6 ms·

NGS – Next Generation Shell

41 points by phonebucket 5y ago

rmetzler 5y ago
I was excited when I saw the features like retry and timestamps in log. Then I saw it was written in C. I actually thought it would be Rust or Go. I don't think you should use C for a "next generation" thing.
- duckerude 5y ago
  If it works it works. Very few of my problems with shells can be blamed on C. (Maybe two in total?) The oldest commit is from 2013. Rust hadn't hit 1.0 yet, Go only barely.
  - ilyash 5y ago
    Here is a bit of history which might shed some light on the decision. First and very partial implementation - JavaScript. It was a prototype which I knew I will be throwing away... and I did. Second attempt, also very partial - Lisp. I used SBCL. Skipping the details here but the result was as follows: got stuck with two different unrelated issues. I did not know would I be stuck with additional issues even if I somehow solve these two. Third attempt - found a language in which I will never be stuck unable to solve something. C. Also, looked around: bash, Python, Ruby - they are all C. At the time I thought I might be "borrowing" some code from. It didn't happen. I did look though. Edit: unexpectedly a huge chunk of work, which is garbage collection, was already done for me. C has garbage collection! It is a library - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boehm_garbage_collector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boehm_garbage_collector
- jhoechtl 5y ago
  I avoid the rather uesless "Why not?" comment as it will naturally spark answers like immutable data structures, sane type model etc. Whole and profitable empires have been built with C. C compilers are darn good in optimizing code. There is a large workforce proficient in C. I would bet anytime on C rather on Rust. If Firefox will die it's because some overly eager (but certainly smart) people thought a rewrite will solve business problems.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    > If Firefox will die it's because some overly eager (but certainly smart) people thought a rewrite will solve business problems. Rust is probably the least terrible business decision to come out of Mozilla in those past 5 years. If Firefox dies it will be because of the executive's rent-seeking behavior.
  - jonathankoren 5y ago
    > I would bet anytime on C rather on Rust. If Firefox will die it's because some overly eager (but certainly smart) people thought a rewrite will solve business problems. That would be ironic given that a massive rewrite is what tanked Netscape, and gave rise to Mozilla, and eventually Firefox.
  - SubjectToChange 5y ago
    > Whole and profitable empires have been built with C. C compilers are darn good in optimizing code. There is a large workforce proficient in C. Then why is it that all of the major C compilers are written in C++?
kasperni 5y ago
I don't have an opinion on the particular product. But I don't understand people who call a product something starting with "Next Generation". Such a name isn't really going to age well no matter how clever you are.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  Just like xyz-ng has become the mark born by early 00s replacements for early 90s tools.
- hulitu 5y ago
  Why not ? After "Next Generation" comes "Deep Space 9".
- compsciphd 5y ago
  (next)+ generation.
- alophawen 5y ago
  Mega Shell Plus
- ithkuil 5y ago
  I remember when sufficing something with "2000" made it look futuristic... I guess that didn't age well either.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    next gen 2k quantum blockchain
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- vardump 5y ago
  Worked for Windows NT (NT = New Technology). Used to see a lot of ads "... built on NT technology"...
pjmlp 5y ago
It still misses the ability to call shared libraries entry points or interoperate via OS IPC (UNIX, D-BUS,...), if I am reading the documentation correctly. So not so much next gen.
Iwan-Zotow 5y ago
Next Generation Shell is called Powershell
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  I tried to like PowerShell, but found it unpleasant to use as a shell or scripting language.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  There are multiple, perhaps even many, next gen shells. PS is one, but it's not the only thing and shouldn't be.
  - Iwan-Zotow 5y ago
    Sure but it's the only widely used portable one which goes beyond just passing bytes. It has powerful object model with passing object handles around.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
      So I'm a little out of the loop, but doesn't the nice object system fall apart once you use that portability, since only NT uses objects over bytes?
      - Iwan-Zotow 5y ago
        > but doesn't the nice object system fall apart once you use that portability no e.g., directory listing returns handle to the object with IEnumerable interface. This is what would be passed through the pipe, not bunch of strings, such that next command (object) will iterate over files and do something specific. This will work on Windows/Linux/Mac the same way > only NT uses objects over bytes Modules. There are generic portable modules as well as NT specific stuff.
ilyash 5y ago
Hello! Author here. AMA here or in Discord - https://discord.gg/6VqgcpM https://discord.gg/6VqgcpM
eikenberry 5y ago
This seems to be more a simple programming language than a shell. A shell is first and foremost a UI, only secondarily a scripting language... That is the point, that you can easily take a series of commands you'd do manually and put them in a script.
- ilyash 5y ago
  Hi! Author here. > This seems to be more a simple programming language than a shell. Currently it's only a programming language. The interactive part will be implemented in the NGS language itself. > simple programming language Since simple is relative: NGS is simpler than Java and more complex than awk I would say. NGS has exceptions, types with inheritance, multiple dispatch, guards (additional conditions to invoke a method), basic functional programming support, patterns, (new, in progress) facility for deeply nested data manipulation, automatic parsing of command line arguments when invoking the optional main(), threads, domain-specific syntax and facilities for running external programs and file manipulation. Simplicity is one of the language goals but not over expressive power. > A shell is first and foremost a UI, only secondarily a scripting language... I'm having hard time to agree or disagree. There is a lot of interactive usage but there are also a lot of scripts in bash. When I see the scripts I wish bash was "more of a programming language". > foremost a UI ... where surprisingly little innovation happened over the last decades. It's like in the movies when there is an object in the center of the screen and the whole world is rapidly changing around it. That object is the shell. My plans for UI are at https://github.com/ngs-lang/ngs/wiki/UI-Design https://github.com/ngs-lang/ngs/wiki/UI-Design . > easily take a series of commands you'd do manually and put them in a script You can do it in NGS and even in this simplest use case it will be better than bash - in case of an error the execution will stop (like with -e in bash) and NGS will print stack trace (which I don't know how to do in bash and not sure it can be done in a sane manner). Edit: $a will expand to exactly one argument (as opposed to zero or more), rm -rf "$mydir/" will throw exception if mydir is undefined. Typical things which are expected from modern programming languages. NGS uses small subset of syntax from bash so running external programs in the simple forms looks the same.
opan 5y ago
I'm still on zsh most places, but I'm always happy to see new shell projects like oil and elvish. This is my first time hearing of this one.

