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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)

#71

Post by devjab »

dakiol wrote: post #16
mg wrote: post #13

The command line is still king. Whenever I see new coders struggle, it usually is because they: - Don't know the context of what they are executing - Don't know about the concept of input and output On the command line, the context is obvious. You are in the context. The working dir, the environment, everything is the same for you as it is for the thing you execute via ./mything.py. Input and output are also obvious.…

The more experience I accumulate, the more I rely on GUIs. Explanation: when I was younger I used exclusively the CLI and underestimated GUIs. Now I tend to appreciate GUIs and use them more.

I used to sort of like the Azure GUI (yes I’m a total psychopath), but then they changed it 9 billion times and now I just use the CLI. It’s frankly often experiences like this which drives me back to the cli. I like Gitkraken, but the it does an update and forgets my SSO or it doesn’t support a specific thing I need to do and then I’m using their console.

I’m not really religious about anything, but I often end up going back to the CLI for a lot of things because it’s just less of an annoyance.

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

#72

Post by fragmede »

steve1977 wrote: post #52
mg wrote: post #13

The command line is still king. Whenever I see new coders struggle, it usually is because they: - Don't know the context of what they are executing - Don't know about the concept of input and output On the command line, the context is obvious. You are in the context. The working dir, the environment, everything is the same for you as it is for the thing you execute via ./mything.py. Input and output are also obvious.…

Oh believe me, I wish what you wrote was true, but it isn't. I've seen people think they have a specific Python environment active just because they were in their project's directory on the command line. I've seen people not understand that "python -m pip" is a command and even if they are in a directory which has "python" in its name, they still have to type "python" for that command. PS: The command line might even…

> I've seen people think they have a specific Python environment active just because they were in their project's directory on the command line.

I wrote python-wool as a simple wrapper to python to make that true because it's just easier that way. Direnv can also be configured to do that as well.

http://GitHub.com/fragmede/python-wool

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

#73

Post by vegabook »

mg wrote: post #13

The command line is still king. Whenever I see new coders struggle, it usually is because they: - Don't know the context of what they are executing - Don't know about the concept of input and output On the command line, the context is obvious. You are in the context. The working dir, the environment, everything is the same for you as it is for the thing you execute via ./mything.py. Input and output are also obvious.…

Reductio ad absurdum: we should all just use an interactive assembler. Then you really are "in the context".

There is a level of abstraction that makes sense. What level that is is dependent on your objectives.

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

#74

Post by fragmede »

galangalalgol wrote: post #61
sandreas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. And it does not even exclude having a (T)UI. Modern terminal tools like neovim, lazygit, zellij, btop++ or yazi can do many things as window management, image previews and colors as well as having mouse support.

Are there any good tools to be able to ssh into a machine and preview images or render markdown directly in line with the cli?

sixel support lets you display images to the command line, for terminal emulators that support it.

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

#75

Post by GrumpyYoungMan »

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 and use it to pat themselves on the back for being Linux users. "I use a Hole Hawg! I drive a tank! I'm not like those other fellows because I'm a real hacker!"

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

#76

Post by skydhash »

vegabook wrote: post #73
mg wrote: post #13

The command line is still king. Whenever I see new coders struggle, it usually is because they: - Don't know the context of what they are executing - Don't know about the concept of input and output On the command line, the context is obvious. You are in the context. The working dir, the environment, everything is the same for you as it is for the thing you execute via ./mything.py. Input and output are also obvious.…

Reductio ad absurdum: we should all just use an interactive assembler. Then you really are "in the context". There is a level of abstraction that makes sense. What level that is is dependent on your objectives.

My first real programming experiences was done through the browser’s console (JavaScript) and IDLE’s REPL (Python). The short feedback cycle works wonder for understanding instead of struggling to the multistep process of C compilation or Java verbosity. I tried my hands at reverse engineering and using a dissassembler like IDA also gives the same immediacy feeling. Great DX for me is either a good debugger or a proper REPL whatever the abstraction level.

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

#77

Post by fragmede »

at_a_remove wrote: post #47
mg wrote: post #13

The command line is still king. Whenever I see new coders struggle, it usually is because they: - Don't know the context of what they are executing - Don't know about the concept of input and output On the command line, the context is obvious. You are in the context. The working dir, the environment, everything is the same for you as it is for the thing you execute via ./mything.py. Input and output are also obvious.…

The command line is king, but sometimes the king is mad. Which is to say, it can be difficult to work with the monarchy when the syntax is shit . And there's a lot of bad syntax out there: overly cute, so terse as to be cryptographic, the straight-up baffling ... Outside of the syntax (which seems to live forever), you have things like non-sane defaults, obscurantist man pages ... the list goes on.

the ability to hit up and edit and retry is such a redeeming feature. repeating the same actions in a GUI with no keyboard shortcuts is an exercise in frustration.

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

#78

Post by noufalibrahim »

xk3 wrote: post #23
mg wrote: post #13

The command line is still king. Whenever I see new coders struggle, it usually is because they: - Don't know the context of what they are executing - Don't know about the concept of input and output On the command line, the context is obvious. You are in the context. The working dir, the environment, everything is the same for you as it is for the thing you execute via ./mything.py. Input and output are also obvious.…

> On the command line, the context is obvious. You are in the context While I share the opinion that the command line is _the one true way_ of computing, I don't think this is really all that true. Computers are alien. GUIs are alien. CLIs are alien. Everything is learned. Everything is experience. Everything is culture. Learning, experience, and culture blind us from the experience of the novice. This is "expert bli…

True. All interfaces are abstractions and i think the command line interface is the best one we have. It gives you the maximum power.. It does have a steep but surmountable learning curve though and the effort is usually worth it given the ubiquitous nature and programmability.

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

xk3 wrote: post #23
mg wrote: post #13

The command line is still king. Whenever I see new coders struggle, it usually is because they: - Don't know the context of what they are executing - Don't know about the concept of input and output On the command line, the context is obvious. You are in the context. The working dir, the environment, everything is the same for you as it is for the thing you execute via ./mything.py. Input and output are also obvious.…

> On the command line, the context is obvious. You are in the context While I share the opinion that the command line is _the one true way_ of computing, I don't think this is really all that true. Computers are alien. GUIs are alien. CLIs are alien. Everything is learned. Everything is experience. Everything is culture. Learning, experience, and culture blind us from the experience of the novice. This is "expert bli…

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by vegabook »

skydhash wrote: post #76
vegabook wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reductio ad absurdum: we should all just use an interactive assembler. Then you really are "in the context". There is a level of abstraction that makes sense. What level that is is dependent on your objectives.

My first real programming experiences was done through the browser’s console (JavaScript) and IDLE’s REPL (Python). The short feedback cycle works wonder for understanding instead of struggling to the multistep process of C compilation or Java verbosity. I tried my hands at reverse engineering and using a dissassembler like IDA also gives the same immediacy feeling. Great DX for me is either a good debugger or a prop…

Agreed. When writing the comment I returned seconds later and added the word "interactive".
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