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I think I agree with you, that it's (for those who actually do like Unix) a discoverability problem, but then I think that can be helped by simply reducing the

by lubutu 14y ago

I think I agree with you, that it's (for those who actually do like Unix) a discoverability problem, but then I think that can be helped by simply reducing the number of command line tools. If you have a small set of tools you know extremely well, the pipelines necessary become immediately obvious whenever you encounter a task... I think part of the problem is that many modern Unix commands are non-orthogonal. It would be interesting to look at ways to improve the discoverability of manpages, though, or at least have some kind of well-structured "if you want to X, you could use Y" index.

rjknight 14y ago
Our main problem is that computers have never been good at making suggestions to users. "It looks like you're trying to..." Clippyism was a disaster, but nobody ever came up with a better alternative. The trend on tablet computers seems to be toward minimalism, solving the problem by reducing the set of possible interactions to something easily comprehended by a user, but with very little scope for creative combination of tools.