17 ms·

Windows PowerShell seems to offer exactly what you're looking for.

Udo 10y ago
I'm not a Windows user, so I'm not familiar with it. And "just move to Windows" isn't exactly the kind of solution I was hoping for, if I'm being honest. Some day someone in the vast Linux/Unix ecosystem hopefully sees this problem too and does something about it, but it's a controversial idea at this point.
- d0mine 10y ago
  The usability, robustness and the ease of composition of simple text interfaces is not accidental. Pipes survived for many years for a reason (though they are broken on Windows -- it is hard to pipe data as is without corrupting it). SOAP, WSDL have taught us already that more "structure" does not mean better. Binary interfaces such as provided by systemd or http/2 may teach us again the importance of simplicity, human-readability and avoiding too frigid constraints failing in the face of natural evolution between different software versions.
joelthelion 10y ago
The problem with power shell is that it misses basics such as grep that command line users take for granted.
- ctolkien 10y ago
  Not really arguing against your point - however when in Powershell, as everything is an object, you don't end up using the same "string heavy" techniques that required grep with more traditional shells.
- ColinCochrane 10y ago
  Select-String is the PowerShell equivalent of grep. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849903.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849903.aspx
  - ygra 10y ago
    Should even have grep as its default alias.
    - besselheim 10y ago
      It has "sls" as its alias, even easier to type.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
l0b0 10y ago
This. It would be really great to have a language like PowerShell on Linux. Being able to pass file names reliably[0] without disgusting hacks would be great, for a starter. And, unlike in current nix shells, a new shell should separate responsibilities cleanly between tools (`find` has both `-exec` and `-delete` unlike most commands; `grep` has `-c`), return reusable results (damn you `ls`!), have sensible scoping rules, stop on the first error (like `errexit`, `nounset` and `pipefail` implemented sanely), and just generally be more like a real language. [0] http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/filenames-in-shell.html http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/filenames-in-shell.html

Udo 10y ago

I'm not a Windows user, so I'm not familiar with it. And "just move to Windows" isn't exactly the kind of solution I was hoping for, if I'm being honest. Some day someone in the vast Linux/Unix ecosystem hopefully sees this problem too and does something about it, but it's a controversial idea at this point.

d0mine 10y ago
The usability, robustness and the ease of composition of simple text interfaces is not accidental. Pipes survived for many years for a reason (though they are broken on Windows -- it is hard to pipe data as is without corrupting it). SOAP, WSDL have taught us already that more "structure" does not mean better. Binary interfaces such as provided by systemd or http/2 may teach us again the importance of simplicity, human-readability and avoiding too frigid constraints failing in the face of natural evolution between different software versions.

joelthelion 10y ago

The problem with power shell is that it misses basics such as grep that command line users take for granted.

ctolkien 10y ago
Not really arguing against your point - however when in Powershell, as everything is an object, you don't end up using the same "string heavy" techniques that required grep with more traditional shells.
ColinCochrane 10y ago
Select-String is the PowerShell equivalent of grep. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849903.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849903.aspx
- ygra 10y ago
  Should even have grep as its default alias.
  - besselheim 10y ago
    It has "sls" as its alias, even easier to type.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

l0b0 10y ago

This. It would be really great to have a language like PowerShell on Linux. Being able to pass file names reliably[0] without disgusting hacks would be great, for a starter. And, unlike in current nix shells, a new shell should separate responsibilities cleanly between tools (`find` has both `-exec` and `-delete` unlike most commands; `grep` has `-c`), return reusable results (damn you `ls`!), have sensible scoping rules, stop on the first error (like `errexit`, `nounset` and `pipefail` implemented sanely), and just generally be more like a real language. [0] http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/filenames-in-shell.html http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/filenames-in-shell.html