3 ms·

Microsoft didn't have a mistake to realize. From very early on, one of the must-have toolsets for Windows NT was the Windows NT Resource Kit, with a whole bunc

by JdeBP 10y ago

Microsoft didn't have a mistake to realize. From very early on, one of the must-have toolsets for Windows NT was the Windows NT Resource Kit, with a whole bunch of command-line tools -- provided by Microsoft. There was in fact a whole load of command-line tooling for Windows NT, well before PowerShell and back to version 3.1 . Far from this being the reversal that you propound, actual history is even more in favour of your argument. (-:

AnonymousPlanet 10y ago
Look at the design of NT. Every output is based on IPC and calls to the event logger. That something like a stdout exists is due to backwards compatibility and mostly the Posix subsystem. The entire OS was meant to be used and administrated by means of GUI. The existence of a bunch of CLI tools that deviate from the main paradigm doesn't prove anything to the contrary. Have a look at the literature on the design and concepts of NT.
- kyberias 10y ago
  >"Every output is based on IPC and calls to the event logger." What does that even mean? I think you're painting an incorrect picture of the design goals of NT. The original NT was designed by a group of people (e.g. Cutler) with VMS background and they sure as hell didn't have any GUI in mind. In fact, Windows came to the picture much later. Whether NT is administered by a GUI or CLI is totally irrelevant to NT design. Today all the NT derivatives (Windows Server) can be administered with a rich variety of command line tools. Stdout exists because the original subsystems (OS/2, Windows, MS-DOS) required that. Same applies TODAY. Where is the NT bias to GUIs exactly?
  - dfox 10y ago
    To be fair, original Windows API didn't have any concept of stdin/out/err. In win16 days most development environments had something like that but it was emulated inside compiler vendor supplied runtime libraries. CLI as first class OS APIs come from NT.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

by JdeBP 10y ago

AnonymousPlanet 10y ago

Look at the design of NT. Every output is based on IPC and calls to the event logger. That something like a stdout exists is due to backwards compatibility and mostly the Posix subsystem. The entire OS was meant to be used and administrated by means of GUI. The existence of a bunch of CLI tools that deviate from the main paradigm doesn't prove anything to the contrary. Have a look at the literature on the design and concepts of NT.

kyberias 10y ago
>"Every output is based on IPC and calls to the event logger." What does that even mean? I think you're painting an incorrect picture of the design goals of NT. The original NT was designed by a group of people (e.g. Cutler) with VMS background and they sure as hell didn't have any GUI in mind. In fact, Windows came to the picture much later. Whether NT is administered by a GUI or CLI is totally irrelevant to NT design. Today all the NT derivatives (Windows Server) can be administered with a rich variety of command line tools. Stdout exists because the original subsystems (OS/2, Windows, MS-DOS) required that. Same applies TODAY. Where is the NT bias to GUIs exactly?
- dfox 10y ago
  To be fair, original Windows API didn't have any concept of stdin/out/err. In win16 days most development environments had something like that but it was emulated inside compiler vendor supplied runtime libraries. CLI as first class OS APIs come from NT.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]