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It's indeed interesting how important the command line is now. You might like this mini-book / essay by Neal Stephenson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_

by chubot 8y ago

It's indeed interesting how important the command line is now. You might like this mini-book / essay by Neal Stephenson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Command_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Beginning..._Was_the_Co... It examines the issue of GUIs vs. command line interfaces, among other things. I'm pretty sure there is an anecdote there that says that Mac OS did have a hidden command line? It was only for Apple engineers, not for end users, but it was there. I'd appreciate a pointer if anyone remembers.

bboreham 8y ago
The Macintosh Programmers Workbench (MPW), the first IDE for Mac, had a command-line with a simple shell. When I used it in 1986 it really needed a big machine, i.e. 512K RAM :-)
- yourapostasy 8y ago
  MPW had an interesting way to ease GUI-centric users into its CLI-centric world. There was a mode you could trigger for commands that brought up a help-oriented GUI for the command to build the command argument list, which would then echo onto the command line. Depending upon who built the GUI, it was usually a less terse and friendlier help for new users than AIX's SMIT, for those who are familiar with that. I sometimes wish there was an open source equivalent like that for Linux , but with live, interactive building of the command as the GUI options were manipulated so new users could get a feel for commands more readily. This would act as an intermediate help system for casual users that is friendlier than manpages, and more immediate than searching around the Net. [1] https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1360-macintosh-programmer-s-workshop-mpw-3-0-to-3-5 https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1360-macintosh-programme...
  - int_19h 8y ago
    > There was a mode you could trigger for commands that brought up a help-oriented GUI for the command to build the command argument list, which would then echo onto the command line. This still lives on in a sense. For example, in VSCode, many UI commands translate to executing shell code in its internal terminal (and you can see both the commands and the output).
- chubot 8y ago
  Thanks, I'm pretty sure that's what Stephenson mentioned in his essay / book.

by chubot 8y ago

bboreham 8y ago

The Macintosh Programmers Workbench (MPW), the first IDE for Mac, had a command-line with a simple shell. When I used it in 1986 it really needed a big machine, i.e. 512K RAM :-)

yourapostasy 8y ago
MPW had an interesting way to ease GUI-centric users into its CLI-centric world. There was a mode you could trigger for commands that brought up a help-oriented GUI for the command to build the command argument list, which would then echo onto the command line. Depending upon who built the GUI, it was usually a less terse and friendlier help for new users than AIX's SMIT, for those who are familiar with that. I sometimes wish there was an open source equivalent like that for Linux , but with live, interactive building of the command as the GUI options were manipulated so new users could get a feel for commands more readily. This would act as an intermediate help system for casual users that is friendlier than manpages, and more immediate than searching around the Net. [1] https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1360-macintosh-programmer-s-workshop-mpw-3-0-to-3-5 https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1360-macintosh-programme...
- int_19h 8y ago
  > There was a mode you could trigger for commands that brought up a help-oriented GUI for the command to build the command argument list, which would then echo onto the command line. This still lives on in a sense. For example, in VSCode, many UI commands translate to executing shell code in its internal terminal (and you can see both the commands and the output).
chubot 8y ago
Thanks, I'm pretty sure that's what Stephenson mentioned in his essay / book.