CompUSA New Policy

CompUSA New Policy

[David Botton]

Don't get fooled, CompUSA has started this week a new policy. ALL
returns including things like memory chips, cards, and hard-drives, are
subject to 15% restocking fee! Boycott CompUSA! Let them know you won't
be falling for the CompUSA Scam!

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[schrader01]

I agree!  Not only are CompUSA's prices 20% more than mail order, now they
have the same restocking charge.  I wonder if this has anything to do with
their buying of Computer City, and thus eliminating the competition.

What BS.




In article <36CC64A1.3E98D9B4@Botton.com>,
  David Botton <David@Botton.com> wrote:
> Don't get fooled, CompUSA has started this week a new policy. ALL
> returns including things like memory chips, cards, and hard-drives, are
> subject to 15% restocking fee! Boycott CompUSA! Let them know you won't
> be falling for the CompUSA Scam!
>
>

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[DPH]

There's always Best Buy.

DPH

schrader01@my-dejanews.com wrote:

> I agree!  Not only are CompUSA's prices 20% more than mail order, now they
> have the same restocking charge.  I wonder if this has anything to do with
> their buying of Computer City, and thus eliminating the competition.
>
> What BS.
>
> In article <36CC64A1.3E98D9B4@Botton.com>,
>   David Botton <David@Botton.com> wrote:
> > Don't get fooled, CompUSA has started this week a new policy. ALL
> > returns including things like memory chips, cards, and hard-drives, are
> > subject to 15% restocking fee! Boycott CompUSA! Let them know you won't
> > be falling for the CompUSA Scam!
> >
> >
>
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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[dennison]

In article <7avmc6$gvf$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
  schrader01@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> I agree!  Not only are CompUSA's prices 20% more than mail order, now they
> have the same restocking charge.  I wonder if this has anything to do with
> their buying of Computer City, and thus eliminating the competition.

At one point we had a Computer City, CompUSA and Best Buy within a mile of
each other here in Tulsa. I took a notepad with me to each store and wrote
down the prices for all the games each had that I was remotely interested in.
I happen to have the list right here with me.

In games more than one had, CompUSA had the higest price of all but one, and
it never had the lowest price. Best Buy had the lowest price in all but 3.
There were lots of ties, but none 3-way. CompUSA also had the smallest
selection (again, of the games I was interested in).

Interestingly, I found later that Wal-Mart seems to have even lower prices
than BB, and its open 24 hours.

If anyone's interested, I can send or post the raw data. But it seems the
lesson here is clear. I always mentally add the restocking fee to the price,
so that just puts them further out.

T.E.D.

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[Larry Kilgallen]

And exactly what Ada products do they sell that makes this discussion
relevant to comp.lang.ada ?

Surely there are hardware newsgroups for discussing this.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[bill]

In article <7b4fod$kd4$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com
says...
 
>Ho ho ho, that's a good laugh for today, Visual Basic as
>a "niche" product.
>
>(just in case people are unaware, Visual Basic has the
> great majority of the PC development market at the moment,
> one study I saw gave it 70% of this developer's market).
                         ^^^^^^
 
man, this is so depressing :(


Bill.

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[bill]

In article <7b53kl$6f1$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com
says...
 
>> > moment, one study I saw gave it 70% of this developer's
>> > market).
 
>> man, this is so depressing :(
 
>
>In fact VB is a very interesting programming environment,
>and there are a number of fundamental ideas and features
>that are put together in quite a nice coherent fashion.
>Yes, there are many decrepit aspects, but when a language
>is really popular, mine for good ideas, don't just dismiss!
>
 
Actually I played with VB a little (for about 5 hrs). It is Ok
I guess as a language. The problem is that I'll be stuck on Windoz 
for the rest of me life with it since that where it only exists. 

And this thought for me is enough to cause me to want go shoot 
myself instead of having to go throug this.

You see, for me, mental tourture means having to use and deal 
with windoz.

I had to work on windoz once for whole long week, I ended having 
to go see a doctor afterwords to take something to calm my nervous.
 
Now I am OK. As long as I am 10' or more away from anything with 
windoz on it. I have a medical release from my shrink giving me 
the right to refuse working on windoz based on a stress related 
medical conditions inflicted on me by windoz.

I show it to anyone at work in case someone asks me to do 
something on windoz for them.

I am a happy man now. Other than that, VB is Ok.

Bill.

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[dennison]

In article <1999Feb24.131906.1@eisner>,
  Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam wrote:
> And exactly what Ada products do they sell that makes this discussion
> relevant to comp.lang.ada ?

None, actually.