41 points by phonebucket 5y ago

I was excited when I saw the features like retry and timestamps in log. Then I saw it was written in C. I actually thought it would be Rust or Go. I don't think you should use C for a "next generation" thing.

duckerude 5y ago
If it works it works. Very few of my problems with shells can be blamed on C. (Maybe two in total?) The oldest commit is from 2013. Rust hadn't hit 1.0 yet, Go only barely.
- ilyash 5y ago
  Here is a bit of history which might shed some light on the decision. First and very partial implementation - JavaScript. It was a prototype which I knew I will be throwing away... and I did. Second attempt, also very partial - Lisp. I used SBCL. Skipping the details here but the result was as follows: got stuck with two different unrelated issues. I did not know would I be stuck with additional issues even if I somehow solve these two. Third attempt - found a language in which I will never be stuck unable to solve something. C. Also, looked around: bash, Python, Ruby - they are all C. At the time I thought I might be "borrowing" some code from. It didn't happen. I did look though. Edit: unexpectedly a huge chunk of work, which is garbage collection, was already done for me. C has garbage collection! It is a library - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boehm_garbage_collector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boehm_garbage_collector
jhoechtl 5y ago
I avoid the rather uesless "Why not?" comment as it will naturally spark answers like immutable data structures, sane type model etc. Whole and profitable empires have been built with C. C compilers are darn good in optimizing code. There is a large workforce proficient in C. I would bet anytime on C rather on Rust. If Firefox will die it's because some overly eager (but certainly smart) people thought a rewrite will solve business problems.
- Zababa 5y ago
  > If Firefox will die it's because some overly eager (but certainly smart) people thought a rewrite will solve business problems. Rust is probably the least terrible business decision to come out of Mozilla in those past 5 years. If Firefox dies it will be because of the executive's rent-seeking behavior.
- jonathankoren 5y ago
  > I would bet anytime on C rather on Rust. If Firefox will die it's because some overly eager (but certainly smart) people thought a rewrite will solve business problems. That would be ironic given that a massive rewrite is what tanked Netscape, and gave rise to Mozilla, and eventually Firefox.
- SubjectToChange 5y ago
  > Whole and profitable empires have been built with C. C compilers are darn good in optimizing code. There is a large workforce proficient in C. Then why is it that all of the major C compilers are written in C++?

