Xiki: The Command Revolution

Here's the github url for those who don't find the kickstarter helpful - https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki

Xiki has been there for a couple of years at least, because I remember trying it out more than a year back, had to install a lot of dependencies! Nevertheless, its an interesting project!

Using zsh convinced me that clever and dead-easy autocomplete and hinting is what will save textual interfaces; I don't have precise metrics but it really feels like pimp-slapping tab and ctrl-r all the time saves me a lot of typing.

This project seems to take that idea in a really cool direction.

Makes me want to try it.

Sorry you don't like the music. I showed it to a bunch of people and they said good things about the music.

The music was actually created via the xiki "piano" command (and then enhanced with garage band). I was going to emphasize that but ran out of time... There are 16 backers so far (and only a few are friends) so hopefully it hasn't ruined it for everyone.

I think it's struggling with the fact it's kind of a hard thing to pigeonhole or label, and people may need to watch both videos, perhaps even with pause/rewind, to perceive all its aspects.

There's overlap with IPython notebooks. There's command-aware autocompletion. There's direct-two-way-manipulation of textual artifacts.

Maybe it could be thought of as an "MVC" IDE, but in pure-text, where familiar Unixy commands can be the "VC" parts... and you don't so much "run" them once but position them for re-use, and their output can be made directly editable with effects on the original inputs. (As just one example, what if editing the output of "ls -l" was enough to change permission bits, owners, or names of files, or truncate them to a new length?)

It even reminds me a little of the Englebart "Mother of all Demos", in the surprising/dangerous depth behind simple outline-menus.

Note I'm just assessing from the videos: I haven't used Xiki myself. If I were using it, I think I might handle it like a loaded weapon: it seems powerful enough to do a lot of filesystem damage in a few experimental keystrokes!

Last year I went to a tech talk where the creator of Xiki was showing off the product's features set. He has definitely put a lot of thought into it's design, and Xiki improves a developers workflow once you get use to the commands. I believe the creator also offered anyone who wanted to pair-program with him a call; definitely wish I had jumped on that opportunity.