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Become Shell Literate

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Re: Become Shell Literate

#51

Post by tutfbhuf »

enriquto wrote: post #9
tutfbhuf wrote: post #4

I wish that shell would be more sane. I don't think that a shell should be a complete programming language. If you need a programming language, then better use one. There is xonsh if you are looking for something like this. I think there should be a better bash with an very clean and consistent interface. Some of the most commonly used utils like awk '{ print $2}', sed, grep, sort, ... should be included out of the b…

> I don't think that a shell should be a complete programming language. What do you mean exactly? If you have pipes and lists (e.g., the lines on a file) you are Turing-complete and people can and will make arbitrary programs. How would you like, precisely, to restrict the shell language so that it is not Turing-complete?

I mean shell should not be python, like xonsh. In my opinion it should not add programming language features (like types, futures, ADTs,...), but instead should clean up the existing built-ins + maybe little bit coreutils as built-ins.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#52

Post by mixmastamyk »

gfxgirl wrote: post #29

Someone should write "become IDE literate" as a response to opening of using vim with no extensions and using grep a lot. I've been using editors that are language aware since at least the late 90s. Depending on the language they'll show me all references, take me to the definition or declaration, stack those jumps so as I follow the links I can pop back a level to where I was. All of this is instant. 1000x faster th…

Opening a shell is not an obstacle when you've already got several open. Also, not all of us are refactoring huge codebases or using verbose languages that require a lot of handholding. The hard part of development is typically not at the typing or syntax levels, and I have the stdlib of my favorite libs close to memorized already. The most helpful ides tend to be massive as well.

Tools can be useful however, such as the hot reload of flutter/dart. That's the kind of improvement I really appreciate.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#53

Post by alpaca128 »

theon144 wrote: post #20
tutfbhuf wrote: post #4

I wish that shell would be more sane. I don't think that a shell should be a complete programming language. If you need a programming language, then better use one. There is xonsh if you are looking for something like this. I think there should be a better bash with an very clean and consistent interface. Some of the most commonly used utils like awk '{ print $2}', sed, grep, sort, ... should be included out of the b…

> I wish that shell would be more sane. Absolutely agreed, shell is in many respects terrible. >I don't think that a shell should be a complete programming language. On the contrary, I think shell should be a more complete programming language! Drop the stringly typing and add actual types (hence eliminating 80% of bothersome awksedgrep magic; yes, no need to tell me it's a real tall order), add proper error handling…

Keeping those small utilities separate is definitely the right choice as it keeps everything very flexible. I could just replace grep with ripgrep in my workflow and suddenly get a drastically quicker search without having to change anything else. If all those features were integrated in the shell the user is more or less stuck with the whole package.

Which is also one of the reasons I prefer using Vim over Emacs; I can embed Vim in any terminal multiplexer of my choice and combine it with various terminal programs. Every single part of that environment is easy to understand and easy to replace with another program or script. It's less homogenous and consistent, but I am fine with that tradeoff. As one might guess I am not a big fan of IDEs.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#54

Post by scaladev »

acabal wrote: post #37

Learning the shell was one of the best things I did as a programmer. It helped a lot that 15+ years ago I committed to running desktop Linux as a daily driver. Especially back then when things were much rougher on the desktop, using Linux as a daily driver means occasionally doing something in the shell. Ultimately, just like learning a programming language, one must have a practical reason, a project, to make it wor…

At least it still gives you the choice. I learned a lot by stripping down my system and removing/replacing a lot of components to the extent that it didn't resemble Fedora (or Debian, or whatever) at all anymore. The amount of stuff you learn after completely trashing your only system and needing it to be restored and usable in a few hours…

Re: Become Shell Literate

#55

Post by humanrebar »

gfxgirl wrote: post #29

Someone should write "become IDE literate" as a response to opening of using vim with no extensions and using grep a lot. I've been using editors that are language aware since at least the late 90s. Depending on the language they'll show me all references, take me to the definition or declaration, stack those jumps so as I follow the links I can pop back a level to where I was. All of this is instant. 1000x faster th…

I agree.

But it's worth pointing out that IDEs provide depth for working on a given project. If you want to provide breadth across many projects (like writing a custom linting script), you do want to be she'll literate. Not every automation task can be specified in with grep and such, but quite a number of them can. And the ones that can't be written in terms of the shell often benefit from hybrid solutions that combine shell tools and specialty tools like parsers.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#56

Post by jeddy3 »

gfxgirl wrote: post #29

Someone should write "become IDE literate" as a response to opening of using vim with no extensions and using grep a lot. I've been using editors that are language aware since at least the late 90s. Depending on the language they'll show me all references, take me to the definition or declaration, stack those jumps so as I follow the links I can pop back a level to where I was. All of this is instant. 1000x faster th…

> 1000x faster than opening a shell and trying to...

Not commenting on who is right or wrong, but there is a key difference in your workflow here. OP is not opening a shell at this point. The shell is the first thing being launched, vim is secondary.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#57

Post by turbinerneiter »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #52
gfxgirl wrote: post #29

Someone should write "become IDE literate" as a response to opening of using vim with no extensions and using grep a lot. I've been using editors that are language aware since at least the late 90s. Depending on the language they'll show me all references, take me to the definition or declaration, stack those jumps so as I follow the links I can pop back a level to where I was. All of this is instant. 1000x faster th…

Opening a shell is not an obstacle when you've already got several open. Also, not all of us are refactoring huge codebases or using verbose languages that require a lot of handholding. The hard part of development is typically not at the typing or syntax levels, and I have the stdlib of my favorite libs close to memorized already. The most helpful ides tend to be massive as well. Tools can be useful however, such as…

Regarding the hat part not being the typing - yes!

Every tool, plugin or functionality takes up some space in my mind. Once I know the tool really well, that space becomes smaller and the benefit of having the tool outweighs the cost. This is why I only add tools and plugins slowly. One at a time, only after I mastered it I add something new. And I weed out my tools from time to time and remove things I don't use often enough.

Maybe the people who use feature rich IDEs just have more RAM and a more parallel brain, and the CLI people have serial brains :D

Re: Become Shell Literate

#58

Post by l3s2d »

gfxgirl wrote: post #29

Someone should write "become IDE literate" as a response to opening of using vim with no extensions and using grep a lot. I've been using editors that are language aware since at least the late 90s. Depending on the language they'll show me all references, take me to the definition or declaration, stack those jumps so as I follow the links I can pop back a level to where I was. All of this is instant. 1000x faster th…

I've found that IDEs work well when you're working within a single language or framework, but are clunky for multi-language projects. It's easier for me to have 4 terminals open (2 for vim, 2 for execution) than two different language-aware IDEs. With the IDEs, I need to pay attention to which IDE I'm in since they have different shortcuts and UIs.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#59

Post by vips7L »

dafoex wrote: post #36
jancsika wrote: post #18

I can just never get past the arg/flag inconsistency/complexity across commands. Perhaps if the docs started with a simple example of what has been seen over time to be the most common incantation for each command it might be tolerable. But as it is, I spend more time dealing with idiosyncracies of a command than I do expressively piping stuff. Perhaps if Rust had five mutually incompatible borrow-checkers which get…

Using Fish as my shell somewhat makes this morn tolerable as it checks the manpages and automatically suggests flags in a tab-complete fashion. It also remembers previously run commands and suggests them, which helps with not having to remember exactly which flag does what, because the example comes from the last time you ran the command.

This is why I use PowerShell. Menu completion gives me all of the switches with their full name instead of cryptic abbreviations.
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