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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday August 23 2016, @10:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the parts-of-the-basic-toolset dept.

Well, that didn't take long: within a week of applause for Microsoft's decision to open-source PowerShell, a comment-war has broken out over curl and wget.

For those not familiar with these commands: they're open source command line tools for fetching Internet content without a browser. Apart from obvious applications like downloading whole sites (for example as backup), they're also under the hood for a lot of other toolsets (an example the author is familiar with – GIS tools use curl and/or wget to fetch maps from Web services).

For some reason, Microsoft's team decided to put aliases for curl and wget in Windows PowerShell – but, as this thread begins, those aliases don't deliver curl and wget functionality.

The pull request says the aliases should be spiked: "They block use of the commonly used command line tools without providing even an attempt to offer the same functionality. They serve no purpose for PowerShell users but cause confusion and problems to existing curl and wget users."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/23/your_wget_is_broken_and_should_die_powershellers_tell_microsoft/

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:11PM (#392126)

    Windows is great for some things, like developing GUI desktop applications that run only on Windows.

    The second thing it's good for is...

    Let me think about that one.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:39PM (#392143)

    Getting viruses! Oh you mean GOOD things it's good at. I'll get back to you

    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 23 2016, @04:07PM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @04:07PM (#392192) Journal

      It's good for booting up on a new machine so you can download a Linux or BSD iso and burn it. Give credit where credit is due :)

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday August 23 2016, @06:10PM

        by edIII (791) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @06:10PM (#392223)

        If we're going to be fair, the asshole has a point. There is a way to make it work, and it is better (from a certain point of view) to be able to use as many tools and platforms as possible to get the job done. I can appreciate that attitude of agnosticism, although he shrugged it off just as fast as he put it on.

        What I can't appreciate is that Microsoft attempted to bridge the gap, and then fucked it all up. There isn't a reason to go through the hoops of explicitly calling wget at all. Microsoft should have implemented both of those programs fully, with special attention at making it as consistent with Linux use as possible.

        Of course, I take all of that with a grain of salt giving the inconsistencies between same named binaries within Linux and BSD platforms too. A lot of times those are simply missing flags, but that is different behavior on different platforms. Honestly, I wouldn't of singled out Microsoft at all if I find the problem, because it exists elsewhere outside of Microsoft.

        They're trying at least. It's a moot point of course with everything else going on (TELEMETRY FUCK YOU!!). What's ironic is that somebody suggested to me that I use Powershell for a mini-project and I told them I wasn't willing to invest the time to figure out all the differences and eccentricities when I could be focusing on learning BSD better, and working with anti-MS platforms like ReactOS and PCBSD. Both wget and curl would have fucked me up for a few minutes.

        Ultimately, working with Microsoft at all will become self-defeating IMHO. It's not like they're going in a different direction, but full steam ahead to Walled Garden'd telemetry and full NSA/FBI surveillance of all users, all the time. Shit, even Apple is putting up more of a fight against the government and loss of privacy.

        Interesting Times, but if you're using PowerShell and committed to the Windows platform, you've already bent over and accepted to the big ol' lubed up M I C R O S O F T and a complete utter lack of privacy, control, and IMHO, dignity. Agnosticism left the building after Microsoft started forcefully backporting telemetry and removing individual patches.

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @09:08PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @09:08PM (#392305)

          I agree that if Microsoft had properly implemented wget and curl, with rigorous compatibility testing, there would be no issue. Anyone should be able to implement those commands.

          The problem is that they couldn't be bothered doing that.

        • (Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Tuesday August 23 2016, @10:33PM

          by art guerrilla (3082) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @10:33PM (#392351)

          pedant alert:
          i would not have...
          vs
          i would not of...
          sorry, the fingers move of their own volition sometimes...

          • (Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday August 23 2016, @10:46PM

            by edIII (791) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @10:46PM (#392355)

            Don't apologize! :)

            I wish that my grammer were better all the time ;)

            --
            Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
            • (Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Saturday August 27 2016, @09:05PM

              by art guerrilla (3082) on Saturday August 27 2016, @09:05PM (#394038)

              i thank a couple online denizens who corrected my misuse of 'soupcon' and misspelling of 'smorgasbord'...
              a lot of obvious stuff just goes by in the stream (not worth the effort to 'correct' their/there/they're, etc mixups), but some of them catch the eye...
              later, ed ed ed...