Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com From: "Paul Derbyshire" To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2002 01:41:25 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: Mysterious gdb behavior - cygcheck example Reply-to: derbyshire AT globalserve DOT net Message-ID: <3D4B34C5.32022.71607DE5@localhost> In-reply-to: Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-description: Mail message body On 3 Aug 2002 at 0:03, Dockeen wrote: > OK, lets suppose I hear about a command, say, cygcheck, and > I want to know about it, do I have it, what it is etc. > > I enter > > which cygcheck If I had reason to think I already had it, of course I'd do likewise. Vaguely remembering seeing the filename in a directory listing; explicitly remembering installing it or using it; etc. > Cool, I have it. So what is it? Well, in this case, I lucked > out, as entering > > man cygcheck Well, once you have it and know you do the rest is really fairly clear. > Well, going to the Cygwin home page, where there is a link to > "Setup Package Search". Is there? I never knew that. Now if someone tells me about some binary and I don't think I have it nor do I know what package it's in but I do know it's in some cygwin package I can find it without asking. Cool. > With respect to search engines, I used to joke that the most > useful skill I picked up on my way to my BA was the ability > to use an index. On my way through grad school, that turned > into a keyword search capability. Now, it's search engines. > I use Google most every day, to find out anything from whats > wrong with some Python or C++ code, to free radical chemistry, > to what companies might be in the market for Ph.D. physicists. > If I have a problem with Cygwin, I go there, because it will > find (with the help of the browser search) FAQ data, archive > data, and mostly, the answer. I use Google all the time. When I feel able to formulate a query that doesn't seem likely to either fail entirely or swamp me with irrelevant hits. Unusual long acronyms or words work best. Long phrases are poor, usually returning no hits, and short words or acronyms tend to return too many irrelevant hits. Combinations of words ... well, it depends on the combination. If the combination is oddball enough there may be a relevant hit in the first page or three of hits. Of course I must also feel confident I'll be able to identify a relevant hit among irrelevant ones. Some loser in some newsgroup recently flamed me for asking what VNC was in response to someone mentioning it -- whatever it was. They suggested I should use google. Pointless in this case: a million different things are probably known by that same acronym; one so short has to have been reused multiple times. And I wouldn't even be able to tell which of various VNCs was the one they were talking about. Mind you the context was computers, so Vancouver's airport call sign could be fairly judged irrelevant, but even the computer related VNCs must number in the dozens... Search engines can't work magic. Expecting me to find anything in five minutes with Google is expecting Google to be the Oracle of Delphi. It just won't happen. > Finally, on a lighter heavy note, on my work laptop, I have gcc > from: djgpp, GNAT and Dev-C++, as well as 3 versions of gcc > in Cygwin - base, 3.1 and 3.1.1 - need to get rid of the 3.1 > version. The only contention problem I have run into involved > GNAT and Cygwin (solved) and GNAT and djgpp (semi-kluged). It's helpful that Cygwin's shell has added, Cygwin-specific path entries that Winblows doesn't see. Then I use the right gcc by using the right shell, command.com for djgpp's and bash for Cygwin's. I can see how it might get hairier with more of them, especially if there aren't partitioned environments for them all. One way, of course, is to make various pif files for DOS boxes with various added /bin directories on the PATH, and use the right command prompt shortcut for the right stuff -- one labeled GNAT with GNAT's binaries directory added on the PATH, another labeled djgpp, etc... -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/