[geeks] Writing software [was Re: Can't decide on an OS]

[Joshua Boyd]

On Tue, Oct 01, 2013 at 02:57:13AM -0400, Mouse wrote:

> > I'm trying to think of what a parametric search would look like on
> > Mouser or Digikey without the web, though.
> 
> I'm not sure what a "parametric search" is, so I can't do more than
> speculate wildly.  I once was able to get part datasheets out of
> Digikey's webpages, but last time I tried to do that - and every time
> I've tried to use Mouser for anything - I've failed completely.
> They've improved their world-facing interfaces to the point where they
> are completely useless to me.  Worse than useless, because they lead
> them to provide no alternative.

The more common term may be faceted search.  You start with a massive
list of items (say 5944 ARM microcontrollers), and you choose aspects
you care about, say picking a Cortex M0 and picking a 28pin DIP.  

As you go, the list is narrowed until you have a few items to compare
and choose from, see pricing info and availablity, as well as links to
the documentation in PDF for.

Replicating this without the web would either mean ftp'ind down an
index file, scraping it into a spreadsheet and then using the
spreadsheets filter, or telnetting to use a special application.  Or
perhaps they give you a perl program to download to help search the
catalog.  Either way, you then have to go back to FTP to download the
PDF files you want.
 
> Depending on the task, tn3270 might be a suitable interface.  Perhaps
> telnet or ssh, if the client specifies a terminal type (basically,
> tn3270 except without a virtual 3270 being Procrustean).  A glass-tty
> interface might be an alternative for some things.  For yet others,
> something GUI might actually be a right answer.  And then there are
> some for which the rightest answer is to export a network protocol and
> let clients use it how they will - perhaps provide client code for some
> of the most popular cases, if they want to be really nice.  (This has
> happened a little today in a few cases, though the protocol is usually
> twisted and bent to use HTTP as a transport; see my blah post of
> 2009-09-14 - http://ftp.rodents-montreal.org/mouse/blah/ is the index
> page and, in this particular case, the post itself is at
> .../mouse/blah/2009-09-14-1.html.)

The web is easy to implement and does provide a model that almost fits
a lot of things.  Doing RPC with JSON and HTTP turns out to be far
simpler than say protobuf and zeromq, which in turn is far easier than
CORBA or DCE/RPC.  RPC with a text protocol certain adds inefficiency,
but I think it is worth it a lot of the time.
 
> But that was before it got overrun and corrupted.  See my blah post of
> 2009-10-25, about how the amazing potential has been frittered away.

Adding state to the web has a lot of complications that TCP never
addressed, like maintaining state when the connection breaks and is
later (several hours) restarted over a new network (aka, I took my
laptop home).
 
> > Somewhere along the line, I came to the realization that I can bend
> > this clumsy tool into a thing that reduces the non-creative work I
> > need to do in my life.
> 
> I probably could too, if I could tolerate it.
> 
> I can't.  At least not yet.  Possibly never.  See, again, the post of
> 2012-10-31 and the various other posts on the same general topic.

BTW, the phones aren't broken if you download the documentation from
that URL and save it.  If I bought the phone after the company went
bust, chances are good that I could still find someone that had the
documentation and once I had the files, that would be more useful than
the directions on paper.