.

Yes, 50 rep is hardly a high bar. You could probably get that in a day, with a little effort.

Assuming you knew something about the subject of the site, of course.

True but I just feel like a lot of people will see that close vote comment "This should be a comment, but you can't comment because you aren't worthy" and (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ just leave the site

Which one is that?

This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient reputation you will be able to comment on any post; instead, provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker. - From Review

Ah. Well, that is often very useful.

I don't think it's too much to ask that people familiarize themselves with the local rules before posting.

Also, here's a more complete argument:

spammers are why we can't have nice things :-(

@Jesse_b Yes, and also having a locked door and watchmen stops people from wandering in from the street for a friendly chat.

So, by that logic, should one not have a locked door and watchmen?

I don't agree that it's the same argument

I mean, we might be missing out on a lot of friendly chats.

@Jesse_b Not exactly, but I'm too lazy to try to find a better one.

A closer one would be your kitchen is on fire and your locked door is preventing the firemen from entering

However if you unlock the door a bunch of spammers will come in and pour gas on it

so the fireman have to wait outside and gain 50 rep in order to enter

@Jesse_b It's not very close though. Because there are plenty of functioning people in the site already. Including many experts, probably.

@Jesse_b What weird firemen that a mere locked door stops them...

@derobert :-P He follows the rules unlike those damn dirty spammers

It's actually not that far fetched, by analogy. One reason people make lots of friends in college, for example, is that the barriers are much lower.

One of my old friends from college described his first meeting with me as me coming in, sitting down, and starting to talk about myself. I think he was exaggerating slightly, though.

Anyway, I ramble, as usual.

@Jesse_b I think you mean those damn dirty hippies...

@FaheemMitha Well I don't want them in my house either

@Jesse_b I think the firemen are typically permitted to bash/pry/etc. open doors as required. Silly analogies, always failing.

@derobert Yes but it still fits. Breaking the door down is equivalent to gaining rep

where if the door was unlocked the firemen could easily enter but so could everyone else

@Jesse_b You're stretching this analogy to breaking point.

I disagree

@Jesse_b you are ignoring the fact that we already have several thousand firemen with keys to the door. What's so special about the greenhorn with his or her shiny new hat and still-dry water hose, that makes it so important that they be the one to come in and put the fire out?

I'm confused ... isn't putting the fire out an answer?

Not even put it out, actually, because new users can post answers. What you are advocating is allowing this trainee fireman to be the one to take the loudspeaker and ask what room the baby is trapped in. But loudspeakers are hard! Let's let a more experienced hand do that.

@derobert No, Jesse was saying that new users should be able to post comments.

@terdon I know. I'm just poking fun at this analogy.

@terdon A newcomer to the site could indeed have an answer that the experts don't have. But then he can just write an answer. @Jesse_b seems to be inordinately unhappy that he doesn't have the option to leave a comment instead.

@derobert Tsk. Low hanging fruit.:P

@FaheemMitha Precisely

Hey, I'm doing it while trying to get this bloody webapp working again so I can go home...

Hah yeah fair point...I don't know I agree with @terdon and the meta post you linked. I just think it's odd/unfair(?) that new users who are actually trying to help get shot down. I don't know of a solution better than the current one though

Did it bother you so much?

I remember looking forward to being able to leave comments, but that's about it.

@Jesse_b It's not a perfect world. But I don't think SE's limitations particularly stands out there, though.

@terdon I honestly don't remember. I think I had the required rep before I ever even tried to comment

There you go then ;)

@Jesse_b And I think this site is actually fairly tolerant and even supportive of new users. Not all SE sites are, though.

Well, insofar a site has a personality/community. Some SE sites probably have stronger ones. TeX, for example.

All the top users seem to know each other, often in real life too.

@FaheemMitha This isn't real life? I've been doing it wrong...

@Kusalananda Wrong room, silly.

@Kusalananda Sadly, no.

Though possibly fortunate. I think I might come across better in text than in person.

@Jesse_b What is "Wat it do" ?

The phrase "What it do" is colloquial speech for the English expressions "How are you doing today" or "Hello, what is going on?" It is also used as a rhetorical question, often clarifying, or re-emphasizing what was just acknowledged.

Well, fine

I am typing on a keyboard with towel wrapped on it.

@Jesse_b your idea basically

@FaheemMitha if someone can't comment everywhere he could come to chatroom.

@PrabhjotSingh Not quite the same thing. And writing here requires rep too.

@FaheemMitha yes, 20 I guess. I too can't comment everywhere and post image in chatroom.

Believe me I'm not a spam.

So please make this egalitarian society as pointed by @Jesse_b

Hi...what do you guys think of Slackware for desktop? Tired of Windows 10 in my corporate desktop, and the Linux VPN somehow supports Linux. Any better suggestion without systemd?

bah corporate VPN