3 ms·

Okay, a trivial and meaningless nitpick but a technically accurate one. Every general purpose computing machine that you can interact with and reprogram can be

by wfo 11y ago

Okay, a trivial and meaningless nitpick but a technically accurate one. Every general purpose computing machine that you can interact with and reprogram can be done by command line. Sometimes you have to plug another machine and use ITS command line to send communications to the original machine. I'll agree with you that microwaves do not have command line interfaces but calling them "computers" is quite a stretch.

tormeh 11y ago
No, it's not a meaningless nitpick! Yes, general purpose computers need to be programmed, but the reason we do it with a command line is because we prefer keyboards for data entry. When we stop using keyboards we will stop using command lines, just as we've stopped using punch cards. Everything that's not manually and physically setting voltages on memory is an abstraction. It's important to note that the command line is more an UI than an abstraction, though. Where the command line is on the abstraction level depends on implementation. Which one UI we use depends on convenience.
- vacri 11y ago
  > Everything that's not manually and physically setting voltages on memory If you're going to be that pedantic, then you should go all the way and note that there are computers that have neither memory nor use electricity.
- wfo 11y ago
  We prefer keyboards for data entry because keyboards are what enter the actual data we need to enter: we prefer typing text over the 'point and grunt' method of GUIs, where some interface takes our clicks and tries to intelligently convert them to command line instructions using context and guesswork. Once we've deleted the written word from human existence and no longer have need of text, have transcended proper known computational structure and can express computations soley by thought and avoid programming altogether certainly we will move beyond the command line. The command line remains the simplest, cleanest, most leak-free abstraction we have to interact with a computer effectively. I'll agree with you that it's possible there's a better one, but we've been trying for 40 years and haven't even come close -- all we've done is written some translations which let people enter command line instructions by pointing and clicking and having the machine guess how to interpret it instead of typing what they actually mean. I think it's the best we're ever going to get though I'm happy to leave room for optimism if you have any. In the meantime, those of us who have to get work done (I assume you are one of our cohort) will live in the real world and use it without complaint. The only reason the command line is complicated is because computers are complicated. If you want to use computers in a deep way you can't hide behind the GUI and run away from actually dealing with the machine forever.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    I am honestly almost speechless at that. The command line is complicated, because people are terrible at designing console apps and parsers. They end up with two or three ways of expressing anything, and give little or no clue (usage? really?) as to what they mean or how they differ. Clean? I could agree with 'concise' but not clean. Some apps take multiple switches behind a single cue character (is it '/'? is it '-'? '--'? something else?) and some can only parse one at a time. Some take switches before text and filenames, some after, some have a mix. Command line apps are the sort that only a mother could love. They are ugly, opaque, have an enormous learning curve, and even experts tend to type them into files because they would hate to have to craft them all over again each time they need them. Macros; cheat sheets; scripts are all crutches to escape the tyranny of command lines.
    - wfo 11y ago
      Shrug I'd agree you can definitely find fault with many of the programs that currently exist on the command line though every single one is still miles and miles better than a GUI -- if you're going to do something one time, it's great to click a checkbox like 'show hidden files'. If you're going to do it regularly, it's worth looking up '-a'. If you want to do something unusual it takes a minute or so looking up the command's help. Whereas on the GUI if you want to do something unusual, the answer is generally "whelp, sorry, learn CLI peasant you just can't do it since I didn't anticipate your weird need and spend time rendering a menu choice and 4 interface screens with click boxes so you wouldn't have to type anything". If GUIs had as many options as command line programs did they would be completely unusable trash, with an enormous unintelligible control panel, and you'd be looking iconography up in a reference manual instead of switches (have fun designing all those icons and having different ones express different subtle alterations in how a command will execute) There are a lot of options because the tools are flexible and capable of expressing MUCH more than a GUI. I'll give you there are some consistency issues, but they are historical not fundamental to the CLI. I'm honestly surprised someone hasn't written a wrapper to standardize every app in a shell so they all use the same format (ie have a 'one true format' for argument passing and just convert as necessary for every CLI app, parsing their manpages as they are installed if necessary), it wouldn't be very difficult. It never occured to me (or anyone else likely) because it just isn't a problem. You try to use a program one time, it doesn't work the way you expect, you look it up, it takes 4 seconds, if you use it a couple more times then you just know. Scripts don't run away from the command line, they embrace it . Scripts are the reason you use the command line; it's just text, so once you can do something once you can do it as many times as you want and share it with others instantly. Have you seen a macro to automate a GUI process? That moves the mouse around and clicks on stuff? And breaks constantly? Probably not, because nobody uses them. Once you get into a command that's long enough to type into a file you've already written a program and sure if it's worth saving people will save it. The CLI blends using a machine and programming it and IMO that's a good thing -- it promotes literacy instead of encouraging people to point and grunt at shiny menu boxes and to refuse to learn how their machine actually works. If you're doing research and your main tool is a computer, it pays to learn how it works. It's not exciting but it's the same in every field. If you want to become an expert you need to understand your tools on a deep level.

