Xiki: An amazing shell

Post by csandreasen » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 10:19 AM UTC

Tomte wrote: post #25

DanBC wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What features would you like to see in a Unix-like shell that are not available?

I think passing around real objects instead of character strings is cool. It's less brittle, and you don't have to have an ad-hoc and flawed parser at every step.

  def name(text):
    return lambda file: file.name.find(text) > -1

  ls().filter(name('.txt'))

Post by pmontra » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 10:26 AM UTC

lpsz wrote: post #32

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.

Post by KhalPanda » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 10:32 AM UTC

zorbo wrote: post #34

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 t…

Post by coldtea » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 10:34 AM UTC

sigsergv wrote: post #37

skrebbel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by orkoden » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 10:45 AM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #13

kevcampb wrote: post #11

This feels very like what iPython notebooks provides, but applied to shell commands rather than code. It's a cute video, but I can't quite help feeling this is going to be far less useful in practice than it's made out to be.

I tend to agree. The biggest leap for me was switching to oh-my-zsh (near life changing). :-)