(dragging this back toward relevance) You'd think that someone with a
shrink-wrapped PC product like Aonix could get a compiler box on display in a
retail outlet. I'm sure compiler vendors are way ahead of me on this, have
done all kinds of studies, and concluded that it just wouldn't be
cost-effective to try to sell that way. But it would sure be nice to see
someone try. If niche products like VisualBasic and J++ can make it there,
I'd think Ada could too.

T.E.D.

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[robert_dewar]

In article <7b3oah$teq$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
  dennison@telepath.com wrote:
> If niche products like VisualBasic and J++ can make it
> there, I'd think Ada could too.

Ho ho ho, that's a good laugh for today, Visual Basic as
a "niche" product.

(just in case people are unaware, Visual Basic has the
 great majority of the PC development market at the moment,
 one study I saw gave it 70% of this developer's market).

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[robert_dewar]

In article <7b4lhn$465@drn.newsguy.com>,
  bill <bill@newsguy.com> wrote:
> In article <7b4fod$kd4$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com

> >(just in case people are unaware, Visual Basic has the
> > great majority of the PC development market at the
> > moment, one study I saw gave it 70% of this developer's
> > market).
>                          ^^^^^^
>
> man, this is so depressing :(
>
> Bill.

You are allowed to be depressed only if you know what
VB is all about :-)

I am always amazed at how many people assume that VB is
the same Basic they knew and hated as kids, and deprecate
it without knowing anything at all about it.

In the Ada world, we hate it when people dismiss Ada
without knowing anything about it, let's not make the
same mistake with respect to other languages.

In fact VB is a very interesting programming environment,
and there are a number of fundamental ideas and features
that are put together in quite a nice coherent fashion.
Yes, there are many decrepit aspects, but when a language
is really popular, mine for good ideas, don't just dismiss!


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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[Nick Roberts]

Some people consider VB to be a disease ;-)

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[dennison]

In article <7b4fod$kd4$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
  robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> In article <7b3oah$teq$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
>   dennison@telepath.com wrote:
> > If niche products like VisualBasic and J++ can make it
> > there, I'd think Ada could too.
>
> Ho ho ho, that's a good laugh for today, Visual Basic as
> a "niche" product.
>
> (just in case people are unaware, Visual Basic has the
>  great majority of the PC development market at the moment,
>  one study I saw gave it 70% of this developer's market).

I feel obliged to admit that I haven't seen any such studies, and thus was
completely ignorant of this (rather scary) fact.

But Visual Basic could't really be considered a general-purpose programming
language, could it? Perhaps "niche" isn't the right word, in the same way
"minority" isn't the right word to describe women.

T.E.D.

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <7b6c4q$7pa$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, dennison@telepath.com writes:

> But Visual Basic could't really be considered a general-purpose programming
> language, could it? Perhaps "niche" isn't the right word, in the same way
> "minority" isn't the right word to describe women.

Visual Basic is certainly a general purpose programming language if
you restrict your purpose to writing applications on Windows (a fine
restriction for many programmers).  Along with Delphi it is one of
the two best, insulating programmers from many C-isms of the OS APIs.

C and C++ are useful on Windows for writing non-applications, such
as device drivers, but Microsoft sees them mainly for software product
development, steering their end-user customer organizations toward
Visual Basic for application development.

Larry Kilgallen

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[dennison]

In article <1999Feb26.104940.1@eisner>,
  Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam wrote:
> In article <7b6c4q$7pa$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, dennison@telepath.com writes:
>
> Visual Basic is certainly a general purpose programming language if
> you restrict your purpose to writing applications on Windows (a fine
> restriction for many programmers).  Along with Delphi it is one of

No "if" allowed, though. :-)

I think the "writing applications" part is the worst restriction of the two
actually. I don't think it can be called "general pupose" if it is completely
unsuitable for developing systems software.

But is that the case?


T.E.D.

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[Marin David Condic]

Nick Roberts wrote:
> 
> Some people consider VB to be a disease ;-)

But it has not yet exceeded the status of Unix as the only computer
virus with a GUI interface. :-)

-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
***To reply, remove "bogon" from the domain name.***

    "Don't say yes until I finish talking."

        -- Darryl F. Zanuck

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[fmanning]

In article <dale-2602992126370001@dale.ppp.cs.rmit.edu.au>,
  dale@cs.rmit.edu.au (Dale Stanbrough) wrote:
> bill bill@newsguy.com wrote:
>
> > Actually I played with VB a little (for about 5 hrs). It is Ok
> > I guess as a language. The problem is that I'll be stuck on Windoz
> > for the rest of me life with it since that where it only exists.
>
> A VB lookalike is available on the Macintosh (RealBasic), which I
> have read is 99% source code compatable.

