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The GNU Project hosts this essay, "The UNIX Shell As a Fourth Generation Language": https://www.gnu.org/software/nosql/4gl.txt https://www.gnu.org/software/nos
by msla 7y ago
The GNU Project hosts this essay, "The UNIX Shell As a Fourth Generation Language":
https://www.gnu.org/software/nosql/4gl.txt https://www.gnu.org/software/nosql/4gl.txt
The concept of language "generations" is mostly lost now, much like how we stopped inventing names for how densely we pack transistors onto silicon once we'd gotten to VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration); the point of the essay is that the shell complete with a userspace is a programming language in itself, and one which is much more programmable and extensible than, say, getting all of your data into a database and using SQL to manipulate it. It's a programmable environment, as opposed to a data silo, where the only tools you have are the ones the silo's implementer deigned to provide.
- marble-drink 7y agoThere is a short talk by Eben Moglen [0] which is only 10 minutes long but jam packed with wisdom. One part which changed the way I think about using computers is how he describes GUI interfaces: as a "point and grunt" or "caveman" interface. Using UNIX, on the other hand, is to use language to communicate with the computer and comes with all the benefits that we have when using it to interact with people. [0] https://youtu.be/uKxzK9xtSXM https://youtu.be/uKxzK9xtSXM