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Programming Question

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  • D Dalek Dave

    Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

    --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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    Member 4551201
    wrote on last edited by
    #105

    Do you still use Edlin? ;)

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    • D Dalek Dave

      Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

      --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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      User 8634007
      wrote on last edited by
      #106

      I do it daily! Good Ole'bats! I hard code all internet pages and have a slick program built in access that creates the bat and ftp to do all of my bidding. Its safer, cleaner, fast and far better than drag and drop or any other method I can find for ftping. The access programs archives and does just about evrything else too. But... in computer years, I too am an "Old fogie." It's sort of odd when you have been programming vb longer than some of young'ns who are programming today have been alive, and that says nothing of having worked the basic "Basic". But hey don't let the gray hair fool you, I can still keep up with the best of them! hmmm... So I hear through the grape vine that you were "the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post"

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      • D Dalek Dave

        Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

        --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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        GI_Giorgio
        wrote on last edited by
        #107

        Do not feel alone! we are a bunch of programmers that we use bat files to do daily tasks (stored procedures por instance). And not just in DOS also in UNIX... everything to do the job! Greatings @GI_Giorgio

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        • D Dalek Dave

          Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

          --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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          samuel adams
          wrote on last edited by
          #108

          Looks like there are a lot of old fogies here:) I don't write as many as I used to, but there are cases where a bat file is quicker/easier to write and anyone can maintain. It also keeps me from having to rewrite all the dos commands that already exist. If microsoft ever gets rid of the command line, I'm switching to Linux.

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          • D Dalek Dave

            Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

            --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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            Erik Rude
            wrote on last edited by
            #109

            I do. They are incredibly good for some tasks. Tasks that would take 4 hours in a quick and dirty VBA app hacked by an apprentice can take mere minutes if you remember the DOS commands, thus saving the day. Now do you use the vi-editor?

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            • D Dalek Dave

              Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

              --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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              jcdmelo
              wrote on last edited by
              #110

              I do write BAT files - and have never gave up on them ever since my IBM PCJr. - once in a while to: - automate repetitive shell commands - setup a path - perform string or repetitive operations on a bunch of files which depends on a search in the current directory. To "kill the snake and show the stick" (a popular saying in Brazil which denotes "to show that you have really done it") here's a simple example: for /D %%i in (*) do dir /s "%%i" >> dirs.txt Julio Cezar

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              • D Dalek Dave

                Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

                --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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                jsc42
                wrote on last edited by
                #111

                I still use BAT files as they are straight forward and capable of some useful tricks. One of my recent applications had a GUI front end but the users wanted a batch interface to start / stop / pause / resume it remotely. Simple with batch files: start = single command line to run the application, others = single command line to post a message to the application's input queue (e.g. ECHO PAUSE >>%TEMP%\_applicationname__StatusChange.txt). Then all I had to do was to create shortcut desktop icons to run the batch files and they think that they have a button controlled interface.

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                • R richard_k

                  Heh.. first job at a large computer firm I had was writing job decks and algol programs at Unisys. With punch cards! Cards were on their way out when I did this.. but you could still find folks with large card decks on their desks.

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                  SkipSailors
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #112

                  JCL R00lz!

                  Ship it!

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                  • D Dalek Dave

                    Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

                    --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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                    jsc42
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #113

                    For several years, I was involved with helping at a programming competition run by one of Europe's foremost national computing organisations (name not disclosed for obvious reasons). We had the brightest and best teams from academia and professional companies competing in it. We never told the teams that our sophisticated testing, scoring, and marking system that compiled, ran, timed, and collated all of their competition entries was a single monolithic BAT file. Admittedly, it grew over the years as more languages and external dependencies were added to the scope of the competition, but it was still a BAT file.

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                    • D Dalek Dave

                      It's a shame Henry isn't here He could tell us of his days poking holes in cards!

                      --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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                      Isfeasachme
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #114

                      Hey! My first job was repairing those things for the Dept of the Navy :) ... in 1992... in Nashville. Figure that out! LOL

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                      • D Dalek Dave

                        Yes Pete, but alas you are venerable and aged, like me. I bet them young whippersnappers don't!

