10 ms·

Xiki: An amazing shell

311 points by jestinjoy1 12y ago

BPm 12y ago
I actually like my shell as it is. I like the old fashion with no mouse interaction except for scrolling. Is it just me? But I have to say the interactive search is appealing.
- thathonkey 12y ago
  My approach to CLI is basically: if I wanted to use the mouse, I wouldn't be in the terminal. Having to reach for the mouse is a huge waste of time and I only do it if I need to scroll (rare) or copy+paste (relatively common). Although since I use OS X (Darwin) I don't always need the mouse to copy+paste (ie. pbcopy -> cmd+V).
  - BPm 12y ago
    Yes! I agree completely. There's also one more situation where we need the mouse: selecting a specific text on the console to copy & paste.
azinman2 12y ago
Holy freaking crap that's amazing. I love how the video all of the sudden starts to show 9000 features/ways it can be used. Looks like the paradigm adapts well to many different common workflows. It's really great to see someone really thinking from scratch about the shell -- something that very rarely goes through any meaningful changes like this. I hope this project goes far and becomes the new default.
- shurcooL 12y ago
  Yeah, reminds me of https://twitter.com/korkyplunger/status/485729264432472065 https://twitter.com/korkyplunger/status/485729264432472065.
- noinsight 12y ago
  > It's really great to see someone really thinking from scratch about the shell Arguably, PowerShell is shell reinvented too. But IMO someone definitely should revamp the Unix shell. If we're not talking about the actual functionality (commands etc.) but the "building blocks", I actually like PowerShell more than traditional Unix shells at this point. This shell however fails to impress me, I don't see the point.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    What features would you like to see in a Unix-like shell that are not available?
    - Tomte 12y ago
      I think passing around real objects instead of character strings is cool. It's less brittle, and you don't have to have an ad-hoc and flawed parser at every step.
      - copperx 12y ago
        So, shell commands that produce and consume JSON?
        skrebbel 12y ago
        No, objects. Non-text. Real data. Plus methods. Read a PowerShell primer to better understand this. PowerShell is geniusly designed and horribly implemented, so there's little point actually using it, but UNIX could really really use some of its ideas.
        sigsergv 12y ago
        It's impossible to “redesign” shell fundamentals in Unix because it will be incompatible with all other old-style utilies. And classic pipes are not so bad as PS evangelists saying. PS “objects” are basically .Net objects and you can't easily write python or perl applications compatible with PS features.
- anko 12y ago
  This reminds me of ACME http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor). To me it doesn't look like something new at all. The cool thing about this project is it doesn't interrupt how you use your mouse. Using acme makes you learn how to use a mouse again like going from vim to emacs makes all your keybindings screw up. Not that i'm saying copying acme is a bad thing, that editor is really underated.
  - biftek 12y ago
    I played with Acme the other day and was blown away. The everything as a command idea is really powerful. Definitely underrated, would be great if it got a modern reboot. For the unfamiliar this video by Russ Cox covers it pretty well. http://research.swtch.com/acme http://research.swtch.com/acme
- claar 12y ago
  Actually, that's exactly where the video lost me. A few additional shell capabilities? I'm interested -- cool! But throw in a database editor and a million other unrelated-to-the-shell features? I've been down that road before, and it's a maintenance nightmare. Unless this project has huge community backing, it seems inevitable that the development resources will be stretched too thin. Then it won't work on my next computer and the bug report will sit in the queue for months while I return to bash. I don't think I want to play this game.
chx 12y ago
IMO this should link to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/xiki/xiki-the-command-revolution https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/xiki/xiki-the-command-r... and not one of the most awful, bottom feeder sites out there. I challenge you to find a single bit of information on the TC page that is not on the Kickstarter page.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- leorocky 12y ago
  Eh, I don't think Techcrunch is so bad. They don't usually have link baity titles like wired, they genuinely try to do a good job reporting on new startups and many yc companies get an initial post on TC which gives them that first boost of users. A Techcrunch article and Techcrunch coverage is like one of the biggest boosts from getting into YC.