kasperni 5y ago

I don't have an opinion on the particular product. But I don't understand people who call a product something starting with "Next Generation". Such a name isn't really going to age well no matter how clever you are.

formerly_proven 5y ago
Just like xyz-ng has become the mark born by early 00s replacements for early 90s tools.
hulitu 5y ago
Why not ? After "Next Generation" comes "Deep Space 9".
compsciphd 5y ago
(next)+ generation.
alophawen 5y ago
Mega Shell Plus
ithkuil 5y ago
I remember when sufficing something with "2000" made it look futuristic... I guess that didn't age well either.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  next gen 2k quantum blockchain
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vardump 5y ago
Worked for Windows NT (NT = New Technology). Used to see a lot of ads "... built on NT technology"...

pjmlp 5y ago

It still misses the ability to call shared libraries entry points or interoperate via OS IPC (UNIX, D-BUS,...), if I am reading the documentation correctly. So not so much next gen.

Iwan-Zotow 5y ago

Next Generation Shell is called Powershell

heavyset_go 5y ago
I tried to like PowerShell, but found it unpleasant to use as a shell or scripting language.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
There are multiple, perhaps even many, next gen shells. PS is one, but it's not the only thing and shouldn't be.
- Iwan-Zotow 5y ago
  Sure but it's the only widely used portable one which goes beyond just passing bytes. It has powerful object model with passing object handles around.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    So I'm a little out of the loop, but doesn't the nice object system fall apart once you use that portability, since only NT uses objects over bytes?
    - Iwan-Zotow 5y ago
      > but doesn't the nice object system fall apart once you use that portability no e.g., directory listing returns handle to the object with IEnumerable interface. This is what would be passed through the pipe, not bunch of strings, such that next command (object) will iterate over files and do something specific. This will work on Windows/Linux/Mac the same way > only NT uses objects over bytes Modules. There are generic portable modules as well as NT specific stuff.

ilyash 5y ago

Hello! Author here. AMA here or in Discord - https://discord.gg/6VqgcpM https://discord.gg/6VqgcpM

eikenberry 5y ago

This seems to be more a simple programming language than a shell. A shell is first and foremost a UI, only secondarily a scripting language... That is the point, that you can easily take a series of commands you'd do manually and put them in a script.

ilyash 5y ago
Hi! Author here. > This seems to be more a simple programming language than a shell. Currently it's only a programming language. The interactive part will be implemented in the NGS language itself. > simple programming language Since simple is relative: NGS is simpler than Java and more complex than awk I would say. NGS has exceptions, types with inheritance, multiple dispatch, guards (additional conditions to invoke a method), basic functional programming support, patterns, (new, in progress) facility for deeply nested data manipulation, automatic parsing of command line arguments when invoking the optional main(), threads, domain-specific syntax and facilities for running external programs and file manipulation. Simplicity is one of the language goals but not over expressive power. > A shell is first and foremost a UI, only secondarily a scripting language... I'm having hard time to agree or disagree. There is a lot of interactive usage but there are also a lot of scripts in bash. When I see the scripts I wish bash was "more of a programming language". > foremost a UI ... where surprisingly little innovation happened over the last decades. It's like in the movies when there is an object in the center of the screen and the whole world is rapidly changing around it. That object is the shell. My plans for UI are at https://github.com/ngs-lang/ngs/wiki/UI-Design https://github.com/ngs-lang/ngs/wiki/UI-Design . > easily take a series of commands you'd do manually and put them in a script You can do it in NGS and even in this simplest use case it will be better than bash - in case of an error the execution will stop (like with -e in bash) and NGS will print stack trace (which I don't know how to do in bash and not sure it can be done in a sane manner). Edit: $a will expand to exactly one argument (as opposed to zero or more), rm -rf "$mydir/" will throw exception if mydir is undefined. Typical things which are expected from modern programming languages. NGS uses small subset of syntax from bash so running external programs in the simple forms looks the same.

opan 5y ago

I'm still on zsh most places, but I'm always happy to see new shell projects like oil and elvish. This is my first time hearing of this one.