Ask HN: Best Command-Line Applications? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Best Command-Line Applications?

#301

Post by Lio » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 8:36 PM UTC

spondyl wrote: post #89

jodrellblank wrote: post #18

If you aren't using tmux or screen, you probably should be, especially over SSH sessions. They allow you to have multiple consoles open and switch between them, split window, and disconnect from SSH and then reconnect with all your things still open and running (as long as the server stayed running).

As someone who hasn't invested much time into tmux/screen, what are the benefits of it over just using eg; multiple terminal tabsn or using the terminal's built in split windowing? I'm sure there's probably a benefit but I dunno what it is

One useful reason to use it over a terminal is portability. If you're happy mostly working in the terminal then tmux will be the same on every OS your work on even if your favourite terminal isn't available.

Re: Ask HN: Best Command-Line Applications?

#302

Post by michilehr » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 8:49 PM UTC

luislezcair wrote: post #241

I use `ack` ( https://beyondgrep.com/ ) as a replacement for `grep`. It is simpler, faster, it has colors by default and it's really fast and very useful for programming.

Very useful - I use ack-grep for MacOS

Re: Ask HN: Best Command-Line Applications?

#303

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 8:54 PM UTC

Dowwie wrote: post #195

Just about every Rust cli app written by sharkdp: https://github.com/sharkdp/fd https://github.com/sharkdp/bat https://github.com/sharkdp/diskus https://github.com/sharkdp/hyperfine For viewing csv's as tabular, paged data from the terminal, check out VisiData (python) https://github.com/saulpw/visidata

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Best Command-Line Applications?

#304

Post by jpeeler » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:01 PM UTC

I really appreciate the people who include descriptions and links for their list. My list has been pruned to avoid duplication (though perhaps knowing what's popular is a good metric too).

asdf: https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf - installs many different programming languages and supports installing different versions concurrently. I use it for go installs since distribution updates aren't usually fast enough.

solaar: https://github.com/pwr/Solaar - handles configuring a logitech unifying receiver in Linux. Not really something you'd use multiple times, but am thankful it exists (also has a GUI too I believe).

Re: Ask HN: Best Command-Line Applications?

#305

Post by stevewillows » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

xte wrote: post #284

bwoodward wrote: post #103

I use the following (in no particular order) -- definitely nothing fancy. * weechat * ffmpeg * youtube-dl * zsh * watchman ( https://facebook.github.io/watchman ) * megadl (rarely, but its a handy tool when you need it) * brew (on my mac) * mountsshfs (on my mac) --- I moved away from orgmode and have been using it in VS since I have it open anyway. It covers me. I also want to start using Mutt or something similar.…

Just for curiosity: you have moved away from Emacs org-mode? If yes may I ask why? I'm using Emacs since few times and it's now even my WM and org-mode is it's companion for nearly all docs/docs related stuff I use, never found anything even near comfortable and powerful as that combo...

yeah, I've never been a big emacs user outside of org-mode, so it was silly for me to be using it for one feature.

The VS one covers the basics and has treated me well. For more advanced org-mode folks, I don't think the VS org-mode would be enough.

Re: Ask HN: Best Command-Line Applications?

#306

Post by nurettin » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 9:55 PM UTC

popee wrote: post #69

netcat

the one that comes with nmap?

Re: Ask HN: Best Command-Line Applications?

#307

Post by bklaasen » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 11:54 PM UTC

abcde - A Better CD Encoder (http://lly.org/~rcw/abcde/page/) I bought three cheap USB CD drives and concurrently ripped all of my CDs to FLAC over the course of a couple of weekends. abcde gets the best possible copy.

ddrescue - GNU ddrescue (https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/) not to be confused with dd_rescue (http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/) This piece of software is outstandingly good for rescuing bits from failing spinning rust. It doesn't care about the filesystem, it just tries really hard to get data from a raw device. Once you've got all the bits onto a safer medium, you can use testdisk to explore the disk image.

Re: Ask HN: Best Command-Line Applications?

#308

Post by spurgu » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 11:54 PM UTC

Lots of great stuff here! Key takeaway though (for me at least) is that a lot of this stuff turns into cumbersome management if you're not doing the bulk of your work on localhost, but instead dealing with a various few dozen or hundreds (in my case) of different servers. Yeah you can use ansible to automate installation/setup, but then again if you suddenly end up on a fresh server without root access you're gonna be/feel crippled, being used to aliasing everything and replacing standard shells with something extra fancy.

Some level of balance is needed, which is what I've been trying to do. That said I always setup oh-my-zsh and `git config --global alias.kurwa status` wherever I go.

Re: Ask HN: Best Command-Line Applications?

#309

Post by em-bee » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 12:22 AM UTC

stevekemp wrote: post #296

em-bee wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's nice to see new approaches to email in a terminal. how about integration with notmuch? greetings, eMBee.

I think the people that enjoy notmuch would probably prefer to stick with what they know. If I were to use their query-based API, and just be a UI on it, then that'd be an almost complete rewrite.

on the contrary for the first point. i suspect that most enjoy notmuch with their traditional interface because there are not many alternatives. probably most people looking for interface alternatives switched to gmail.

commandline UI development in particular seems very conservative, and attempts to explore new interfaces are rare. that's why i love this topic and am getting excited about any attempt to change that.

i obviously can't comment on what it takes to integrate notmuch with lumail, and i grant that one may possibly have to develop a mailclient with notmuch in mind for it to work well.

greetings, eMBee.

Re: Ask HN: Best Command-Line Applications?

#310

Post by catacombs » Tue, Nov 20, 2018, 12:39 AM UTC

colelyman wrote: post #256

suprfnk wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Spacemacs for a while, what sets Doom Emacs apart?

I am a convert from Spacemacs to Doom, and I have found that one of the main differences that sets Doom apart is easier configurability than Spacemacs. In Doom, there is still the concept of "layers," but IMO it is much easier to figure out what the layers are doing and customize them from there. Also, I have found Doom to be much quicker (takes about 2 seconds to load, not using server/client) and less buggy than Sp…

This. Also, the developer is responsive on his Discord server should you have any issues with the editor. Henrik is patient, kind and reliable, rare traits for open source projects these days.