> There is a significant difference between async-shell-command and terminal emulators in that the latter allow programs to manipulate emulator state ... Hence

> There is a significant difference between async-shell-command and terminal emulators in that the latter allow programs to manipulate emulator state ... Hence why I said async-shell-command isn't technically a terminal emulator. It does, however, provide the same functional capability to launch a program, direct user input to it, and receive output from the program -- what most people are using terminal emulators for. The big difference, in the authors described workflow, is they are launching these commands on an ad-hoc basis, not from a semi-permanent shell. That, I would argue, is the biggest practical difference between what most people are doing and what the author is describing.