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Become Shell Literate

drewdevault.com

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Re: Become Shell Literate

#111

Post by luord »

Fully agreed.

So... As long as we're talking about the shell, when will we be able to interact with sourcehut entirely from the command line? Right now I'm particularly looking at managing build secrets.

Being able to use it entirely from the command line is the only thing sourcehut lacks for it to become the best code/project/build management tool. At least for me anyway[1]; I'm aware that sourcehut's idiosyncrasies are not for everyone.

On that note, is anyone aware of any such platform that can be managed entirely from the command line? The one that comes closest is the github CLI, I think, and even that one still requires a browser flow for logging in and getting the token[2].

[1]: I am aware that I could dive into the code and maybe contribute this myself but a) there might be plans for this already; I believe there's an issue where it was discussed and b) I don't have nearly enough time to commit to it.

[2]: I know that this is very nitpicky of me, but I do truly want a tool like this; I think it'd be awesome.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#112

Post by enriquto »

geophile wrote: post #69
theon144 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Check out my pandemic project, marcel: https://marceltheshell.org . It hits that spot you described: still a shell, but more strongly typed. Instead of bailing out and redoing everything in Python (when you reach the end of your pipeline), you can add a bit of Python code in your command. For example, find all the .py files under the current directory, find the ones that have changed in the last day, and then print t…

> Yes, this is doable with find and awk

You don't even need awk for that one:

    grep ^class `find . -mtime -1 | grep py$`
Maybe you could try to use an example where it really makes a difference? Some natural operation that would be very cumbersome with plain shell but is easy and direct with marcel. Otherwise many people may fail to see the point.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#113

Post by oblio »

john61 wrote: post #82
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…

A literary man creates new meaning out of words. You can do this in the shell by combining tools in new ways. You can not do this easily with an IDE, it only has a predefined meaning. Using an IDE is not literature but transcription.

Well, 95% of software development is writing invoices, not poetry, so...

Re: Become Shell Literate

#114

Post by agumonkey »

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…

Nah, the issue is that whenever the IDE doesn't provide a shortcut for whatever you're back to negative one. That's why people like mechanisms (grep, sql or similar) over policies (here, whatever is given to you by the IDE), you can always adapt.

Other than that, a good deal of open mindedness and skillful use of IDEs is not a bad trait. Let's not be extremists.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#115

Post by turbinerneiter »

Jasper_ wrote: post #97
turbinerneiter wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Still, a lot of people start out programming with complex IDEs and end up being unable to run their code without the "play" button of their IDE. Starting out, or only ever leaning an IDE is also hiding a lot of things from you. For me, knowing the shell isn't about IDE vs. shell tooling, it's about, whatever you use, be aware and knowledgeable about the foundation and being able to do stuff even if there is no…

Still, a lot of people start out programming with complex compilers and end up being unable to hand-write their assembly code in pure HEX without the "help" of their compiler. Starting out, or only ever leaning a compiler is also hiding a lot of things from you. Now, I am familiar with assembly, I live and breathe it honestly, but I don't gatekeep and say "you're not a real programmer unless you've written your own a…

Where did I fault anyone, where am I gatekeeping?

I'm talking about the befits of knowing more stuff.

I'm not arguing against IDEs, I'm only arguing about the benefit of also knowing other stuff.

Better tools: I'm very interested in, what I would in lieu of a better term describe as, Bret Victor's ideas and the example of Swift playground. At the same time, I'm very sceptic against everything that isn't a simple, human readable Textfile underneath. One thing I keep thinking about is making diagrams executable, but I haven't seen a graphical programming language that convinced me. Still, I think this could happen some day, if someone finds the right design.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#116

Post by CJefferson »

dafoex wrote: post #48
enriquto wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would pose problems also. The real solution, with no need to magic as you say, is to disallow spaces at the filesystem level (just like slashes and the null character are forbidden). For users typing filenames, this shouldn't be a problem, as those can be encoded e.g., as unicode's non-breaking space. Using space as a separator is a very important power, that other programming languages share. In what other prog…

I totally agree that file names shouldn't have spaces because they are variables, and I (usually) name all my files with camelBackNotation names as I was taught is best practice for variable names. That said, with every command I remember running, treating the file name like a string - e.g. "file name.png" - has worked whenever I encounter spaces, no escape characters required.