                        --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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                        Isfeasachme
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #115

                        I'll be interested to hear how I should be doing this... but I've got batch files sitting on remote servers that create a quick backup of existing code, deploy code from subversion and sync up secondary servers.

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                        • S SkipSailors

                          JCL R00lz!

                          Ship it!

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                          richard_k
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #116

                          Actually, on Unisys mainframes it is called 'Work Flow Language' (WFL, or as everyone called it 'wiffle'). I wrote a lot of that in the mid 80s.

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                          • D Dalek Dave

                            Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

                            --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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                            Unused Account Safe to Delete
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #117

                            Well, here in Cuba the whole process of grading the National Programming Contest for High School students is done using bat files. The last one I made for that earned me the nickname "batman".

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                            • D Dalek Dave

                              Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

                              --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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                              Floydslips
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #118

                              I still write an occasional batch file, although I use the newer .CMD file extension. For more advanced needs, I rely on WinBatch.

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                              • D Dalek Dave

                                Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

                                --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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                                Conan Callen
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #119

                                Whateva does the job. My favorite has always been Kornshell. Powershell is cool, but seems to lack the elegance of some of the Unix Shells. .bat files are quick and easy, take very little setup/configuration. However, I emphisize with younger programmers, who want to use something new, or improve make thier skill set more competitive. Just remember that if you dont want to box yourself in (kill any oportunity for promotion), dont make it so complex that someone will never be albe to replace you.

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                                • P Pete OHanlon

                                  I have been known to write the odd .bat file, as well as PowerShell scripts.

                                  *pre-emptive celebratory nipple tassle jiggle* - Sean Ewington

                                  "Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos

                                  My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility

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                                  Derek Altamirano
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #120

                                  I still use .cmd files quite a bit (haven't done .bat's since moving to NT; I still use the term batch file, though I think the proper term for a .cmd is command file :-D). Although I am learning to use PowerShell more, I can still usually whip out a batch file much quicker, depending on what I am doing, though I expect that will change as I become more fluent in PS. I have written some pretty neat and complex batch scripts in recent years (man do I love that for command!).

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                                  • D Dalek Dave

                                    Who (apart from my good self) still writes .bat files? Are they common or am I one of the old fogies that still employs his DOS knowledge?

                                    --------------------------------- I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] English League Tables - Live

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                                    galumpa
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #121

                                    I'm 4 years out of the university and have only used a .bat file recently when I switched companies. Previously I used shell scripts.

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                                    • R richard_k

                                      Heh.. first job at a large computer firm I had was writing job decks and algol programs at Unisys. With punch cards! Cards were on their way out when I did this.. but you could still find folks with large card decks on their desks.

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                                      Earl Truss
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #122

                                      My first real program in my first real programming job was written in CDC 6000 assembler on two boxes of cards. I try to forget how I would have to make corrections to the cards and then read them back in again to test it. Oh, and yes, I still have a few BAT files that are in use. Don't write very many new ones much any more.

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                                      • S Steven M Hunt

                                        Same here, I'm a young guy and I just wrapped up writing some serious bat files to replace the old mainframe JCL we had hanging around; the government agency I work for (hint: we sent people to the Moon that one time) just turned off our last mainframe this month. -- Steven

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                                        Earl Truss
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #123

                                        Steven.M.Hunt wrote:

                                        the government agency I work for (hint: we sent people to the Moon that one time) just turned off our last mainframe this month

                                        I read about that. That was an IBM wasn't it? I used to work in Range Safety at the Cape on CDC Cyber 8xx-somethings. Are there any mainframes still use in the guv'ment any where?

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                                        • E Earl Truss

                                          Steven.M.Hunt wrote:

                                          the government agency I work for (hint: we sent people to the Moon that one time) just turned off our last mainframe this month

                                          I read about that. That was an IBM wasn't it? I used to work in Range Safety at the Cape on CDC Cyber 8xx-somethings. Are there any mainframes still use in the guv'ment any where?

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                                          Steven M Hunt
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #124

                                          Yes we had IBMs, and we had ADABASE and NATURAL running on them. I'm not sure if there are any other agencies running them still, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are still out there. We haven't had any running here at the Cape for a while, but the last ones to get turned off were up in Huntsville. -- Steven

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