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Xiki: An amazing shell

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Re: Xiki: An amazing shell

#31

Post by pmontra »

Installed, started. xiki status says it's running but I'm back in my usual shell and nothing works any different. No mouse interaction like in the video. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, maybe the tutorial (Where is it?) or is it an OSX only thing? I'm on Linux.

I started the web interface, used it to hook xiki to emacs, restarted emacs and run into the unfixed "error: el4r-instance is dead" bug.

I stopped using xiki. Maybe I'll give it a try when I'll have time to investigate but it's 2014. There are too many tools battling for mindshare and if something doesn't have a good tutorial and doesn't work out of the box isn't giving a good signal.

Re: Xiki: An amazing shell

#32

Post by lpsz »

pmontra wrote: post #31

Installed, started. xiki status says it's running but I'm back in my usual shell and nothing works any different. No mouse interaction like in the video. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, maybe the tutorial (Where is it?) or is it an OSX only thing? I'm on Linux. I started the web interface, used it to hook xiki to emacs, restarted emacs and run into the unfixed "error: el4r-instance is dead" bug. I stopped using…

With all due respect, this looks like an early-stage project. If everyone adopts such a dismissive attitude, Show HN might as well not exist.

Re: Xiki: An amazing shell

#33

Post by mastazi »

chx wrote: post #3

IMO this should link to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/xiki/xiki-the-command-r... and not one of the most awful, bottom feeder sites out there. I challenge you to find a single bit of information on the TC page that is not on the Kickstarter page.

Techcrunch has its gems too: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/silicon-valley-lost-and-fou... http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/06/how-i-started-zerocater/

Re: Xiki: An amazing shell

#34

Post by zorbo »

These alternative shells always get me really excited, until I try them out. Then the drawbacks become immediately and very painfully obvious:

- Some are extremely slow, especially those that rely on complete webservers / node.js / whatever as a backend

- Memory-hungry. I've got an average of about 30 terminals open at all times. 50 Mb per terminal really is a bit too much. 10 Mb is the upper limit on what a single terminal should ever use.

- Don't work remote. If it doesn't work remotely without installation (and none do), it's pointless to me.

- Don't integrate properly. For instance, copy-pasting is suddenly painfully impossible or unicode fails or it doesn't handle ncurses or escape sequences properly.

- Doesn't add anything that the history and copy-pasting don't already do nearly perfectly.

- Doesn't follow the "Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible" philosophy. For example, catting large (10mb) log files or a binary file completely barfs it.

I wonder if Xiki is any different, as I haven't tried it yet. It seems unwieldy to use. Why would I want to physically move the cursor to a previous command 50 lines up when I can just do Ctrl-R and be done with it?

This all sounds a bit negative, which isn't my intention. It's just that I've become quite a skeptic when it comes to "(email|shell|editor|etc) reinvented" claims.

Re: Xiki: An amazing shell

#35

Post by stedaniels »

> "When I was supposed to be doing my boring job as a software dev at banks and insurance companies in Ohio 13 years ago, I started making this thing that let me run commands and navigate files directly from my notes."

With all the stories of disgruntled developers complaining that their employer took ownership of something they'd worked on in their spare time, I wouldn't be surprised if his old employers came a knocking.

If it wasn't for that, I'd likely already be backing the new version, it feels very good to use. The video is very slick, there are some companies out there making good money producing these things!

Re: Xiki: An amazing shell

#37

Post by sigsergv »

skrebbel wrote: post #30
copperx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, shell commands that produce and consume JSON?

No, objects. Non-text. Real data. Plus methods. Read a PowerShell primer to better understand this. PowerShell is geniusly designed and horribly implemented, so there's little point actually using it, but UNIX could really really use some of its ideas.

It's impossible to “redesign” shell fundamentals in Unix because it will be incompatible with all other old-style utilies. And classic pipes are not so bad as PS evangelists saying. PS “objects” are basically .Net objects and you can't easily write python or perl applications compatible with PS features.

Re: Xiki: An amazing shell

#39

Post by msie »

It's cool, but I can't imagine it making my life any better over a Unix prompt. What I really want is a Windows shell that acts exactly like my OSX Unix shell. I did a little look but didn't see anything satisfactory.
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