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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)

#151

Post by [deleted] »

layer8 wrote: post #142
isametry wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not GP, but usually when people talk about the "dumbing down" of macOS, they refer to new apps and GUI elements adopted from iOS. macOS as an operating system has been "completed" for about 7 years. From that point, almost all additions to it have been either focused on interoperation with the iPhone (good), or porting of entire iPhone features directly to Mac (usually very bad). Another point of view is that macOS i…

> Another point of view is that macOS is great, but all ideas that make it great come from 20 years ago, and have died at the company since then. This also applies to Windows, by the way (except it’s more like 20-30 years ago).

[deleted]

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

#152

Post by 13of40 »

wpm wrote: post #125
Phiwise_ wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 crabs analogy isn't a good one, because they evolve independently to play well in a common environment. GNU/Linux is a rewrite of Unix that avoids the licensing and hardware baggage that kept Unix out of reach of non-enterprise users in the 80s and early 90s.

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

#153

Post by K2h »

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…

On windows, steps recorder can be useful. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/record-steps-to-...

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

#154

Post by shostack »

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,…

It feels like while the marketing of launches may still be like that, it is purely to usher along adoption of the target future state which seems to be doing away with versions and having you simply locked in to forever paying an ever-increasing subscription fee to continue to use your computer in addition to data collection which can be separately monetized.

This is markedly different from how it was in the past when they needed people to get up, go to a store, and buy the disc containing the new version of the OS.

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

#155

Post by dsubburam »

gregw2 wrote: post #150
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…

Agreed. Poor scripting/replay inherently limits the GUI. That said, the best late 90s expression of the core advantage of the GUI over the TUI/CLI is that it demands less of the user: "recognize and click" vs "remember and type" That seems very fundamental to me. I have not seen as succinct expression of tradeoffs for V(oice)UI or L(LM)UIs

How about the new kid on the block here, the chat interface? Neither "recognize and click" nor "remember and type", esp. if done over voice.

Maybe the chat interface does away with the first half of the GUI/CLI schemes, skipping over learning the affordance part of the interface.

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

#156

Post by justin66 »

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.

> recent Acquired episode on Microsoft, where Vista was a Dodge Viper but Windows 7 was a Toyota Camry, which is what users actually wanted.

I assume if anyone associated with Microsoft compared Vista to anything other than an abject failure, it's because they are - at best - broken or defective people who were involved in the creation of Vista, and therefore not objective and not to be trusted in any way.

Dodge Viper? WTF?

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

#157

Post by gumby »

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…

Or even write a script which is just those commands. Meanwhile every step a user as to do is an opportunity to cause a new and different problem.

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

#158

Post by rewgs »

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 will never understand the sentiment that macOS has been “dumbed down.”

It’s a zsh shell with BSD utils. 99% of my shell setup/tools on Linux just work on macOS. I can easily install the gnu utils if I want 99.9% similarity.

I very happily jump between macOS and Linux, and while the desktop experience is always potentially the best on Linux (IMO nothing compares to hyprland), in practice macOS feels like the most polished Linux distro in existence.

Do people just see, like, some iOS feature and freak out? This viewpoint always seems so reactionary. Whereas in reality, the macOS of the past that you’re pining for is still right there. Hop on a Snow Leopard machine and a Ventura machine and you’ll see that there are far, far more similarities than differences.

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

#159

Post by gumby »

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…

> I keep meaning to update it, but if I'm honest with myself, I have to say this is unlikely."

IME he hates to revisit anything he's already written so this claim is polite but implausible.

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

#160

Post by bear141 »

_yb2s wrote: post #129
llm_trw wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just using at a barely advanced level for 20 years or so as I do, the other comment was correct in that it is the changes that have seemingly been made to make it more familiar to iOS users and “idiot proof”.

Mainly slowly hiding buttons and options and menus that used to be easily accessible, now require holding function or re-enabling in settings or using terminal to bring them back.

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