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Reimagining the Windows Command Line

tltjr.github.com

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Re: Reimagining the Windows Command Line

#41

Post by bhanks »

mixmax wrote: post #34

This might be slightly off-topic, but am I the only one that thinks that command line tools are archaic with some pretty serious drawbacks? I see and acknowledge the power they can wield in the right hands, but for mere mortals it's a terrible experience. Especially on a windows box. I've started learning Symfony2, and the default is to get it up and running using the dependancy manager composer, a commandline based…

Typing is always going to be faster than clicking around in an interface. Take the time to learn it. There was a time when command line was also for "mere mortals". What moved us away from that? Windows. Something to think about.

Re: Reimagining the Windows Command Line

#42

Post by drivebyacct2 »

skrebbel wrote: post #40
wazoox wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - No discoverability. proper command line shells and tools offer auto-completion and inline help. > - All sorts of opaque dependencies. Bad or unfinished products is a concept orthogonal with command line. I've had to manually install a particular unspecified version of .NET to get some graphical application to work, for instance. > - A million minor flaws and bugs. Again, totally unrelated to CLI. Most application…

> proper command line shells and tools offer auto-completion and inline help. This is not discoverability. How will it help me figure out curl's command line options? How will it help me not having to remember whether tool X wants "command [files] [options]" or "command [options] [files]" or either? How will it help me reuse something i just ls'ed into vision without having to retype half the path i just typed into t…

Those are trivially found in almost every application via `command --help` or `command /?` or worst case, "man/info command".

I feel like this is a Git conversation from several months ago all over again. The CLI is not magic. You have to invest in learning how to use it. Next we're going to hear about how Java/C#/PHP isn't intuitive or discoverable enough.

Re: Reimagining the Windows Command Line

#43

Post by RyanMcGreal »

tltjr wrote: post #29
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #27

Quick note (Windows XP x86): every time I try to switch from Powershell to CMD, I get multiple "Keyboard History Utility has encountered a problem and needs to close" error dialogs followed by Wish crashing.

Thanks. I'll make a note to fix that.

Thank you! Tool looks promising but I wasn't really able to test it out without it crashing.

Re: Reimagining the Windows Command Line

#44

Post by dhawalhs »

mixmax wrote: post #34

This might be slightly off-topic, but am I the only one that thinks that command line tools are archaic with some pretty serious drawbacks? I see and acknowledge the power they can wield in the right hands, but for mere mortals it's a terrible experience. Especially on a windows box. I've started learning Symfony2, and the default is to get it up and running using the dependancy manager composer, a commandline based…

I use Symfony 2 now, but I stared out with CakePHP. It has better documentation and is a less engineered than Symfony. Maybe give CakePHP a try?

Re: Reimagining the Windows Command Line

#45

Post by JesseAldridge »

mixmax wrote: post #34

This might be slightly off-topic, but am I the only one that thinks that command line tools are archaic with some pretty serious drawbacks? I see and acknowledge the power they can wield in the right hands, but for mere mortals it's a terrible experience. Especially on a windows box. I've started learning Symfony2, and the default is to get it up and running using the dependancy manager composer, a commandline based…

Yep, command line sucks. But it's a question of critical mass and network effects. Command line tools are always there, even when you're on some weird ssh tunneled setup. There's been a number of times when I've been fumbling with some goofy gui setup while some senior level dude is trying to help me with something and they always kind of roll their eyes and say, "Just use the command line."

I think the way most people learn these things is to have someone who knows what they're doing sit down next to them for an hour or so and explain how everything works. I suggest finding someone like that -- flailing around with google is orders of magnitude slower.

Re: Reimagining the Windows Command Line

#46

Post by samspot »

vitalique wrote: post #14
Tsts wrote: post #6

Windows is a dead OS walking. My humble advice is instead of learning Wish, get a Linux VM and start moving your skillset, aps, ets.

Check your facts, for example here: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp . See, your 'dead OS' is not walking - it is marching bravely here and there and all over the planet, led by army of Windows admins. Who, being just as smart as their other-OS-admin-brothers, are always looking for better tools to do their job.

It's ironic that linux is dying slightly compared to last year (according to the link).

Not that I think linux is going anywhere :)

Re: Reimagining the Windows Command Line

#47

Post by mixmax »

bhanks wrote: post #41
mixmax wrote: post #34

This might be slightly off-topic, but am I the only one that thinks that command line tools are archaic with some pretty serious drawbacks? I see and acknowledge the power they can wield in the right hands, but for mere mortals it's a terrible experience. Especially on a windows box. I've started learning Symfony2, and the default is to get it up and running using the dependancy manager composer, a commandline based…

Typing is always going to be faster than clicking around in an interface. Take the time to learn it. There was a time when command line was also for "mere mortals". What moved us away from that? Windows. Something to think about.

I respectfully disagree.

moving around a filesystem for instance, in a GUI based tool I click on a folder and view it's contents. In a commandline tool I type an often long path, hit enter and view a list of files and/or folders in that particular folder. If I want to move up or down I issue another command that I have to type. I don't get any visual cues as to where I am in the structure either.

I fail to see how typing 20 letters and hitting enter is easier than one click with a mouse. In respect to histoory I think that what happened was that normal users moved on to a more intuitive and faster interface for normal things.

Re: Reimagining the Windows Command Line

#48

Post by dredmorbius »

mixmax wrote: post #34

This might be slightly off-topic, but am I the only one that thinks that command line tools are archaic with some pretty serious drawbacks? I see and acknowledge the power they can wield in the right hands, but for mere mortals it's a terrible experience. Especially on a windows box. I've started learning Symfony2, and the default is to get it up and running using the dependancy manager composer, a commandline based…

If these are the problems you see with CLI, then you're doing it wrong.

- Discoverability: tab completion, apropos manpages, listing out your search path directories, using your Debian GNU/Linux distribution's package management tools to search / explain packages and commands.

- Dependencies: Debian GNU/Linux, APT, and policy. There's a reason I'm an unrepentant bigot. Debian-based distros are a fair substitute. RPM remains a pale shadow, largely for lack of policy. Proprietary operating systems have fundamental conflicts of interest which preclude an effective solution.

- Bugs: Addressed in policy and via an active user and developer community, with low barriers to communication and interaction between them. Again, Debian GNU/Linux nails this. No, it's not bug-free, but you'll find very, very few showstoppers in stable releases.

- UI: If you're not using pipes, command expansion, xargs, etc., you're mostly doing it wrong. Pasting into vim allows you to sort your linebreaks via regex replacement or any of numerous other means.

How old are you, kid?

Re: Reimagining the Windows Command Line

#50

Post by samspot »

mixmax wrote: post #34

This might be slightly off-topic, but am I the only one that thinks that command line tools are archaic with some pretty serious drawbacks? I see and acknowledge the power they can wield in the right hands, but for mere mortals it's a terrible experience. Especially on a windows box. I've started learning Symfony2, and the default is to get it up and running using the dependancy manager composer, a commandline based…

IMO the only drawback is learnability. And it is countered by the fact that you can make some serious gains in productivity with only a little time invested.

I started really investing in cygwin last year and I'm constantly moving more and more of my work into it. All my coworkers have a tedious build process that involves lots of clicking around windows explorer while mine is a two character sequence that has some other value-add factored in.

In addition to these benefits, shell tools take much less memory than gui ones, and I really notice the difference running mysql & psql on the command line vs firing up pgAdmin or MySQL workbench.

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