- mastazi 12y ago
  Techcrunch has its gems too: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/silicon-valley-lost-and-found/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/silicon-valley-lost-and-fou... http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/06/how-i-started-zerocater/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/06/how-i-started-zerocater/
- exadeci 12y ago
  Well Xiki has been posted several times here and it's the first time it reaches 1st link just St because of TC....
trollol 12y ago
Great.. Wake me up when it hits 1.0.
- sschueller 12y ago
  It is already at v1.0 (https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki/tree/master https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki/tree/master). It has been under development for over 10 years.
  - lucb1e 12y ago
    This comment makes me wonder why he suddenly needs money for it now. Many huge projects started without kickstarter, even if they receive lots of contributions and donations nowadays, they never used to need it. Hmm, and I remember some post on HN a few months ago about why open source projects should not ask for money/donations in the first place. The crux of it was that they basically become a company then: they work for money. People will expect something for that money, and A) features might be made simply because the developer feels he needs to do something in return for they money he's getting and B) people who donate a lot (i.e. have a lot of money) get a huge say in the project even if their ideas turn out to be horrible in practice.
    - pmontra 12y ago
      The TC post includes this quote from Xiki's author. "If this campaign succeeds, the money will let me dedicate the time needed to bring this next, drastically improved, version of Xiki to the world." Apparently he's looking for about one year's worth of money to work full time on Xiki. Why he didn't do that before, I don't know and it doesn't matter much. But using Kickstarter he's able to be very specific about what one should expect to get as a reward. Example: 35 $ buy a t-shirt and 10 votes for vim or sublime support, no specific features. 2k $ buy a command for your company. He writes "See the Twilio command in the video for an example". So it's true that if you donate a lot you get more. If only companies from a specific domain fund Xiki it could turn out to be a very domain specific shell. However being strong on a vertical market could be a nice strategy. Unfortunately it's out of Xiki's control.
SimonDawlat 12y ago
The video is amazing.
jestinjoy1 12y ago
The most revolutionist change to a shell. The feature i found very much interesting is "in xiki commands can be run from the notes"
- lucb1e 12y ago
  We used to call them shell scripts... I mean, it's not particularly new, only now you have to ctrl+enter each individual command.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    I think the OP video's demonstrated use-case makes xiki preferable to creating a shell script. With a shell script if I want to run some copy-pasta from a blog post or somesuch then I need to edit to remove non-script parts, then I'm flitting between shells to make edits that will work. Then I use the script, and remove it. All just to run a few commands; copy paste, edit in place and ctrl+enter to execute seems far slicker to me (but haven't used it yet). Xiki looks great for navigation too. Currently I use bash/dash (Kubuntu) and the greatest change to me has been discovering ctrl+R (surprisingly recently!) and a couple of scripts that I made/modified following a post on HN that make an archive of input commands and enable me to grep it easily.
leorocky 12y ago
I quite like fish and have been using it painlessly for nearly 6 months now. I wish fish included an actual programming language that could replace bash scripts, but the sane advice from fish devs is to use a real programming language instead of bash or another shell script. Other than that I've become quite dependent on the nice autocomplete and suggestions from fish. It just works and I never have to deal with any problems once you get over the initial learning curve bump which isn't that big.
- estebanrules 12y ago
  I've been thinking about trying out Fish shell for awhile, though I have zsh setup to my liking. Concerning Xiki, it definitely remind me of Emacs org mode / shell.
- estebanrules 12y ago
  I've been thinking about trying out Fish shell for awhile, though I have zsh setup to my liking. Concerning Xiki, it definitely remind me of Emacs org mode / shell.
- lloeki 12y ago
  Fish is interesting and grows on you but suffers from a number of showstopper bugs (e.g [0]) that prevent me from using it. [0]: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1374 https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1374