There's more -- a VB lookalike is available for a small 8-bit
microcontroller (shameless plug follows). BasicX uses a language
that's upward compatible with VB.

To finesse this discussion back to Ada -- the BasicX compiler uses
strong typing. For-loop counters are also restricted to discrete
types, and step sizes are limited to +/-1.

There's even a compiler switch that implements for-loop semantics
that are very similar to those of Ada. That is, loop counters are
read-only within the loop, can be passed only by value (similar to
Ada's mode in), and are not visible outside their loops.

That's what happens when the compiler author (me) is a big fan
of Ada.

-- Frank Manning
-- NetMedia, Inc.
-- http://www.basicx.com
-- fmanning at netmedia.com

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[Dale Stanbrough]

bill bill@newsguy.com wrote:

> Actually I played with VB a little (for about 5 hrs). It is Ok
> I guess as a language. The problem is that I'll be stuck on Windoz 
> for the rest of me life with it since that where it only exists. 

A VB lookalike is available on the Macintosh (RealBasic), which I
have read is 99% source code compatable.


Dale

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[bill]

In article <7bagdq$kn9$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com
says...
>
 
>
>But without the corresponding component library, it is not
>clear that this means much. Typical VB programs make heavy
>use of components (and the component catalogts for Active
>X stuff are impressive these days!)
 
So, it seems the important thing is not the 'language', it is how big
the supporting libraries are, and how easy for the programmers to
build large apps using it and using its libraries? I am glad you
agree.

Any way. The whole active X, VB, COM, Windows world is dying. You might not
see it now, but wait 2-3 years. The new revolution in software is 
happening in the world of open source and the GNU/Linux/Apache and all 
of this will become the new platform where exciting things will be 
developed on (and hopefully Ada will be part of this). And when windows 
die, VB will die with it since that is only place it is used on.

See PC week feb 22 edition "Ballmer sounds alarm" where he himself said:
"if we don't do the right thing, we wont be in a great place three to 
four years from now" and where it talks about the problems MS is starting
to have. I guess people are finally waking up.

Other of Balmer quotes

- "We are in a position where we can be replaced".
- "We need to recommit to software engineering as a discipline". 
- "too much hassle" when speaking of Microsoft products.
- "We will get into what I'd call a vicious downward spiral" when
   warning about what might happen.

Bill

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <7baj6j$e57@drn.newsguy.com>, bill@ writes:

> Any way. The whole active X, VB, COM, Windows world is dying. You might not
> see it now, but wait 2-3 years. The new revolution in software is 
> happening in the world of open source and the GNU/Linux/Apache and all 
> of this will become the new platform where exciting things will be 
> developed on (and hopefully Ada will be part of this). And when windows 
> die, VB will die with it since that is only place it is used on.

That sounds like a prediction of "will die" rather than a report of
"is dying".  Remember the fate of all past advocates in the computing
field who have predicted "my new favorite <whatever> will soon replace
the old trashy <whatever>".

Larry Kilgallen

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[Bob Collins]

Completely off-topic now (sorry), but the latest edition
of the print magazine Wired has an interesting article
on the $50,000,000 worth of punch cards still sold today
(for use as a computer data medium) and the companies
that still support the key punch hardware. Not bad for
something that was predicted to be obsolete in the mid-70's.

In article <1999Feb28.071208.1@eisner>, Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam wrote:

> In article <7baj6j$e57@drn.newsguy.com>, bill@ writes:
> 
> > Any way. The whole active X, VB, COM, Windows world is dying. You might not
> > see it now, but wait 2-3 years. The new revolution in software is 
> > happening in the world of open source and the GNU/Linux/Apache and all 
> > of this will become the new platform where exciting things will be 
> > developed on (and hopefully Ada will be part of this). And when windows 
> > die, VB will die with it since that is only place it is used on.
> 
> That sounds like a prediction of "will die" rather than a report of
> "is dying".  Remember the fate of all past advocates in the computing
> field who have predicted "my new favorite <whatever> will soon replace
> the old trashy <whatever>".
> 
> Larry Kilgallen

-- 
Bob Collins  <mailto:collins@cs.wm.edu>  <http://ratbert.cs.wm.edu>

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[bill]

 
well offcourse windows dying does not mean it will go away 100%.

It just means Windows will become not important.

It will become a legacy thing, supported by what remains of MS.

Just like things like anything we still support from 20 years ago today.

in 20 years from now, someone somewhere will be sitting supporting
some old huge undocumented VB program in some dark cold room somewhere 
out there becuase 5 people somewhere are still are using it and paying for its
support. 

