21–30 of 84 posts
I might not see a developer using this, but an administrator I could. Needing to run one-off scripts and server management. However only if it would work remotely, and with host specific configuration and command options.
There's literally nothing about this I like. A terminal with a gradient background might look pretty for screenshots, but for long sessions it just adds to fatigue and makes text harder to read. "Saving your favorite commands" in a normal terminal involves writing an alias into your rc file, not a bunch of button clicks. Same goes for the whole "interactive flags" thing. Whoever made this clearly hates the terminal a…
I have several devs in the office that have to use the terminal a grand total of 2 times a month, and even then I installed some shortcuts for them to make using adb easier. Being able to build a simple interface on top of the few commands they use, so they don't have to remember flags, argument orders, etc., would be advantageous to us all (and require less support on my part). Also, what is possibly wrong with some…
Second of all, learning shell scripting is an almost ridiculously important skill. Wouldn't it be better that you sit those devs down and have them go through a couple hours of intensive shell boot camp so they don't need your help anymore? Anyone who's a halfway-decent dev can learn the basics of shell (simple scripting, variables, redirection, piping) within a couple of hours, easy.
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I agree with each and every one of your comments; in addition, I would like to know how this project was created: what language it was made in, why the author found it necessary to create it, etc.
> what language it was made in HTML + JavaScript + Electron Just download that archive, extract its content, and you will find the "goterminal" script that is basically an ASAR archive [1] with a copy of CEF [2] as the webview for the web application that they (for some unknown reason) decided to create. [1] https://github.com/electron/asar [2] https://bitbucket.org/chromiumembedded/cef
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with each and every one of your comments; in addition, I would like to know how this project was created: what language it was made in, why the author found it necessary to create it, etc.
> what language it was made in HTML + JavaScript + Electron Just download that archive, extract its content, and you will find the "goterminal" script that is basically an ASAR archive [1] with a copy of CEF [2] as the webview for the web application that they (for some unknown reason) decided to create. [1] https://github.com/electron/asar [2] https://bitbucket.org/chromiumembedded/cef
flips over table
Here are somethings which might be more substantial improvements.
A status bar which helps in understanding what a command does. So you type 'command -xva a b' and the status bar gives an English description that the command is going to do such and such(based on flags) on files a and b.
Simple discoverability like an interactive version of reading man pages or apropos, where after typing something like git or ls, the user who doesn't remember the exact options, can press some shortcut and type a english description like 'hidden files' 'reset' and the status bar displays the relevant flags and their description. This kind of semantic autocomplete, would save a visit to a long man page.
If you use a better shell (like fish) it leaves this even less appealing. I'm sure this took some work to do, but I don't know anyone with a job to pay for it, which would use it.
The word "efficient" describes the exact opposite of what this is.
In addition to all of that, the package includes all of the build-time dependencies with it. And the package they use for the terminal emulator part of it is explicitly abandoned by its author (https://github.com/chjj/term.js/)
Nobody should pay 10 dollars(let alone 20 dollars for limited ongoing support) for more than half a gigabyte of unmaintained, deprecated open source code, plus about 2000SLOC of proprietary code for a sidebar which does something which is basically already built into the shell.
Also, there is no clear roadmap for this; so it's totally unclear what "3 years of updates" means when half of the thing is deprecated and it hasn't even left beta!
It's a paid terminal emulator, written (by all appearances) in some kind of Electron-like (so a much much higher footprint), with a GUI for what can already be done via aliases, functions, and scripts. And no telling how well $TERM detection works (show me vim! Show me something that wants 256 colors!) If it was free, I might still not use it, because my terminal emulator needs to be lightweight and bulletproof, not…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have several devs in the office that have to use the terminal a grand total of 2 times a month, and even then I installed some shortcuts for them to make using adb easier. Being able to build a simple interface on top of the few commands they use, so they don't have to remember flags, argument orders, etc., would be advantageous to us all (and require less support on my part). Also, what is possibly wrong with some…
There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to make money for your work. The problem, honestly, is that a good terminal is a solved problem (c.f. urxvt, which is perfect in every way). Charging people for one would be like charging people for a vim clone. Why charge for an inferior product when someone's already created perfection? ;) Second of all, learning shell scripting is an almost ridiculously important skill…
Haven't you ever come back to a piece of code from a month ago and had to reacquaint yourself with it? (I know I can't be unique in that... ;) ) We cram an awful lot into our heads as devs, there's no room for things we barely use from a month ago.
To you, the shell may be perfect. For someone else, it's a severely antiquated method of input that was outdated after Windows 3.1.
I love me some shell, but that's you and me. Not all devs.
Edit: reminds me of CPR class. After a month or so, you better brush up lest you actually need to use it!