5 ms·
Windows Powershell attempts to do what you're describing. PowerShell doesn't manipulate text streams, it manipulates .Net CLR objects. That allows shell program
by quanticle 15y ago
Windows Powershell attempts to do what you're describing. PowerShell doesn't manipulate text streams, it manipulates .Net CLR objects. That allows shell programs to expose data in a much more meaningful way. You don't have to have a parser in every program that interacts with the shell when you can send and receive typed data.
I haven't worked much with it lately, but I wouldn't be surprised if Powershell was the closest existing technology to what the author is thinking of.
- mmc 15y agoI think he agrees, except for the textual display. From the article: Data structure. Windows PowerShell had a chance to redesign the terminal from scratch, but defaulted to the same old grid of ASCII. One innovative thing they did do was add structure to their data, piping .NET objects instead of raw text, allowing the user to select fields by name instead of writing elaborate AWK scripts. The shell for the research OS Famke does a similar thing for higher-order functions
- quanticle 15y agoI didn't quite get where the author was going with that. Windows Powershell has access to the full Windows .Net API. If you want to spawn a window to display graphics or what have you, you're free to do so.