  - omaranto 12y ago
    I used fish for several years and fortunately never came across that one. It's pretty awful.
- barrkel 12y ago
  You can go a long way with bash; it's worth learning because it lets you glue tools written in different "real" languages together very easily, as long as they all talk text. There aren't many other languages specifically designed for process control, orchestration and piping. I don't like fish because it has almost no features, compared with bash.
kevcampb 12y ago
This feels very like what iPython notebooks provides, but applied to shell commands rather than code. It's a cute video, but I can't quite help feeling this is going to be far less useful in practice than it's made out to be.
- nodesocket 12y ago
  I tend to agree. The biggest leap for me was switching to oh-my-zsh (near life changing). :-)
  - orkoden 12y ago
    Autocomplete all the things
  - meowface 12y ago
    I love oh-my-zsh as well, but I ended up switching to prezto (https://github.com/sorin-ionescu/prezto https://github.com/sorin-ionescu/prezto), which is extremely similar but has less code and is considerably faster. Shell sessions were taking more than a few seconds to start up, and I'm using the latest MacBook Air.
signa11 12y ago
umm, lot of these can (which is the operative word here) be made to work together with plan9's acme...
- vidarh 12y ago
  A lot of these also works quite similar to Emacs (M-x shell).
jsmthrowaway 12y ago
The fact that this shell has Twitter functionality is a signal, and I can't decide if it's a negative signal or not. I've worked very hard to avoid a Twitter capable refrigerator.
- anon4 12y ago
  I think the means you can use it to script twitter functionality via twitter's REST API.
dimillian 12y ago
I need it. Anything similar already available?
- andyhmltn 12y ago
  I believe this is it isn't it? https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki
- 1ris 12y ago
  Acme,or Plan9 terminal, EMACS Org Mode
- anon4 12y ago
  From the brief time I spent with Emacs, I think its shell integration can work like that, but you'll need to write some elisp code to get all the features he shows for xiki.
- vertex-four 12y ago
  Native Oberon. No, I'm kidding, but Native Oberon is pretty much this as a (research) operating system; the interface is a bunch of text editor panes, you type out commands and run them by middle-clicking on them, commands tend to produce output in the form of further commands you can run, and you can save these panes as files at any time. It's almost like a generalised version of the core operating system shown in The Mother Of All Demos.
edlerd 12y ago
looks like the vim browser with a bash file that can be commented (and run and given to friends).
pmontra 12y ago
Installed, started. xiki status says it's running but I'm back in my usual shell and nothing works any different. No mouse interaction like in the video. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, maybe the tutorial (Where is it?) or is it an OSX only thing? I'm on Linux. I started the web interface, used it to hook xiki to emacs, restarted emacs and run into the unfixed "error: el4r-instance is dead" bug. I stopped using xiki. Maybe I'll give it a try when I'll have time to investigate but it's 2014. There are too many tools battling for mindshare and if something doesn't have a good tutorial and doesn't work out of the box isn't giving a good signal.
- lpsz 12y ago
  With all due respect, this looks like an early-stage project. If everyone adopts such a dismissive attitude, Show HN might as well not exist.
  - jonahx 12y ago
    I think the opposite is true: If the cultural norm here was to insist on good, simple installation and basic usage tutorials, then we'd see more of them and everyone would benefit. This doesn't imply that you can't share rough, buggy prototypes. It just means that before you do, it would be expected that you spend more time guiding people to get up and running and pointing out possible pitfalls. I'd argue that in many cases this doesn't even take that much time and yet is the single most important thing you can do when sharing. Note: I'm just addressing your general point and not making a comment on xiki's install process in particular.
  - pmontra 12y ago
    The first commit in git is from 2008. https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki/commits/master?page=17 https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki/commits/master?page=17 From http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/778419-meet-xiki-the-revolutionary-command-shell-for-linux-and-mac-os-x http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/778419-meet-xiki-the-re... it turns out than "Craig Muth, has been working on Xiki for ten years". Maybe not a mature project but not an early stage one.
- paulrov 12y ago
zorbo 12y ago
