Only one post but a LOT of work done!

[sorcerer_see]

I have posted only one post since yesterday afternoon, but a got a LOT of work done!

First off, I gave up installing Windows XP 64 bit on my machine, because I encountered many many obstacles due to my system being 'only' 10 years old, which is too new for Windows XP 64bit. Windows XP 32bit has way more support because it was used back then by many many more people. 32bit was the norm. Windows XP 64bit was a niche OS, not many people used it. By the time it became optimized it was soon superseded by Windows Vista.

My strategy will be to use Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 7, which all are in essence the same OS (NT), on hardware for which they were created.  But never Windows 8 and up, due to ethical reasons. Eventually we will be forced to use Linux as main OS and visualize classic Windows inside it, OR use ReactOS, hopefully, as universal system for backward and forward compatibility.

Hence I installed Windows 7 64 bit, so that I can use the extra RAM 64bit opens up for virtualizing Linux within the Windows OS.  A  Linux heart within a Windows body.  This is necessary to learn C as it was meant to be used, and to build up my long term goal of enhancing backward compatibility while retaining essential forward compatibility, and more practically, to eventually engage with ReactOS.

Now, can you believe it, I had WAY more issues even to get Windows 7 to work on my computer than I had with Windows XP (32bit)! This, mainly due to Microsoft planting all kinds of mechanisms in Windows 7 to force users to move on to more modern Windows. They call it protection, I call it infiltration. I need security vs Microsoft!

I had issues with driver and application signatures beyond measure. But of course I stuck to the gun, and was able to circumvent these silly annoying corporate interference. But not fully yet. Will have to install more tricks to really shut them out.

Okay got to go out urgently now. It took me ages to make the shift and get to the point that I could post again in my blog.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the infos. It won’t be easy to deal with old systems. But don’t u think u will take a lot of time to learn using these systems?

[sorcerer_see]

Hello

Thanks for your response. As I see it the answer to your remark must consist out of 2 points:
1) programming does not exist in a vacuum. We are programming a machine and we are using other programs that others have written before us to write and compile and execute our programs. To do this for any system one must understand the requirements of that system, like APIs etc to make the programs run and usable. I am absolutely certain that to be a good programmer one needs to understand the environment in and for which one programs just as much as one understands the programming syntax itself. This is why programmers who learn the profession in school also learn computer sciences and boolean logic and algorithms etc, and often either via Linux or via Windows or combined, depending on the schools choices.

Also, modern systems became so complicated that older systems are good stepping stones towards understanding newer systems. The newer ones were built off of their predecessors. This is why I do not study for example the Atari or the Amiga systems, which i love more than Windows and Linux, due to nostalgia, or why I do not study for example Pascal as a programming language which I find pretty interesting. The reason is that, contrary to my examples, older windows and C continue to exist within the newer systems, and in this way almost nothing that I currently learn, is not useful for modern computing.

I agree that my approach, the perfectionist approach, might take a little bit more time, than if I would simply use Windows 11, learn Python, for example, and learn how to create purely front-end programs that do not require understanding what is under the hood. But then I would not be a true programmer. I would just be useful in a small part of the economy as a chicken without a head, creating stuff that have functionality but without actually knowing what I am doing, and then I would not be able to pickup other aspects of IT without having to learn again, anyhow. Such programmers might end up in one quarter and never move from there, since they can pay their bills by working from 9 to 5 and call it a day. Now, in fact, in the IT sector, this is rather difficult to sustain because the technology is evolving all the time. A programmer who understands computing in^depth will get selected over programmers who only know one thing. And then we get to the second point.

[sorcerer_see]

2) programming is not only a technical skill, it is also an art, meaning that passion goes a long way and makes the difference. A passionate programmer will get better jobs and be pai more, where as the programmer who just does the job from 9-5 to pay his bills will get a job when he gets lucky and then get stuck in a low paying simplistic programming task for the rest of his life. I met a guy here who studied programming. He knows hardly how to write his own programs. What he does is testing programs and then report the bugs to other programmers who fix the bugs. I felt clearly how insecure this person felt about his knowledge when I asked him deeper questions. And he went to school for a couple of years for this! (and paid fees etc). For me, none of this. I learn by myself and I am learning fast. I learn horizontally because I try to get an answer to every question that arises, and I solve every problem I encounter, instead of just using Windows 11 and an easy IDE and do Python to create something to show on the screen, while not understanding what Python does with the computer.

Actually there is nr 3)
If you meant with newer systems: newer Windows, then the ethical aspect arises: Microsoft is an accomplice in genocide. Using Windows 11 helps MS's profit, through the telemetry if you do not buy anything, and anything you buy: office 365, One Drive etc. We also basically tell people: just use Windows, we have no choice. To me we become partners in genocide if we do that. MS's money and knowledge are murdering people everyday. This make sit absolutely impossible to use Windows 10/11. Just like I am vegetarian because I do not want to cause suffering to animals, I refuse to provide MS with money and justification. If we only think about our own situation and use the false argument that we have no choice, we are partners in murder, it is as simple as that.

Of course one could use Linux, that is also new, but I can tell you right off the bat that Linux also requires more time, if you use it for programming, than modern Windows.

Programming, is not just programming. Better to say 'computing', and the programmer has to become one with the ecosystem in which he / she programs, if he / she wants to be REAL.

If you see how much time I invest into computing / programming then I still defeat those programmers who only do python in terms of speed, simply because I invest more hours over the day than any of those people, who also have social time, spend time on entertainment etc. I almost ONLY do IT. You will in not too much time see the fruit of that fanaticism...