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Thanks for this, a very interesting insight into the Windows ecosystem. I won't be able to speak with any authority on Windows systems and I certainly don't wa

Thanks for this, a very interesting insight into the Windows ecosystem. I won't be able to speak with any authority on Windows systems and I certainly don't want to get into a language/OS war but I would like to point out a few issues that raise red flags for me: * "Powershell is more UNIX than UNIX" Again, I don't have enough knowledge to really speak on PowerShell specifically but I will point out that the shell is one aspect of a Unix system, even if it's one of the bigger ones. The concept of files, filesystem, memory, in addition to the ecosystem of tools, are part of Unix. Obviously Windows has solved these aspects in some way shape or form but, at least from my perspective of the outside looking in, Microsoft has re-invented a lot of the Unix philosophy in order to make a Windows box behave more like a Unix box. * The mess of 'simple' tools vs. a cohesive philosophy in Windows While it's true a lot of the tools in the Unix ecosystem have arbitrary names and non uniform output syntax, the diversity of tools allows for a large range of solutions to a given problem. As you point out, the hodge-podge nature is most likely a historical artifact of the Unix evolution but I would argue this is kind of a natural by-product of systems that are heavily used and improved. I have no doubt that there are some cleaner interfaces in PowerShell but my concern is the reason for the clean interface is because it's a walled garden with Microsoft as the gate keeper. I think this gets into the old conversation about quality of code for FOSS projects vs. commercial projects. It's my belief that, after a certain threshold, having a quantity of software to choose from will lead to better quality software overall compared to software that has less quantity but higher proportion of quality. I think this might be a contentious view but my opinion is that it's better to let many "amateurs" experiment, with the best tools from those experiments filtering to the top, than to rely on a few experts to solve the same problems. Maybe there's a stronger economic argument as it relates to FOSS, I don't know. I will admit that I have a lot of sunk-cost/first-language-bias that makes me stick with Unix. If Microsoft ever open sources their operating system, I might reconsider that position though.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> I have no doubt that there are some cleaner interfaces in PowerShell but my concern is the reason for the clean interface is because it's a walled garden with Microsoft as the gate keeper This is simply not true. Many third-parties have powershell modules to interact with their product. Anyone can write them.
jiggawatts 6y ago
You can't say that the "hodge-podge nature is most likely a historical artifact of the Unix evolution" and then say that it is "quality". You can't have it both ways. Random, unpredictable, historical quirks do not add up to quality. They add up to a mess. It's like pointing to a shanty town and saying it is "quality housing" because it has a high population density. I'm reminded of a recent interview with Jim Keller, who's famous for being one of the architects of the x86 instruction set, Apple's ARM CPUs, AMD's Zen architecture, and Tesla' AI chip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA An interesting throwaway quote, but actually a deep insight, is that he thinks a lot of things should be "redesigned every 5 years or so", but unfortunately are redesigned only every decade or longer. I totally agree. PowerShell was a clean-slate design, and was called "Monad Shell" originally. It's elegant, and is based on a cohesive concept. It's now 10 years old and starting to accumulate... inconsistencies. Warts. It's in need of a clean-slate design again. Bash and the GNU tools are the most random mess imaginable that can still function. Its components can trace their roots back to the 1960s. Ancient code that should have been rewritten from scratch a dozen times over. Like you said, it's "evolution", but evolution gave us the trigeminal nerve and the inverted retina. I want a designed system that doesn't take the scenic route and have things back to front because it was "always done that way and is too hard to change now". If you got sat down and told to come up with a set of composable command-line tools for a shell, the end result would have nothing at all in common with the bash/GNU tools. There is nothing there worth repeating.
- abetusk 6y ago
  I've seen that interview before and that quote in particular resonates with me but at the same time there are basic economics to consider. I want to be clear, what I meant by 'quality' above is functioning systems. If there's a hodge-podge solution that gives you a 10x improvement at the cost of 1/2x the productivity vs. an "elegant" framework that gives you a 2x improvement at 1/10x the productivity by requiring to re-invent all the tools, the 'hodge-podge' solution wins. To me, this is the same basic argument of Dvorak vs qwerty keyboards. Dvorak might be a 1-2x improvement over qwerty but qwerty wins because of cultural momentum. The improvement isn't worth uprooting the infrastructure already in place. I think programming languages suffer the same fate, where the size of code base, libraries, etc. secures it as the lingua franca even if there are other languages that are marginally better. As a rule of thumb, I think a replacement needs to be at 10x the improvement before it has a chance of uprooting entrenched systems. The Unix system might be chaotic but it's had a lot of time to adapt to different needs. There's also a culture of freedom, sharing and experimentation that isn't present in the Windows world. These all have real world implications on what tools are available for experimentation, use and improvement. > If you got sat down and told to come up with a set of composable command-line tools for a shell, the end result would have nothing at all in common with the bash/GNU tools. There is nothing there worth repeating. Sorry, no. This sounds like an emotional plea rather than anything rooted in critical thinking. Sorting text files isn't worth repeating? Searching text files isn't worth repeating? Piping text from one process to another isn't worth repeating? I've tried to be even keeled in my responses but this is ridiculous.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

