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Interesting that as an example of the benefits of 'reification' the author gives the ability to copy/paste commands to execute them again. Of course, this inte

Interesting that as an example of the benefits of 'reification' the author gives the ability to copy/paste commands to execute them again. Of course, this interaction with the command interface - that of selecting the previous command, copying it, then pasting it - is not 'reified'. It is executed through the - we may have to admit it - graphical interface through which you are interacting with the command line interface. It's not a purely textual interface, after all, since it includes graphical elements like a cursor. As an experiment, consider that a voice assistant like Alexa or Siri is also effectively a command line interpreter, but that in those cases 'copy paste' is not available so easily. 'Siri, repeat back the last command I gave'? So maybe the interface that is being praised here isn't the command line but rather the graphical interface in which a command-reifying interface is hosted...

firethief 9y ago
That's a bit of a stretch. I get by just fine in the console without making any real use of its gui-ness; !! is a lot more efficient than reaching for the rodent. Actually, I'm in the process of switching to a framebuffer console -- I mostly just need to get emacs to make use of my truecolor implementation and I'll be X free.
- jameshart 9y ago
  Sure, but your !! command isn't reified. Any edits you make to a command plucked from your command history aren't reified. I didn't say anything about using a mouse to interact with the CLI - copying and pasting don't require a mouse, but they do require a UI through which you can see what you're selecting and copying, even if it's just cursor key driven. And it's the original article which suggests copy/pasting commands from web pages or docs into your CLI, as well.
mdhughes 9y ago
You can copy and paste in a CLI as well. I often chain pbcopy/pbpaste (OS X, I used similar but differently-named commands on Linux) into scripts rather than temp files or input files. And ultimately, that's what a pasteboard is: a temp file, as used by CLIs for ~70 years.

firethief 9y ago

That's a bit of a stretch. I get by just fine in the console without making any real use of its gui-ness; !! is a lot more efficient than reaching for the rodent. Actually, I'm in the process of switching to a framebuffer console -- I mostly just need to get emacs to make use of my truecolor implementation and I'll be X free.

jameshart 9y ago
Sure, but your !! command isn't reified. Any edits you make to a command plucked from your command history aren't reified. I didn't say anything about using a mouse to interact with the CLI - copying and pasting don't require a mouse, but they do require a UI through which you can see what you're selecting and copying, even if it's just cursor key driven. And it's the original article which suggests copy/pasting commands from web pages or docs into your CLI, as well.

mdhughes 9y ago

You can copy and paste in a CLI as well. I often chain pbcopy/pbpaste (OS X, I used similar but differently-named commands on Linux) into scripts rather than temp files or input files. And ultimately, that's what a pasteboard is: a temp file, as used by CLIs for ~70 years.