4 ms·

i agree with the fact that PS object oriented communication between commands is much better then text. But I disagree about your point (2) saying that command n

by itaysk 10y ago

i agree with the fact that PS object oriented communication between commands is much better then text. But I disagree about your point (2) saying that command names are more discoverable. with linux style conventions, there is a hierarchy that helps you navigate between command's features. for example `docker image ls` you can type docker, see that there is an images subtree, type docker images, see that there is an ls command, and run it. With Powershell you kind of have to guess and type `get-docker` and tab through commands. Also some times the verb is not easy to guess. So in terms not relying on documentation as you called it, I think PS is worse. That being sayd, once you do know the command you need, using it is much easier with PS as you nicely described. tip - if you liked tab completion, try ctrl+space :)

yokohummer7 10y ago
I was thinking more about the "proper noun" aspect of the UNIX commands. I mean, what do `awk`, `sed`, `tar`, `xargs`, `df` mean? Why does `free` only print the remaining memory, not the disk space? Why is `top` even related to processes? They are all like that because Unix has had a long way until today. In the beginning `grep` would have been enough, but suddenly someone wanted to improve the state of affairs, and made a new command named `awk`. Probably there had only been `ar`, and then later the necessity of `tar` was found. `free` is not `mf` and `df` is not `free`, because the original designer thought the free space of the main memory was more important. All these inconsistency/idiosyncrasy do make learning the UNIX command hierarchy harder. We developers don't feel that way because we all are very used to such commands, but there might be some memory in our inside when we tried really hard to memorize all of the useful commands just to do basic things. PowerShell didn't have this backward compatibility concern so it built up its own vocabulary from the scratch. While it is nowhere near to perfect (as your example shows, the VERB-NOUN naming scheme can be a bit cumbersome when some functionalities need to be grouped), I'd say it is at least much more consistent regarding basic file/device management, because there was simply no baggage to consider when they designed PowerShell for the first time. Ah, and thanks for suggesting `Ctrl-Space`! I thought it would have been better if PowerShell had a GUI widget listing possible candidates, so I was considering sending a patch. It turns out that the MS people are definitely more clever than me. :)

by itaysk 10y ago

yokohummer7 10y ago

I was thinking more about the "proper noun" aspect of the UNIX commands. I mean, what do `awk`, `sed`, `tar`, `xargs`, `df` mean? Why does `free` only print the remaining memory, not the disk space? Why is `top` even related to processes? They are all like that because Unix has had a long way until today. In the beginning `grep` would have been enough, but suddenly someone wanted to improve the state of affairs, and made a new command named `awk`. Probably there had only been `ar`, and then later the necessity of `tar` was found. `free` is not `mf` and `df` is not `free`, because the original designer thought the free space of the main memory was more important. All these inconsistency/idiosyncrasy do make learning the UNIX command hierarchy harder. We developers don't feel that way because we all are very used to such commands, but there might be some memory in our inside when we tried really hard to memorize all of the useful commands just to do basic things. PowerShell didn't have this backward compatibility concern so it built up its own vocabulary from the scratch. While it is nowhere near to perfect (as your example shows, the VERB-NOUN naming scheme can be a bit cumbersome when some functionalities need to be grouped), I'd say it is at least much more consistent regarding basic file/device management, because there was simply no baggage to consider when they designed PowerShell for the first time. Ah, and thanks for suggesting `Ctrl-Space`! I thought it would have been better if PowerShell had a GUI widget listing possible candidates, so I was considering sending a patch. It turns out that the MS people are definitely more clever than me. :)