Sure I can and I do, for the simple reason that, the computer cannot represent real numbers (your notion of a 'measurement') as anything other than integers. The the earlier a developer realizes that, the simpler it is to conceptualize and manage the (many) translations and transforms between the multitudinous real number (measurement or other) domains and integers. :)

englebart wrote: I am wondering if it would be worth it to wrap entire batteries with electrical tape for corrosive leakage Interesting idea. Would it still eat through that? Depends on acid and type of tape. Would it still fit? Certainly with some of my stuff with batteries just squeezing the battery in is difficult. Even if I managed to push it in the process might scrap the tape off.

Sure, even eliminating everything you mentioned should simplify things...but still, if someone wanted to build a UI equivalent to all options supported via the command line...and have the smarts to group things together, separating items through tabs, adjust things based on combinations/mutually exclusive options, etc...it would still be a mess of a UI, I'd have to think. And then, trying to make it user-friendly - reserve an area on the screen to show some text (not just a few words), that dynamically changes based on the control that is currently selected (to explain what it does)...and it would still overwhelm the vast majority of users. trønderen wrote: I strongly suspect that half of these options / argument values are never used by anyone but the ffmpeg developers That's a given...when you present too many options, people will do the minimum they need to get things working, then pretty much leave it at that and stick with what they know and never experiment beyond that. So the extra effort those devs put in, really ends up working against them.

rm -rf * oh $hit!!!!! :) Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.

Correct. Though EDT became an option of TPU eventually -- EDIT/EDT . I never got the hang of EVE and I could never figure out how to exit it whenever I started it accidently. I still have a file of EDT macros I use when I use my OpenVMS systems (which is rare). I also knew developers who used VI rather than TPU-based editors. An amber-screen dumb terminus doesn't know the difference. Again, I don't adopt new things without some good reason to do so. I certainly prefer a screen editor to a line editor. Always consider what happens if you have to work with an older system without the new tool(s). Such as, does the version of OpenVMS/VAX I have on my MicroVAX even support TPU? (I think it does.) One reason I bought the MicroVAX is because VAX BASIC has Immediate Mode :D . About twenty years ago I was asked to write a program with only the tools installed on a fresh install of Windows XP (?) -- e.g. notepad and CSC. Developers who have no clue how to write code without an IDE may find themselves unable to make any progress. Edit: When I first learned BASIC on the PDP-11 (in 1983), the teacher taught us to use EDT in line mode (was there no screen mode yet?), but the cool kids used TECO.

That bit when he said "p is a pointer", absolutely priceless. :laugh:

Julien Villers wrote: Well, a brute force, however optimized, 40 minutes run on an obscure* platform isn't quite a 'solution' to a Project Euler problem, is it? ;) If the code solves the problem on the obscure platform, then it is a solution to the problem.

That may be clever, but I don't think it qualifies as 'code' ;P 'As programmers go, I'm fairly social. Which still means I'm a borderline sociopath by normal standards.' Jeff Atwood