These alternative shells always get me really excited, until I try them out. Then the drawbacks become immediately and very painfully obvious: - Some are extremely slow, especially those that rely on complete webservers / node.js / whatever as a backend - Memory-hungry. I've got an average of about 30 terminals open at all times. 50 Mb per terminal really is a bit too much. 10 Mb is the upper limit on what a single terminal should ever use. - Don't work remote. If it doesn't work remotely without installation (and none do), it's pointless to me. - Don't integrate properly. For instance, copy-pasting is suddenly painfully impossible or unicode fails or it doesn't handle ncurses or escape sequences properly. - Doesn't add anything that the history and copy-pasting don't already do nearly perfectly. - Doesn't follow the "Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible" philosophy. For example, catting large (10mb) log files or a binary file completely barfs it. I wonder if Xiki is any different, as I haven't tried it yet. It seems unwieldy to use. Why would I want to physically move the cursor to a previous command 50 lines up when I can just do Ctrl-R <part of the command> and be done with it? This all sounds a bit negative, which isn't my intention. It's just that I've become quite a skeptic when it comes to "(email|shell|editor|etc) reinvented" claims.
- KhalPanda 12y ago
  Wow, an average of 30 terminals at all times? Just out of curiosity... what for exactly? Real-time monitoring?
  - mkl 12y ago
    I always have at least that many too. Not for real-time monitoring, just a large number of projects and threads of thought, many of which last for weeks or months. I do this for everything: I just totalled up all my currently open terminals, browser tabs, documents, etc., and got to over 700, and it's only that low because I've restarted a couple of times recently....
    - mattdeboard 12y ago
      If I had that many I'd never actually finish anything.
stedaniels 12y ago
> "When I was supposed to be doing my boring job as a software dev at banks and insurance companies in Ohio 13 years ago, I started making this thing that let me run commands and navigate files directly from my notes." With all the stories of disgruntled developers complaining that their employer took ownership of something they'd worked on in their spare time, I wouldn't be surprised if his old employers came a knocking. If it wasn't for that, I'd likely already be backing the new version, it feels very good to use. The video is very slick, there are some companies out there making good money producing these things!
- bencollier49 12y ago
  He would have to be very unlucky for that to happen, but admitting it online was perhaps not the best move.
jdong 12y ago
To be honest, a lot of these functionalities really don't seem to fit into a shell but into some sort of a GUI file manager.
msie 12y ago
It's cool, but I can't imagine it making my life any better over a Unix prompt. What I really want is a Windows shell that acts exactly like my OSX Unix shell. I did a little look but didn't see anything satisfactory.
msie 12y ago
For some reason I think I saw some of this in Smalltalk and Oberon.
michaelmcmillan 12y ago
It looks like a good solution to a lot of tedious problems, especially considering navigation. On the other hand, it seems like there's no boundaries for what problems Xiki should solve. Where do you draw the line? I would for instance never expect my shell to be able to manage my database. It just doesn't make sense to delegate that job to the shell.
spain 12y ago
Seems like a lot of ideas from GNU Emacs and Plan 9 (such as interactive text and evaluating within text buffers) rolled into one, so in that sense it isn't anything revolutionary. Of course it could end up being something nice, but the way the Kickstarter video rubs off on me makes me doubt it.
TeeWEE 12y ago
The whole bash shell is built around input/output. A command generates output. Which might be input for another program. This forces commands to be non-interactive, and just plaint text. But it comes with the immense power of building great programs using functional composition. It looks like Xiki breaks that in its core, and provides "UIX" ouputs to programs. I'm not sure i like that complexity. I'd prefer the simplicity that bash provides.
5partan 12y ago
Supporting 2 new text editors or IDEs: 4 months (likely Vim and Sublime, but it depends on what everyone votes for - also which one is implemented first depends on the votes) --> Please all vote for Vim :)
notduncansmith 12y ago
The visual file navigation looks like it would be a real step down. If I already know the directory I'm navigating to, it would almost certainly be less keystrokes to cd [first letter of first directory]<tab>/[first letter of second]<tab>, etc. If I wanted to visually navigate files, I'd use Finder.
