Would it be more efficient to say Unix vs Windows?
this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
1242 points (99.1% liked)
Programmer Humor
20251 readers
1208 users here now
Welcome to Programmer Humor!
This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!
For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.
Rules
- Keep content in english
- No advertisements
- Posts must be related to programming or programmer topics
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Posix
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!
Duel of the fates: \//\
The number of times I had to ask "how can I tell where the file 'physically'" (I know) "lives" on the network when I took up work at a Windows shop, it was just baffling. And Win people couldn't understand what I was asking.
There's a location for this effing thing. I want to know where it is, really! How do I get that info?!
Physically, it's probably on your hdd or ssd. Or possibly just in ram or a data center somewhere 😜
This meme is way more clever than it should be
Can you please explain? I've never used Mac and it's been a long time since I've properly used windows.
File paths in Linux and Mac use / while Windows uses \
Take a look at the angle of the lightsabers.
I never would've gotten that!
Like I said, way more clever than it should be. Props to the creator for sure.
Technically, Windows understands both / and \. I personally always use / just because it's easier to type that.
Didn't realize until I read your comment. Thanks.
I didn't realise until I read that comment, your comment and the other comment about slash direction.
load more comments
(4 replies)
It's not something the Jedi would tell you.
Fun fact, though: Linux is the only case-sensitive one.
Edit: I feel silly for forgetting that it's all about the choice of FS. If anyone needs anything from me, I'll be in the corner, coloring.
From a technical standpoint, the windows NTFS filesystem is designed inherently case sensitive, just windows doesn't allow creating case sensitive files.
Connecting an NTFS drive to linux, you can create two separate files readme.txt and Readme.txt.
Using windows, you can see both files in the filesystem, but chances are most (if not all) software will struggle accessing both files, opening readme.txt might instead open Readme.txt or vice versa.
Such a microsoft thing to do.
NTFS was designed back in the mid 90s, when the plan was to have the single NT kernel with different subsystems on top of it, some of those layers (i.e. POSIX) needed case sensitivity while others (Win32 and OS/2) didn't.
It only looks odd because the sole remaining subsystem in use (Win32) barely makes use of any of the kernel features, like they're only just now enabling long file paths.
You're correct. I once was trying to rename a file in Windows in a git repository that had a wrong capitalization. It was tricky.
For a few years now, Windows has had the capability of marking certain directories as case-sensitive. So you can have a mixed-case-sensitivity filesystem experience now. Yeah. :/
I once ran into a bug in an Arduino program where it wouldn't compile. The author blamed my "broken environment". Turned out, he had included "arduino.h" instead of the correct "Arduino.h".
Although you can use case insensitive filesystems with Linux, and case sensitive filesystems with macOS. I believe the case sensitivity is a function of the specific filesystem
but yeah, practically, the root for Linux is always case sensitive, and APFS ~~ain't~~ is only if you ask it to be ( https://support.apple.com/lv-lv/guide/disk-utility/dsku19ed921c/mac ).
When case insensitivity is the default I always wonder how many apps unknowingly rely on that due to typos somewhere. I encountered this once while porting a Windows/macOS app to Linux that someone imported a module with the wrong case and nobody noticed
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(16 replies)
File systems aren't even real.
at that point operating systems are also not real.
Wait, are we real?
What is this "real" concept anyway?
Adam Savage famously stated on Mythbusters "I reject your reality and substitute my own"
Sure, but is reality even real then? Is anything real?
Not that I meant to get all pop-philosophical on this beautiful Sunday morning, sorry about that.
I, too, first heard this quote from Adam on Mythbusters as a child. But, I'm pretty sure I also heard it was said first by some philosopher.
I would later be informed that "some philosopher" was the 1984 film The Dungeon Master.
Only apparently that was not the first, and it was said in a 1974 episode of Doctor Who. Well, someone on Reddit said that, and linked to this WikiQuote page but on that page it also says it's from The Dungeon master.
So, I don't know what to believe any more, and I still hope it was actually an obscure lost quote of Rene Magritte or something because in my head it would just make sense.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I hate that I need to use escape characters when creating something for windows.
load more comments
(6 replies)
Shouldn’t the blade be green? I thought Luke wore all black in ROTJ when he got hos green lightsaber.
You can actually use / as a path separator on Windows in functions like fopen(), because it supports some ancient version of POSIX standard.
There used to be an undocumented setting in early versions of MS-DOS that would allow the setting of the command option character to something other than the slash, and if you did that, the slash automatically became the path separator. All you needed was SWITCHAR=- in your CONFIG.SYS and DOS was suddenly very Unix-y.
It was taken out after a while because, with the feature being undocumented, too many people didn't know about it and bits of software - especially batch files, would have been reliant on things being "wrong". The modern support for regular slash in API calls probably doesn't use any of the old SWITCHAR code, but it is, in some way, the spiritual descendant of that secret feature.
Here's an old blog that talks about it: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/archive/blogs/larryosterman/why-is-the-dos-path-character
load more comments
(1 replies)
Also the internet belongs on the left.
And really, Linux/macos could be reduced to "Unix" https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Unix_history-simple.svg
load more comments
(6 replies)
view more: next ›