Bill. 

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[David Botton]

> 
> Any way. The whole active X, VB, COM, Windows world is dying. You might not
> see it now, but wait 2-3 years. The new revolution in software is
> happening in the world of open source and the GNU/Linux/Apache and all
> of this will become the new platform where exciting things will be
> developed on (and hopefully Ada will be part of this). And when windows
> die, VB will die with it since that is only place it is used on.
> 

I don't think it is likely that you will see the demise of Microsoft,
Windows, and for sure COM with in the next 2-3 years (perhaps 10 to 20).
What you might see is COM/DCOM running on Linux and other Linux variants
like Unix (actually it already exists on these platforms, see
http://www.softwareag.com/corporat/solutions/entirex/entirex.htm I will
also be posting soon an example of DCOM with Ada95 that will work with
the Linux DCOM setup also at http://www.botton.com/ada) along with many
other Microsoft technologies. If Microsoft ever sees itself slipping or
"losing" to Linux, it can pull an "Internet Explorer" and release half
or more of the OS for free or even as OpenSource and quickly crush the
competition.

I am no fan of Microsoft, but I can tell you that certain aspects of
their technology are here to stay. One of which is COM (ActiveX, OLE, or
whatever the next name they pull out of hat will be).

COM may be a bit complex at start, but once you understand the
principles and the basic skeleton code to produce objects, you find that
you have an exceptional model that produces objects reusable from any
supporting language.

What you get for free from writing to COM specs is worth a note also, a
simple automation compliant COM object is instantly a distributed object
with no change of code. It is easily accessed from Java, VB., C++, Ada95
and just about every scripting language on the planet (including Python
and Perl) on the local machine or off. (While creating COM objects in
Ada95 is still hindered by some compiler issues, using COM objects works
perfect! see http://www.botton.com/ada/os ) There are many other noted
features that come along with COM and I refer you to Essential COM and
Inside OLE second edition as two good sources of information.

I predict you will see in the very near future Win workstations
everywhere running a GUI app written in VB, Delphi or whatever
controlling tons of legacy and new Ada applications through DCOM on just
about any server platform you can imagine (including Linux).

Imagine the simplicity of sending a simple document to the CEO of a
large corporation in the middle of crisis at his manufacturing plants
with DCOM objects embedded in the document illustrating current
production levels and statistics updating in front of his eyes from
servers and equipment (not just Windows based!) all over the globe. Not
just a dream, I have built systems like this more then once and it
works.

The number of COM/ActiveX objects already available for reuse is beyond
belief. The amount of legacy code being repackaged in to COM objects is
mind boggling and that is nothing compared to new code that is taking
advantage of COM.

David Botton

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[robert_dewar]

In article <dale-2602992126370001@dale.ppp.cs.rmit.edu.au>,
  dale@cs.rmit.edu.au (Dale Stanbrough) wrote:
> A VB lookalike is available on the Macintosh (RealBasic),
> which I have read is 99% source code compatable.

But without the corresponding component library, it is not
clear that this means much. Typical VB programs make heavy
use of components (and the component catalogts for Active
X stuff are impressive these days!)

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[robert_dewar]

In article <7b6c4q$7pa$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
  dennison@telepath.com wrote:
> But Visual Basic could't really be considered a
> general-purpose programming language, could it? Perhaps
> "niche" isn't the right word, in the same way
> "minority" isn't the right word to describe women.

Why not? Most certainly a very wide range of programming
tasks can be accomplished in VB? Especially if you take
into account the wealth of components available.

I see no reason why VB is any less a general purpose
programming language that C++ or Ada ...

What is your reasoning here?

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[robert_dewar]

In article <7be4d8$cr0$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
  robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> In article
> <collins-2802990844090001@cx832447-a.nwptn1.va.home.com>,
>
> Actually your post is no more off topic than many others
> in this thread, I email'ed too quickly, sorry!

Interesting! Now I can definitely see that my newsreader
is malfunctioning and posting some stuff intended as email.
The above is particularly confusing, since the original
was not posted, oh well!

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[dennison]

In article <7bej5i$qn8$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
  robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> In article <7be4d8$cr0$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
>   robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> > In article
> > <collins-2802990844090001@cx832447-a.nwptn1.va.home.com>,
> >
> > Actually your post is no more off topic than many others
> > in this thread, I email'ed too quickly, sorry!
>
> Interesting! Now I can definitely see that my newsreader
> is malfunctioning and posting some stuff intended as email.
> The above is particularly confusing, since the original
> was not posted, oh well!