- paulrov 12y ago
  Does it not do both?
m_mueller 12y ago
There's at least one use case I want this for: Interactive documentation of shell based programs. As a start, imagine a git tutorial with this thing - beautiful.
Cacti 12y ago
The first part (filtering/searching/expansion) is pretty similar to emacs's helm/anything.
robinho364 12y ago
Really cool! A few months ago, I started to use vim mode in shell, for the raw way is not convenient. Furthermore, I have formed an similar idea of "interactive shell", whereas I have to finish my GRE firstly...
yepguy 12y ago
I'm personally keeping my eye on the oh shell [0]. It adds some scheme goodness to the shell without throwing familiarity to the wind. [0]: https://github.com/michaelmacinnis/oh https://github.com/michaelmacinnis/oh
AgentConundrum 12y ago
> “Originally I created Xiki for my own use,” said Muth. “When I was supposed to be doing my boring job as a software dev at banks and insurance companies in Ohio 13 years ago, I started making this thing that let me run commands and navigate files directly from my notes. Ever since then I’ve found myself unable to resist working on it. I use it for everything.” Isn't this a bit concerning? It sounds like this was created on employer time with employer resources, yet there is nothing about this in the Kickstarter page itself. It seems like there could be a potential legal issue because of this, but there is no reassurance that either it's already been cleared, or that it's a potential risk. Seems like a big oversight that might prevent some people who read this from contributing.
- jgmmo 12y ago
  Maybe he does own the IP outright. He negotiated for the right to create side projects and has paperwork to prove it? Or maybe he figures it's his because it's not within the scope of his employment. i.e. -- has nothing to do with banks in and of itself.
  - jdc0589 12y ago
    > when I was supposed to be doing my job No negotiating your way out of that. I know lots of people have done this type of thing at work, but I guarantee you he didn't have anything in his employment agreement that said "If I dick around instead of working and get paid for it like I was working, everything is fine, don't even worry about it." That's a fire-able offense for any sane employer that doesn't have a 20% time deal or something similar. Hell, most employers specifically address this in the employment agreement. I've got 15% time at my job, and I still wouldn't do this unless it was going to directly benefit my company, including other people that work here.
    - jgmmo 12y ago
      Well I know I negotiate for the right to keep developing my own projects. Also, I work remote, and to me -- time is fungible -- I work nights/weekends etc. So if I work on a fun project 'during the workday' it is still mine, didn't become my employers suddenly, I just have to make up the worktime.
dheera 12y ago
Speaking of shells, I wish there were a shell inspired by python, able to conveniently use python libraries (perhaps even auto-import them), but with the convenience features of common shells. I can never remember the ghastly syntax of bash.
- omaranto 12y ago
  Maybe the now defunct pysh profile of ipython [1] is close to what you want. (It's defunct because it is mostly unneccesary in recent versions of ipython, that page shows how to get most (all?) of the functionality it used to provide.) For Perl instead of Python there are psh [2] and zoidberg [3]. [1] http://ipython.org/ipython-doc/dev/interactive/shell.html http://ipython.org/ipython-doc/dev/interactive/shell.html [2] http://gnp.github.io/psh/ http://gnp.github.io/psh/ [3] https://github.com/jberger/Zoidberg https://github.com/jberger/Zoidberg
alekratz 12y ago
This reminds me of the TempleOS HolyC shell.
ape4 12y ago
I like that it can "run" things beside programs. eg URLs, phone numbers. That seems like a good idea other shells could do.
fit2rule 12y ago
Sorry but the cognitive load for this shell is just too darn high. I understand the power, I even get close to grok'ing the 'why', but I just don't see how I can intuit all the various features from the app. Do I need to spend a few hours doing a tutorial first? If so: forget it. I don't have time to do that, not for a shell, no matter how fancy it is .. however, if there is a neat and easy and fast way to learn these powerful features built-in, I'll give it a chance. As it stands though, the video just makes me glaze over about 1/5th of the way into it .. I'm impressed by the awesome power, but the load is just too high.
the_eradicator 12y ago
Most recent discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7869246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7869246, and previously here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4512928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4512928.