The problem is shell is when I want to write something like 'find . | grep namepiece | xargs rm', or something like that. I can work around this by piling everything into the find, or in some cases by liberally spreading -0s around, but neither feel very "shell-like" to me.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#117

Post by shriek »

Jasper_ wrote: post #97
turbinerneiter wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Still, a lot of people start out programming with complex IDEs and end up being unable to run their code without the "play" button of their IDE. Starting out, or only ever leaning an IDE is also hiding a lot of things from you. For me, knowing the shell isn't about IDE vs. shell tooling, it's about, whatever you use, be aware and knowledgeable about the foundation and being able to do stuff even if there is no…

Still, a lot of people start out programming with complex compilers and end up being unable to hand-write their assembly code in pure HEX without the "help" of their compiler. Starting out, or only ever leaning a compiler is also hiding a lot of things from you. Now, I am familiar with assembly, I live and breathe it honestly, but I don't gatekeep and say "you're not a real programmer unless you've written your own a…

> Some people are happy in their IDEs and see no reason to move to the lower-level of abstraction in their tooling.

True but you're also at the mercy of whatever company is responsible for developing those IDEs. I'm not advocating everyone do development in shell but I feel like you should know what's going under the hood when things go wrong.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#118

Post by hagy »

j1elo wrote: post #104
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…

> 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. Know any C/C++ IDE that would do this? I transitioned from Qt Creator to VSCode and none of those have helped me with this cool nicety you mention. EDIT: I should add that for me, exploring foreign code bases has been hugely improved since I discovered Sourcetrail, so I'd suggest having a look…

I've found Jet Brains' CLion to do a solid job of code navigation, but I don't currently work in C/C++ and only use it occasionally for reading code bases.

I do use Jet Brains other editors and Intellij has flawless Java code navigation (among other amazing features). Further, I've found PyCharm provides Python code navigation that is about as good as possible for such a dynamic language. Therefore I'd expect CLion to provide top notch code navigation for C/C++.

Re: Become Shell Literate

#119

Post by turbinerneiter »

andi999 wrote: post #102
turbinerneiter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true! Ordered an FPGA dev kit last week for this reason. Perfect world, you know everything. In reality, you can't and don't need to. Knowing some shell stuff will be useful for most if not all programmers.

You know nothing..the vhdl to lut transformation (and the content of the bitfile) are totally locked trade secrets.

I got the QuickLogic dev kit - it uses the fully open source Symbiflow toolchain.

I think my chances of ever understanding what Symbiflow does are quite small, but that is a shortcoming on my side :D

And even if I do, I have to learn semiconductor fabrication next!

Re: Become Shell Literate

#120

Post by vvanders »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #115
Jasper_ wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, a lot of people start out programming with complex compilers and end up being unable to hand-write their assembly code in pure HEX without the "help" of their compiler. Starting out, or only ever leaning a compiler is also hiding a lot of things from you. Now, I am familiar with assembly, I live and breathe it honestly, but I don't gatekeep and say "you're not a real programmer unless you've written your own a…

Where did I fault anyone, where am I gatekeeping? I'm talking about the befits of knowing more stuff. I'm not arguing against IDEs, I'm only arguing about the benefit of also knowing other stuff. Better tools: I'm very interested in, what I would in lieu of a better term describe as, Bret Victor's ideas and the example of Swift playground. At the same time, I'm very sceptic against everything that isn't a simple, hum…

By framing the IDE as a crutch, that's very much in the gatekeeping category.
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