Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Betty – English-like interface for the command line

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 84 posts

Re: Betty – English-like interface for the command line

#31

Post by e12e »

omarhegazy wrote: post #11

Really interesting program, although, as Andrew has said, seems kinda limited. That's not your fault at all; any early project will seem limited in scope. Given some popularity and extra effort, something like this could be the Siri of the command line. Which gets me thinking -- is stuff like Siri and Google Now really just like this? Core set of pre-set commands surrounded by regex magic to recognize said pre-set co…

I think having a prefix (be that "betty" "b" and/or some "mode" for your shell) that signals you want to use natural language (with all it's ambiguity) is a good idea. The zsh way of suggesting "did you mean" rather than simply erroring with "command not found/invalid syntax" drives me nuts -- but a lot of people seem like it. Having a prefix allows you more freedom at "learning" -- ambiguity isn't so terrible if the user expects it (and the simple idea of just listing alternatives that betty uses seems like a great interface. Not as sexy as "I'm feeling lucky"-style (super-)high scoring wins, middling scores ties and asks user to pick -- but I think it may win on the principle of least surprise).

Anyway, it does seem that most proof-of-concept voice-control (as opposed to text-controlled) systems use a prefix too "siri"/"glass"/As for you question, I think it should be relatively easy to train, say a music-player app to understand stuff like "next song", "accept call", "repeat" -- in any language, using simple statistical methods. Not sure how far you could take it though (example, dictation software still makes (AFAIK) enough errors that it's not really a viable option if the user already can type reasonably well (or hire an actual stenographer)).

Re: Betty – English-like interface for the command line

#32

Post by FriedPickles »

Crazier alternative:

1) Install howdoi https://github.com/gleitz/howdoi

2) Write commands like the following (all work as expected):

    howdoi get time in bash | sh
    howdoi clear bash | sh
    howdoi find current user bash | sh
    howdoi restart computer bash | sh
    howdoi fork bomb | sh
#YOLO

Re: Betty – English-like interface for the command line

#33

Post by heyimwill »

epynonymous wrote: post #24

isnt the whole idea of a command line for impatient little people like myself that dislike guis and inefficiency? this sort of defeats the whole purpose, i'm now typing sentences instead of shortcuts

To some people this might be an easier and more efficient way to wrap their head around the CLI.

Re: Betty – English-like interface for the command line

#34

Post by e12e »

FriedPickles wrote: post #32

Crazier alternative: 1) Install howdoi https://github.com/gleitz/howdoi 2) Write commands like the following (all work as expected): howdoi get time in bash | sh howdoi clear bash | sh howdoi find current user bash | sh howdoi restart computer bash | sh howdoi fork bomb | sh #YOLO

It might be worth mentioning that howdoi is just a wrapper around a google (essentially a "I'm feeling luck"-search as far as I can tell)?

It's hardly the same as a curated set of specialized pipes. Nor does it work offline (howdoi configure eth0/enable wireless...).

Re: Betty – English-like interface for the command line

#35

Post by lukeholder »

singularity2001 wrote: post #4
andrewguenther wrote: post #3

A cute tool, but seems incredibly limited. Why would I use any of these commands more than once if I can just alias them? While some of them might be useful I really just don't see myself using a tool like this.

And just for the kicks: function genie(){ query=`printf "%s+" $@` echo $query result=`curl -s " https://weannie.pannous.com/api?out=simple&input=$query"` echo $result say $result 2>/dev/null } alias hey=genie alias how="genie how" alias what="genie what" alias when="genie when" me:~$ what is the root of pi It is approximately 1.7725 me:~$ how old is obama Barack Obama is 52 years old

me:~$ capital of australia

answer: Sydney.

hmm this is wrong, how to submit a fix for this?

Re: Betty – English-like interface for the command line

#36

Post by thrayfounder »

That there is masterful copy.

I'll be honest, I have a general software test called "StonerTesting" - if you're high as fuck a lot of your cognitive function is distorted, so successfully using a piece of software (even its website) means you're software is in fact quite easy to use.

I'm thinking of offering it as a service.

Re: Betty – English-like interface for the command line

#37

Post by andrewguenther »

iaskwhy wrote: post #23
afternooner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's some pretty basic regex, so you're going to have to remember the correct phrasing anyway,

For now. The idea seems to make it English-like so that could simply be a matter of time.

the jump from simple regexes to "English-like" is quite the leap.

Re: Betty – English-like interface for the command line

#38

Post by hisham_hm »

Why are all computerized natural-language "assistants" all modeled as female? (Siri, Cortana, Betty...) A remnant of the view of women's role as "secretaries"?

It's interesting to see that this applies to real-world products, which are still kind of "dumb" or single-minded (as in default voices for GPS navigation assistants), while in fiction, when computers are smarter than its owner (HAL, Jarvis) they more are often than not represented as male.

Re: Betty – English-like interface for the command line

#39

Post by HCIdivision17 »

hisham_hm wrote: post #38

Why are all computerized natural-language "assistants" all modeled as female? (Siri, Cortana, Betty...) A remnant of the view of women's role as "secretaries"? It's interesting to see that this applies to real-world products, which are still kind of "dumb" or single-minded (as in default voices for GPS navigation assistants), while in fiction, when computers are smarter than its owner (HAL, Jarvis) they more are ofte…

I think you can find quite a few counter examples of a female AI, not least of which Cortana. It's possible to imagine S'Jet as an example, though perhaps much closer to Transcendence (movie) than AI.

Really, I think it simply has a lot to do with the voice. I'll be darned if I can recall the source, but it seems that women can usually be understood more clearly and easily than men; that claim may be only over a lossy channel, but it seems to jive with my experience (listening to podcasts on a motorcycle, women tend to be easier to make out over the noise, and even Google maps' female voice is clear over a highway's roar).

Post reply on HN