311 points by jestinjoy1 12y ago

BPm 12y ago

I actually like my shell as it is. I like the old fashion with no mouse interaction except for scrolling. Is it just me? But I have to say the interactive search is appealing.

thathonkey 12y ago
My approach to CLI is basically: if I wanted to use the mouse, I wouldn't be in the terminal. Having to reach for the mouse is a huge waste of time and I only do it if I need to scroll (rare) or copy+paste (relatively common). Although since I use OS X (Darwin) I don't always need the mouse to copy+paste (ie. pbcopy -> cmd+V).
- BPm 12y ago
  Yes! I agree completely. There's also one more situation where we need the mouse: selecting a specific text on the console to copy & paste.

azinman2 12y ago

Holy freaking crap that's amazing. I love how the video all of the sudden starts to show 9000 features/ways it can be used. Looks like the paradigm adapts well to many different common workflows. It's really great to see someone really thinking from scratch about the shell -- something that very rarely goes through any meaningful changes like this. I hope this project goes far and becomes the new default.

shurcooL 12y ago
Yeah, reminds me of https://twitter.com/korkyplunger/status/485729264432472065 https://twitter.com/korkyplunger/status/485729264432472065.
noinsight 12y ago
> It's really great to see someone really thinking from scratch about the shell Arguably, PowerShell is shell reinvented too. But IMO someone definitely should revamp the Unix shell. If we're not talking about the actual functionality (commands etc.) but the "building blocks", I actually like PowerShell more than traditional Unix shells at this point. This shell however fails to impress me, I don't see the point.
- DanBC 12y ago
  What features would you like to see in a Unix-like shell that are not available?
  - Tomte 12y ago
    I think passing around real objects instead of character strings is cool. It's less brittle, and you don't have to have an ad-hoc and flawed parser at every step.
    - copperx 12y ago
      So, shell commands that produce and consume JSON?
      - skrebbel 12y ago
        No, objects. Non-text. Real data. Plus methods. Read a PowerShell primer to better understand this. PowerShell is geniusly designed and horribly implemented, so there's little point actually using it, but UNIX could really really use some of its ideas.
        sigsergv 12y ago
        It's impossible to “redesign” shell fundamentals in Unix because it will be incompatible with all other old-style utilies. And classic pipes are not so bad as PS evangelists saying. PS “objects” are basically .Net objects and you can't easily write python or perl applications compatible with PS features.
anko 12y ago
This reminds me of ACME http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor). To me it doesn't look like something new at all. The cool thing about this project is it doesn't interrupt how you use your mouse. Using acme makes you learn how to use a mouse again like going from vim to emacs makes all your keybindings screw up. Not that i'm saying copying acme is a bad thing, that editor is really underated.
- biftek 12y ago
  I played with Acme the other day and was blown away. The everything as a command idea is really powerful. Definitely underrated, would be great if it got a modern reboot. For the unfamiliar this video by Russ Cox covers it pretty well. http://research.swtch.com/acme http://research.swtch.com/acme
claar 12y ago
Actually, that's exactly where the video lost me. A few additional shell capabilities? I'm interested -- cool! But throw in a database editor and a million other unrelated-to-the-shell features? I've been down that road before, and it's a maintenance nightmare. Unless this project has huge community backing, it seems inevitable that the development resources will be stretched too thin. Then it won't work on my next computer and the bug report will sit in the queue for months while I return to bash. I don't think I want to play this game.

chx 12y ago

IMO this should link to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/xiki/xiki-the-command-revolution https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/xiki/xiki-the-command-r... and not one of the most awful, bottom feeder sites out there. I challenge you to find a single bit of information on the TC page that is not on the Kickstarter page.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
leorocky 12y ago
Eh, I don't think Techcrunch is so bad. They don't usually have link baity titles like wired, they genuinely try to do a good job reporting on new startups and many yc companies get an initial post on TC which gives them that first boost of users. A Techcrunch article and Techcrunch coverage is like one of the biggest boosts from getting into YC.
mastazi 12y ago
Techcrunch has its gems too: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/silicon-valley-lost-and-found/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/silicon-valley-lost-and-fou... http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/06/how-i-started-zerocater/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/06/how-i-started-zerocater/
exadeci 12y ago
Well Xiki has been posted several times here and it's the first time it reaches 1st link just St because of TC....

trollol 12y ago

Great.. Wake me up when it hits 1.0.

