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In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

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Re: In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

#121

Post by davidgerard »

mxwsn wrote: post #2

This essay by Neal Stephenson was first published in 1999. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_... The analogy of OS as cars (Windows is a station wagon, Linux is a tank) is brought up in the recent Acquired episode on Microsoft, where Vista was a Dodge Viper but Windows 7 was a Toyota Camry, which is what users actually wanted.

The actual comparison is that Vista was the Ford Edsel (hilarious and widely-mocked failure) but 7 was the Ford Comet (a huge hit).

It's a close analogy, because the Comet was actually the next model of Edsel. They just changed the branding. Same with Vista to 7.

Re: In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

#122

Post by crazygringo »

bee_rider wrote: post #106

> Yet now the company that Gates and Allen founded is selling operating systems like Gillette sells razor blades. New releases of operating systems are launched as if they were Hollywood blockbusters, with celebrity endorsements, talk show appearances, and world tours. I was a kid at the time, but did many people actually buy windows? I know about the ad-thing where the cast of Friends or whatever bought windows 95,…

Absolutely -- yes Windows came with your PC, but you'd buy the new version as a (cheaper) upgrade if you didn't want to wait until the next PC you bought.

Today new OS versions aren't such a big deal, but when Windows 95 came out, and then XP, they were huge, with total interface redesigns.

On the other hand, I don't think people went out of their way as much to buy smaller upgrades like Windows 98.

Re: In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

#123

Post by anthomtb »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #97

One major advantage of the CLI is that instructions/fixes etc are very concise and can be easily communicated. If someone has a Linux system that needs a known fix, then it's trivial to send someone the commands to copy/paste into a terminal. However, if there's a known fix for a graphical program, then it suddenly becomes much harder to communicate - do you go for a textual instruction (e.g. click on the hamburger m…

I think your trailing question is a hypothetical but to answer:

Screenshots along with text, then use Microsoft Paint to mark up the screen shots. For example, circling the appropriate menu option in a thick red line. Sadly, I do not know how to graphically convey the double-click operation.

Its a time consuming and error prone process, best used if the buggy GUI application is abandonware. Otherwise, the new version will have the same bug or non-intuitive process but the GUI will be unrecognizable. Probably because some manager, somewhere, read too many HN articles and decided a user-facing refactor was the most important thing they could possibly do.

Re: In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

#124

Post by Shawnj2 »

crazygringo wrote: post #122
bee_rider wrote: post #106

> Yet now the company that Gates and Allen founded is selling operating systems like Gillette sells razor blades. New releases of operating systems are launched as if they were Hollywood blockbusters, with celebrity endorsements, talk show appearances, and world tours. I was a kid at the time, but did many people actually buy windows? I know about the ad-thing where the cast of Friends or whatever bought windows 95,…

Absolutely -- yes Windows came with your PC, but you'd buy the new version as a (cheaper) upgrade if you didn't want to wait until the next PC you bought. Today new OS versions aren't such a big deal, but when Windows 95 came out, and then XP, they were huge, with total interface redesigns. On the other hand, I don't think people went out of their way as much to buy smaller upgrades like Windows 98.

I think the fact that OS updates are free now kinda killed a lot of the marketing/promotion since most consumers will only update if their computer is old.

Re: In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

#125

Post by wpm »

Phiwise_ wrote: post #85
GrumpyYoungMan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Neal Stephenson acknowledged it was obsolete in 2004: " I embraced OS X as soon as it was available and have never looked back. So a lot of 'In the beginning was the command line' is now obsolete. I keep meaning to update it, but if I'm honest with myself, I have to say this is unlikely. " https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-... But people still dredge this quarter century old apocrypha up…

"Obsolete" is too strong a word, I think. OSX isn't an evolution of the Macintosh's operating system; That'd be Pink, which was even mentioned, and it crashed and burned. OSX was far closer to a Linux box and a Mac box on the same desk, therefore the only change really needed is to replace mentions of Unix or specifically Linux with Linux/OSX as far as the points of the piece are concerned. If Jobs had paid Torvalds…

macOS shares zero lineage with Linux, which itself shares zero lineage with the UNIX derivatives. It would make zero sense for Apple to call macOS "Apple Linux" when it doesn't use the Linux kernel. Mac OS X is closest to a NeXTStep box with a coat of Mac-like polish on top. Even calling it "Apple Berkeley Unix" wouldn't make sense, because the XNU kernel is a mish mash of both BSD 4.3 and the Mach kernel.

Linux and the UNIX derivates are not even cousins. Not related. Not even the same species. They just both look like crabs a la https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation.

Re: In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

#126

Post by llm_trw »

GrumpyYoungMan wrote: post #75
mxwsn wrote: post #2

This essay by Neal Stephenson was first published in 1999. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_... The analogy of OS as cars (Windows is a station wagon, Linux is a tank) is brought up in the recent Acquired episode on Microsoft, where Vista was a Dodge Viper but Windows 7 was a Toyota Camry, which is what users actually wanted.

