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December 30

Gfortran download (2nd attempt)

This is what I did. Google found me this website. From the list I chose "GFortranBinaries - GCC Wiki" link which led me to this page. There was a highlighted link: "MingW-w64" I clicked on that. That opened me this page. There was a button: "Download MinGW-W64" I clicked that and ended up on this page. There was a link highlighted there: "Download mingw-w64-v3.0.0.tar.bz2 (7.0 MB) " I clicked that. Then at the bottom of the page there was this security question: "Do you want to open or save mingW-W64-v3.0.0.tar.bz2 from hivelocity.d.sourceforge.net?" So, I saved it in downloads. So far nothing bad happened. I am doing it second time but the first time it wanted to open this file and I had no program to open it. I know there is a program on the web that can open bz2's. Before I go for it, I want to ask StuRat perhaps or someone else, familiar with this download if I am on the right track. Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks --AboutFace 22 (talk) 00:02, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Right track? By my count you've made at least half a dozen decisions in this project, and every single one has been wrong. Everything you do just gets you farther off track, and it's just wasting everybody's time to ask for advice about it. Looie496 (talk) 02:36, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looie, could you be specific? You are big on generalities and you speak for other people for no reason. You were the one who insisted that I should use optimization on a task that do not allow it, which has no room for it. If you cannot say anything specific, just keep your mouth shut. Have you ever downloaded GFortran? What decisions did I make that are wrong? Be specific. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 03:31, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Put even more bluntly, the OP is repeatedly failing to demonstrate the basic competence that is prerequisite for the task he is (claiming to be) undertaking. The style of questions, the types of trouble, the total lack of self-directed troubleshooting, all indicate a profoundly novice level of knowledge - despite the OP's claims of expertise. More than a few of us following along can clearly see that this task is beyond the OP's current capability. Either the OP is intentionally wasting our time, or he needs to seriously rethink his endeavor.

Many others have volunteered specific help and instructional websites, but you seem to be struggling with first-steps - and even struggling to follow step-by-step tutorials. Do you need help finding introductory book on computing, or help locating an introductory programming class in your region? Numerical programming in FORTRAN is not a simple task, and you are still struggling with simple tasks. We can direct you to .bz2, and we can even provide instructions on how to install and use software to decompress this archive file format; but we will not hand-hold you through every keystroke. You'll probably have to pay good money for that!

In closing, I have downloaded and installed gfortran, and even compiled from source, on many many many operating systems in many troublesome environments. Nonetheless, downloading and installing it on Windows should take a user just a few moments. When we - anonymous volunteers on the internet, with nothing to gain or lose from your efforts - when we see that the OP needs a few days or weeks for this task, we quickly recognize something is awry, and it's more likely PEBKAC than FORTRAN. Nimur (talk) 03:46, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think everyone is being too hard on About Face here. It's entirely possible to be an expert in Fortran yet never have downloaded anything before. This is because Fortran was often available at work, in a mainframe environment. Therefore, familiarity with downloading, decompression, web searches, etc., was not needed there, so we should help him out wherever we can.

As for his project, it may or may not work, but we should not discourage him from trying. Now, for the specific advice on how to decompress a tar/bz2 file, I use WinZip. It costs $30, but if you don't want to pay that, there's a free trial (30 days ?). They try to give you extra junk too, like AVG, but pick "customized download" and deselect all of that. I'm downloading Gfortran and WinZip on my new (Windows 7) PC now, to see if it all works smoothly here. I'll let you know how it goes.

So, keep at it, About Face, and you will become an expert in no time ! StuRat (talk) 14:42, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: I tried out what you were trying, About Face, and I was able to uncompress it with WinZip, but after that it seems to get rather complicated to install it. So, instead I found this YouTube video that walks us through a different download and install process: [1]. They download a version of MinGW which has options to include Gfortran with it. I just used that method successfully. I do have a few comments and suggestions that differ a bit from the video, though:

1) You need to pick on the "Installation + Apply changes" pull-down menu once you select the packages to download. (If you pick all the other languages it takes quite some time.)

2) If you don't want to change the $PATH in the dangerous way he does it, I believe you can change it just for the current Command Prompt window (but I forget how, does anybody here know ?). Or you can compile right in C:\MinGW\bin, then move the executable elsewhere.

3) If you don't specify the output file name when you compile, it creates "a.exe", and you can then rename it.