by wfo 11y ago

tormeh 11y ago

No, it's not a meaningless nitpick! Yes, general purpose computers need to be programmed, but the reason we do it with a command line is because we prefer keyboards for data entry. When we stop using keyboards we will stop using command lines, just as we've stopped using punch cards. Everything that's not manually and physically setting voltages on memory is an abstraction. It's important to note that the command line is more an UI than an abstraction, though. Where the command line is on the abstraction level depends on implementation. Which one UI we use depends on convenience.

vacri 11y ago
> Everything that's not manually and physically setting voltages on memory If you're going to be that pedantic, then you should go all the way and note that there are computers that have neither memory nor use electricity.
wfo 11y ago
We prefer keyboards for data entry because keyboards are what enter the actual data we need to enter: we prefer typing text over the 'point and grunt' method of GUIs, where some interface takes our clicks and tries to intelligently convert them to command line instructions using context and guesswork. Once we've deleted the written word from human existence and no longer have need of text, have transcended proper known computational structure and can express computations soley by thought and avoid programming altogether certainly we will move beyond the command line. The command line remains the simplest, cleanest, most leak-free abstraction we have to interact with a computer effectively. I'll agree with you that it's possible there's a better one, but we've been trying for 40 years and haven't even come close -- all we've done is written some translations which let people enter command line instructions by pointing and clicking and having the machine guess how to interpret it instead of typing what they actually mean. I think it's the best we're ever going to get though I'm happy to leave room for optimism if you have any. In the meantime, those of us who have to get work done (I assume you are one of our cohort) will live in the real world and use it without complaint. The only reason the command line is complicated is because computers are complicated. If you want to use computers in a deep way you can't hide behind the GUI and run away from actually dealing with the machine forever.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  I am honestly almost speechless at that. The command line is complicated, because people are terrible at designing console apps and parsers. They end up with two or three ways of expressing anything, and give little or no clue (usage? really?) as to what they mean or how they differ. Clean? I could agree with 'concise' but not clean. Some apps take multiple switches behind a single cue character (is it '/'? is it '-'? '--'? something else?) and some can only parse one at a time. Some take switches before text and filenames, some after, some have a mix. Command line apps are the sort that only a mother could love. They are ugly, opaque, have an enormous learning curve, and even experts tend to type them into files because they would hate to have to craft them all over again each time they need them. Macros; cheat sheets; scripts are all crutches to escape the tyranny of command lines.
  - wfo 11y ago
    Shrug I'd agree you can definitely find fault with many of the programs that currently exist on the command line though every single one is still miles and miles better than a GUI -- if you're going to do something one time, it's great to click a checkbox like 'show hidden files'. If you're going to do it regularly, it's worth looking up '-a'. If you want to do something unusual it takes a minute or so looking up the command's help. Whereas on the GUI if you want to do something unusual, the answer is generally "whelp, sorry, learn CLI peasant you just can't do it since I didn't anticipate your weird need and spend time rendering a menu choice and 4 interface screens with click boxes so you wouldn't have to type anything". If GUIs had as many options as command line programs did they would be completely unusable trash, with an enormous unintelligible control panel, and you'd be looking iconography up in a reference manual instead of switches (have fun designing all those icons and having different ones express different subtle alterations in how a command will execute) There are a lot of options because the tools are flexible and capable of expressing MUCH more than a GUI. I'll give you there are some consistency issues, but they are historical not fundamental to the CLI. I'm honestly surprised someone hasn't written a wrapper to standardize every app in a shell so they all use the same format (ie have a 'one true format' for argument passing and just convert as necessary for every CLI app, parsing their manpages as they are installed if necessary), it wouldn't be very difficult. It never occured to me (or anyone else likely) because it just isn't a problem. You try to use a program one time, it doesn't work the way you expect, you look it up, it takes 4 seconds, if you use it a couple more times then you just know. Scripts don't run away from the command line, they embrace it . Scripts are the reason you use the command line; it's just text, so once you can do something once you can do it as many times as you want and share it with others instantly. Have you seen a macro to automate a GUI process? That moves the mouse around and clicks on stuff? And breaks constantly? Probably not, because nobody uses them. Once you get into a command that's long enough to type into a file you've already written a program and sure if it's worth saving people will save it. The CLI blends using a machine and programming it and IMO that's a good thing -- it promotes literacy instead of encouraging people to point and grunt at shiny menu boxes and to refuse to learn how their machine actually works. If you're doing research and your main tool is a computer, it pays to learn how it works. It's not exciting but it's the same in every field. If you want to become an expert you need to understand your tools on a deep level.