And Neal Stephenson acknowledged it was obsolete in 2004: " I embraced OS X as soon as it was available and have never looked back. So a lot of 'In the beginning was the command line' is now obsolete. I keep meaning to update it, but if I'm honest with myself, I have to say this is unlikely. " https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-... But people still dredge this quarter century old apocrypha up…

Given what OS X has become it's un-obsoleted itself again.

It's kind of ironic that you're using a post from 20 years ago to invalidate an essay from 25 years ago, about an OS that's been substantially dumbed down in the last 10 years.

Bad corporate blood will tell.

Re: In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

#127

Post by chipotle_coyote »

Phiwise_ wrote: post #85
GrumpyYoungMan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Neal Stephenson acknowledged it was obsolete in 2004: " I embraced OS X as soon as it was available and have never looked back. So a lot of 'In the beginning was the command line' is now obsolete. I keep meaning to update it, but if I'm honest with myself, I have to say this is unlikely. " https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-... But people still dredge this quarter century old apocrypha up…

"Obsolete" is too strong a word, I think. OSX isn't an evolution of the Macintosh's operating system; That'd be Pink, which was even mentioned, and it crashed and burned. OSX was far closer to a Linux box and a Mac box on the same desk, therefore the only change really needed is to replace mentions of Unix or specifically Linux with Linux/OSX as far as the points of the piece are concerned. If Jobs had paid Torvalds…

> OSX was far closer to a Linux box and a Mac box on the same desk

Setting aside the "more BSD/Mach than Linux", OS X pressed a lot of the same buttons that BeOS did: a GUI system that let you drop to a Unix CLI (in Be's case, Posix rather than Unix, if we're going to be persnickety), but whose GUI was sufficiently complete that users rarely, if ever, had to use the CLI to get things done. Folks who love the CLI (hi, 99% of HN!) find that attitude baffling and shocking, I'm sure, but a lot of people really don't love noodling with text-based UIs. I have friends who've used the Mac for decades -- and I don't mean just use it for email and web browsing, but use it for serious work that generates the bulk of their income (art, desktop publishing, graphic design, music, A/V editing, etc.) -- who almost never open the Terminal app.

> though it has been quite a while since I've seriously used the one-button OS

Given that OS X has supported multi-button mice since 2001, I certainly believe that. :)

Re: In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

#128

Post by johnohara »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #4
mxwsn wrote: post #2

This essay by Neal Stephenson was first published in 1999. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_... The analogy of OS as cars (Windows is a station wagon, Linux is a tank) is brought up in the recent Acquired episode on Microsoft, where Vista was a Dodge Viper but Windows 7 was a Toyota Camry, which is what users actually wanted.

Windows XP would probably be an old 1970s Volvo that is still, somehow, running in all kinds of places otherwise forgotten by the waking world.

Mostly in Oregon, Northern CA, and parts of Washington. But parts are increasingly hard to find.

Re: In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

#129

Post by _yb2s »

llm_trw wrote: post #126
GrumpyYoungMan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Neal Stephenson acknowledged it was obsolete in 2004: " I embraced OS X as soon as it was available and have never looked back. So a lot of 'In the beginning was the command line' is now obsolete. I keep meaning to update it, but if I'm honest with myself, I have to say this is unlikely. " https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-... But people still dredge this quarter century old apocrypha up…

Given what OS X has become it's un-obsoleted itself again. It's kind of ironic that you're using a post from 20 years ago to invalidate an essay from 25 years ago, about an OS that's been substantially dumbed down in the last 10 years. Bad corporate blood will tell.

In what way has it been “dumbed down?” I use modern MacOS as a Unix software development workstation and it works great- nothing substantial has changed in 20 years other than better package managers. I suppose they did remove X11 but it’s trivial to install yourself.

Re: In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

#130

Post by samatman »

llm_trw wrote: post #126
GrumpyYoungMan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Neal Stephenson acknowledged it was obsolete in 2004: " I embraced OS X as soon as it was available and have never looked back. So a lot of 'In the beginning was the command line' is now obsolete. I keep meaning to update it, but if I'm honest with myself, I have to say this is unlikely. " https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-... But people still dredge this quarter century old apocrypha up…

Given what OS X has become it's un-obsoleted itself again. It's kind of ironic that you're using a post from 20 years ago to invalidate an essay from 25 years ago, about an OS that's been substantially dumbed down in the last 10 years. Bad corporate blood will tell.

I also "embraced OS X as soon as it was available". My first Linux install was Yggdrasil, but I cut my teeth on SPARC stations. I respected two kinds of computer: Unix workstations, and the Macintosh.

So when Apple started making workstations, I got one. I've been a satisfied customer ever since.

I have no idea whatsoever what dumbing down you're referring to. The way I use macOS has barely changed in the last ten years. In fact, that's a major part of the appeal.

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