> I have no doubt that there are some cleaner interfaces in PowerShell but my concern is the reason for the clean interface is because it's a walled garden with Microsoft as the gate keeper This is simply not true. Many third-parties have powershell modules to interact with their product. Anyone can write them.

jiggawatts 6y ago

You can't say that the "hodge-podge nature is most likely a historical artifact of the Unix evolution" and then say that it is "quality". You can't have it both ways. Random, unpredictable, historical quirks do not add up to quality. They add up to a mess. It's like pointing to a shanty town and saying it is "quality housing" because it has a high population density. I'm reminded of a recent interview with Jim Keller, who's famous for being one of the architects of the x86 instruction set, Apple's ARM CPUs, AMD's Zen architecture, and Tesla' AI chip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA An interesting throwaway quote, but actually a deep insight, is that he thinks a lot of things should be "redesigned every 5 years or so", but unfortunately are redesigned only every decade or longer. I totally agree. PowerShell was a clean-slate design, and was called "Monad Shell" originally. It's elegant, and is based on a cohesive concept. It's now 10 years old and starting to accumulate... inconsistencies. Warts. It's in need of a clean-slate design again. Bash and the GNU tools are the most random mess imaginable that can still function. Its components can trace their roots back to the 1960s. Ancient code that should have been rewritten from scratch a dozen times over. Like you said, it's "evolution", but evolution gave us the trigeminal nerve and the inverted retina. I want a designed system that doesn't take the scenic route and have things back to front because it was "always done that way and is too hard to change now". If you got sat down and told to come up with a set of composable command-line tools for a shell, the end result would have nothing at all in common with the bash/GNU tools. There is nothing there worth repeating.

abetusk 6y ago
I've seen that interview before and that quote in particular resonates with me but at the same time there are basic economics to consider. I want to be clear, what I meant by 'quality' above is functioning systems. If there's a hodge-podge solution that gives you a 10x improvement at the cost of 1/2x the productivity vs. an "elegant" framework that gives you a 2x improvement at 1/10x the productivity by requiring to re-invent all the tools, the 'hodge-podge' solution wins. To me, this is the same basic argument of Dvorak vs qwerty keyboards. Dvorak might be a 1-2x improvement over qwerty but qwerty wins because of cultural momentum. The improvement isn't worth uprooting the infrastructure already in place. I think programming languages suffer the same fate, where the size of code base, libraries, etc. secures it as the lingua franca even if there are other languages that are marginally better. As a rule of thumb, I think a replacement needs to be at 10x the improvement before it has a chance of uprooting entrenched systems. The Unix system might be chaotic but it's had a lot of time to adapt to different needs. There's also a culture of freedom, sharing and experimentation that isn't present in the Windows world. These all have real world implications on what tools are available for experimentation, use and improvement. > If you got sat down and told to come up with a set of composable command-line tools for a shell, the end result would have nothing at all in common with the bash/GNU tools. There is nothing there worth repeating. Sorry, no. This sounds like an emotional plea rather than anything rooted in critical thinking. Sorting text files isn't worth repeating? Searching text files isn't worth repeating? Piping text from one process to another isn't worth repeating? I've tried to be even keeled in my responses but this is ridiculous.