I've been getting some bizzare behavior from dejanews lately myself. In
particular it claims that its too busy to post messages, but does so anyway.
That's in addition to all the usual problems...

Beats a blank, though.

T.E.D.

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[David Botton]

Frequently there are missing messages I find in DejaNews that I don't
find on my ISPs news server or my company's news server (or on one but
not the other). Lately posts I send from my company's news server has
been seen by you (you and others have responded to them), but not on its
own server or my home ISP.

It may not be your news reader, but something else.

David Botton


robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> Interesting! Now I can definitely see that my newsreader
> is malfunctioning and posting some stuff intended as email.
> The above is particularly confusing, since the original
> was not posted, oh well!
>

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[fraser]

I nearly cried when bill@ said:

>Other of Balmer quotes
>
>- "We are in a position where we can be replaced".
>- "We need to recommit to software engineering as a discipline". 
>- "too much hassle" when speaking of Microsoft products.
>- "We will get into what I'd call a vicious downward spiral" when
>   warning about what might happen.

That reads like somebody who's worried about losing an antitrust trial.

Fraser.

Re: CompUSA New Policy

[robert_dewar]

In article <1999Feb28.071208.1@eisner>,
  Kilgallen@eisner.decus.org.nospam wrote:
> In article <7baj6j$e57@drn.newsguy.com>, bill@ writes:
>
> > Any way. The whole active X, VB, COM, Windows world is
> > dying. You might not see it now, but wait 2-3 years.
> > The new revolution in software is  happening in the
> > world of open source and the GNU/Linux/Apache and all
> > of this will become the new platform where exciting
> > things will be developed on (and hopefully Ada will be
> > part of this). And when windows die, VB will die with
> > it since that is only place it is used on.
>
> That sounds like a prediction of "will die" rather than a
> report of "is dying".

The quoted paragraph here represents a fair amount of
wishful thinking. In reality, if indeed GNU/Linux/Apache
is that successful, it can only achieve its success by
being able to host a wide variety of software, including
existing Win32 and VB stuff. As for Active X, I suspect
you are simply not aware of the huge library of components
that is currently available. Again, success will require
arranging for reuse of this library.

If the model is to rewrite the world, it has much less
chance of success.

Note that there are definite movements in the direction
I suggest here. For example, WINE (sp?) the project to
duplicate the Win32 interface on GNU/Linux is getting
closer to being truly practical.

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[robert_dewar]

In article
<collins-2802990844090001@cx832447-a.nwptn1.va.home.com>,

Actually your post is no more off topic than many others
in this thread, I email'ed too quickly, sorry!

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[robert_dewar]

In article <7baj6j$e57@drn.newsguy.com>,
  bill@ wrote:
> In article <7bagdq$kn9$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com
> says...
> >
>
> >
> >But without the corresponding component library, it is
> >not clear that this means much. Typical VB programs make
> >heavy use of components (and the component catalogts for
> >Active X stuff are impressive these days!)
>
> So, it seems the important thing is not the 'language',
> it is how big the supporting libraries are, and how easy
> for the programmers to build large apps using it and
> using its libraries? I am glad you agree.

No! I don't agree *at all* with that assessment. This
and other posts from you suggest to me that you are really
not familiar with the
VB and Active X world. To think of Active-X simply
as a library capability misses the point. The world of
component programming is fundamentally different from the
world ofapplication building using existing libraries.

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Re: CompUSA New Policy

[Tony Gair]

Having worked in ADA and VB I can't really see how they really compare,
both are brilliant at what they do. I still hate microsoft though.....

robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> 
> In article <7b4lhn$465@drn.newsguy.com>,
>   bill <bill@newsguy.com> wrote:
> > In article <7b4fod$kd4$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
> robert_dewar@my-dejanews.com
> 
> > >(just in case people are unaware, Visual Basic has the
> > > great majority of the PC development market at the
> > > moment, one study I saw gave it 70% of this developer's
> > > market).
> >                          ^^^^^^
> >
> > man, this is so depressing :(
> >
> > Bill.
> 
> You are allowed to be depressed only if you know what
> VB is all about :-)
> 
> I am always amazed at how many people assume that VB is
> the same Basic they knew and hated as kids, and deprecate
> it without knowing anything at all about it.
> 
> In the Ada world, we hate it when people dismiss Ada
> without knowing anything about it, let's not make the
> same mistake with respect to other languages.
> 
> In fact VB is a very interesting programming environment,
> and there are a number of fundamental ideas and features
> that are put together in quite a nice coherent fashion.
> Yes, there are many decrepit aspects, but when a language
> is really popular, mine for good ideas, don't just dismiss!
> 
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