4) Rather than pick a.exe from a window, if you type in "a" (or the new name) at the Command Prompt window, it will run there without that annoying problem of it closing the window once the program completes. I usually leave the name a.exe until I test it and decide to keep that version, then I give it a better name and maybe move it to another folder.

5) Here's a simple "Hello world !" test program for it (I named mine hello.f):

         program hello
         print *,"Hello world !"
         end

I stored that in the in C:\MinGW\bin directory, then typed "gfortran hello.f" , then typed "a", and I got the expected output. Once you are able to do that, then we are ready to try your code. There might be problems if it's written for an older Fortran version or another operating system, so let me know if you get errors.StuRat (talk) 16:44, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

StuRat, why did you learn to store your source-code and your compiled program in the compiler's bin directory? More to the point, why do you feel the need to spread that antipattern to others?

This is exactly why Looie496 expressed such frustration. The OP is so lost, he's following advice from somebody who doesn't know what they're doing, which leads to more confusion. The best solution here is for the OP to find a programming class taught by a reputable, experienced teacher, and learn the correct way to do things. At this stage of the game, you don't have the experience to distinguish between good advice and bad advice. Nimur (talk) 17:11, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not suggesting that he does that permanently, just as an initial test. Once he establishes that it can compile, he can set up proper directories, environment variables, etc. (It's important to test things with one change at a time, so, if there's an error, you know exactly where it occurred.) Also note that if he does accidentally delete anything from the compiler's bin directory, he just has to download it again to fix that, so it's not a serious risk. Globally changing the $PATH variable, on the other hand, is risky. StuRat (talk) 17:13, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you're the sort of person who is paranoid about putting extra items on your path, then you should use a fully qualified path name to specify the compiler; you should not be moving your working-directory into the compiler's bin directory. If you're the sort of person who is paranoid about putting extra items on your path, why are you permitting write-access to the compiler's bin directory in the first place? Probably because you don't know why you're following these rules. They're just arbitrary arcana, and you aren't using logic and critical thinking to understand them. That's called cargo cult programming, and it leads to very bad accidents. Nimur (talk) 17:39, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think fully qualified path names always work, because, while they will find the initial compiler, they won't find other things in that bin directory which that compiler needs to do it's job. StuRat (talk) 17:44, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

StuRat, you aren't sure which executable programs you want to run, but you don't want to add anything to your path to prevent yourself from running an unknown program. But, you will allow an ordinary user to have write privileges to a directory that allows the user to execute code. In other words, you have no idea why you're following these rules, but you repeat them - half-correctly - to other people. Nimur (talk) 17:52, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A common solution is to have a script set up your build environment. The PATH is only modified for terminals that have run the script. You can also use the makefile - a set of declarations can add a prefix (possibly from an environment variable) to each of your build tools. This is useful when working on projects with multiple toolchains, such as something that requires a cross-complile. Katie R (talk) 18:00, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I've used those on larger projects, especially where there's a compile command followed by a link command. But gfortran does both with the single command, so when I just need to compile/link one program, it seems like overkill to use a makefile. StuRat (talk) 18:26, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately I don't have time now to read all new contributions but I only want to mention that I am really paranoid about software as one of the contributors guessed. I already ran into a trouble once with this download. I ended up with some Trojan or whatnot which eventually killed my OS to the point it could not start. I restored the OS from a system image. I will get back to this stuff on Jan 1. Happy New Year everyone. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 02:20, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can appreciate you being paranoid (I get like that when the Mother-in-law comes over to stay). Yet, if you could only beg-borrow-or-steel another machine and it solely load it with Linux, that would be cheaper in the long run that filling out a year's prescription of Xanax. Me thinks: you're torturing yourself (and us) for no good cause.--Aspro (talk) 14:59, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Android -- setting status bar notification priority or grouping them

As in the title, is it possible? Ever since I updated to 4.3, the GOSMS status bar icon (for new SMS) often gets overwhelmed by the Twitter ones. I am rooted, so I don't mind flashing ROMs. I wouldn't even mind a paid app. What I'd like to do is either make some apps get priority for status bar space, or have the notifications grouped within a single icon, with possibly a small number indicating how many there are.

The abomination in question: http://i.imgur.com/SsOFDxQ.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.201.128.254 (talk) 19:00, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]