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Everything should be exposed to the shell, IMO, which isn't quite the same thing.
by dllthomas 6y ago
Everything should be exposed to the shell, IMO, which isn't quite the same thing.
- pjmlp 6y agoIndeed, for example via OS IPC mechanisms like COM/XPC/DBUS/Binder, shared libraries.
- dllthomas 6y agoWhile that's not what I had in mind, in principle yes. That said, in my experience, trying to use a real programming language's REPL for shell-like things is (at best) almost as bad as trying to write a meaningfully sized program in a shell's language. I've many times tried to pin down exactly why. I think it's mostly a matter of focus and the various affordances provided by the ecosystem that have in fact been developed over the past however-many years. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if you've found a niche and setup where it works out great for you - the important things are compositionality and putting what you need close at hand.
- pjmlp 6y agoYou can do that relatively easy in the context of Apple and Microsoft platforms.
- dllthomas 6y agoSorry, I said a few things. Which "that" are you referring to?
- pjmlp 6y agoUsing Windows as example, have a REPL (e.g. Powershell, C#/F# interactive) that interacts with the OS via COM/UWP, DLLs, OLE Automation. So you can from the confort of your REPL get the text selected in e.g. Excel, and use it as input for a function that was actually imported from a DLL for data conversions, for example. Very contrived example, just to show my point.
- haecceity 6y agoYa but who wants to use COM/XPC/DBUS/Binder?
- dllthomas 6y agoWith sufficient affordances - tab completion and whatnot - it might be fine?