4 ms·

I'd be cool to type something like `// spin up a lamp stack docker image`, and have below it the ghosted auto-completed command powered by chat gpt or something

I'd be cool to type something like `// spin up a lamp stack docker image`, and have below it the ghosted auto-completed command powered by chat gpt or something. I'd go so far as to say all command line apps should have an -explain suffix, that doesn't actually run the command it just parses it and outputs how it understands it in plain text. Combined with the above to help avoid AI mistakes.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
> should have an -explain suffix Adding -h or --help generally does something useful
- bottlepalm 4y ago
  That gives you a list of all the commands, no something short and sweet about exactly what the command you have written will do. If --explain is part of the argument parser then it would be relatively easy to implement.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    Some programs kinda do that, but you're hitting on an old problem that Unix/Linux has a few ways of doing similar things all of which can miss the mark. commands info, man and apropos are fairly close to your goal, but: - info only covers bash/core-utils - not everything installs something into the apropos file (and many package managers seem awful at remembering to delete entries on uninstall) - man pages have many standards and good practices, but some are still terrible or nonexistent So a --help switch is the lowest common denominator. And has the advantage of living in the executable as an argument parsing outcome. But that means it suffers locale parochialism. I think people may be afraid adding yet another switch like --explain would only make things messier. So far I think the best is usually the first stanza of a well written man page.
jimmaswell 4y ago
I bet you could open a bash file with copilot enabled and do that right now.
- amalgamated_inc 4y ago
  Can't wait for AI to auto-guess that I meant to pass `-f /` to `rm`..
dlivingston 4y ago
I'm sorry, but that sounds awful. I turn to the terminal when I want precise and exact control over commands - the above seems highly fuzzy and error-prone.
- bottlepalm 4y ago
  That's why I added --explain, so no matter what it is perfectly clear what the suggested command will do.
deleted 4y ago
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nonrandomstring 4y ago

> should have an -explain suffix Adding -h or --help generally does something useful

bottlepalm 4y ago
That gives you a list of all the commands, no something short and sweet about exactly what the command you have written will do. If --explain is part of the argument parser then it would be relatively easy to implement.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Some programs kinda do that, but you're hitting on an old problem that Unix/Linux has a few ways of doing similar things all of which can miss the mark. commands info, man and apropos are fairly close to your goal, but: - info only covers bash/core-utils - not everything installs something into the apropos file (and many package managers seem awful at remembering to delete entries on uninstall) - man pages have many standards and good practices, but some are still terrible or nonexistent So a --help switch is the lowest common denominator. And has the advantage of living in the executable as an argument parsing outcome. But that means it suffers locale parochialism. I think people may be afraid adding yet another switch like --explain would only make things messier. So far I think the best is usually the first stanza of a well written man page.

jimmaswell 4y ago

I bet you could open a bash file with copilot enabled and do that right now.

amalgamated_inc 4y ago
Can't wait for AI to auto-guess that I meant to pass `-f /` to `rm`..

dlivingston 4y ago

I'm sorry, but that sounds awful. I turn to the terminal when I want precise and exact control over commands - the above seems highly fuzzy and error-prone.

bottlepalm 4y ago
That's why I added --explain, so no matter what it is perfectly clear what the suggested command will do.

deleted 4y ago

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