sschueller 12y ago
It is already at v1.0 (https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki/tree/master https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki/tree/master). It has been under development for over 10 years.
- lucb1e 12y ago
  This comment makes me wonder why he suddenly needs money for it now. Many huge projects started without kickstarter, even if they receive lots of contributions and donations nowadays, they never used to need it. Hmm, and I remember some post on HN a few months ago about why open source projects should not ask for money/donations in the first place. The crux of it was that they basically become a company then: they work for money. People will expect something for that money, and A) features might be made simply because the developer feels he needs to do something in return for they money he's getting and B) people who donate a lot (i.e. have a lot of money) get a huge say in the project even if their ideas turn out to be horrible in practice.
  - pmontra 12y ago
    The TC post includes this quote from Xiki's author. "If this campaign succeeds, the money will let me dedicate the time needed to bring this next, drastically improved, version of Xiki to the world." Apparently he's looking for about one year's worth of money to work full time on Xiki. Why he didn't do that before, I don't know and it doesn't matter much. But using Kickstarter he's able to be very specific about what one should expect to get as a reward. Example: 35 $ buy a t-shirt and 10 votes for vim or sublime support, no specific features. 2k $ buy a command for your company. He writes "See the Twilio command in the video for an example". So it's true that if you donate a lot you get more. If only companies from a specific domain fund Xiki it could turn out to be a very domain specific shell. However being strong on a vertical market could be a nice strategy. Unfortunately it's out of Xiki's control.

SimonDawlat 12y ago

The video is amazing.

jestinjoy1 12y ago

The most revolutionist change to a shell. The feature i found very much interesting is "in xiki commands can be run from the notes"

lucb1e 12y ago
We used to call them shell scripts... I mean, it's not particularly new, only now you have to ctrl+enter each individual command.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  I think the OP video's demonstrated use-case makes xiki preferable to creating a shell script. With a shell script if I want to run some copy-pasta from a blog post or somesuch then I need to edit to remove non-script parts, then I'm flitting between shells to make edits that will work. Then I use the script, and remove it. All just to run a few commands; copy paste, edit in place and ctrl+enter to execute seems far slicker to me (but haven't used it yet). Xiki looks great for navigation too. Currently I use bash/dash (Kubuntu) and the greatest change to me has been discovering ctrl+R (surprisingly recently!) and a couple of scripts that I made/modified following a post on HN that make an archive of input commands and enable me to grep it easily.

leorocky 12y ago

I quite like fish and have been using it painlessly for nearly 6 months now. I wish fish included an actual programming language that could replace bash scripts, but the sane advice from fish devs is to use a real programming language instead of bash or another shell script. Other than that I've become quite dependent on the nice autocomplete and suggestions from fish. It just works and I never have to deal with any problems once you get over the initial learning curve bump which isn't that big.

estebanrules 12y ago
I've been thinking about trying out Fish shell for awhile, though I have zsh setup to my liking. Concerning Xiki, it definitely remind me of Emacs org mode / shell.
estebanrules 12y ago
I've been thinking about trying out Fish shell for awhile, though I have zsh setup to my liking. Concerning Xiki, it definitely remind me of Emacs org mode / shell.
lloeki 12y ago
Fish is interesting and grows on you but suffers from a number of showstopper bugs (e.g [0]) that prevent me from using it. [0]: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1374 https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1374
- omaranto 12y ago
  I used fish for several years and fortunately never came across that one. It's pretty awful.
barrkel 12y ago
You can go a long way with bash; it's worth learning because it lets you glue tools written in different "real" languages together very easily, as long as they all talk text. There aren't many other languages specifically designed for process control, orchestration and piping. I don't like fish because it has almost no features, compared with bash.

kevcampb 12y ago

This feels very like what iPython notebooks provides, but applied to shell commands rather than code. It's a cute video, but I can't quite help feeling this is going to be far less useful in practice than it's made out to be.

nodesocket 12y ago
I tend to agree. The biggest leap for me was switching to oh-my-zsh (near life changing). :-)
- orkoden 12y ago
  Autocomplete all the things
- meowface 12y ago
  I love oh-my-zsh as well, but I ended up switching to prezto (https://github.com/sorin-ionescu/prezto https://github.com/sorin-ionescu/prezto), which is extremely similar but has less code and is considerably faster. Shell sessions were taking more than a few seconds to start up, and I'm using the latest MacBook Air.

signa11 12y ago

umm, lot of these can (which is the operative word here) be made to work together with plan9's acme...

vidarh 12y ago
A lot of these also works quite similar to Emacs (M-x shell).

jsmthrowaway 12y ago

The fact that this shell has Twitter functionality is a signal, and I can't decide if it's a negative signal or not. I've worked very hard to avoid a Twitter capable refrigerator.

anon4 12y ago
I think the means you can use it to script twitter functionality via twitter's REST API.

dimillian 12y ago

I need it. Anything similar already available?

andyhmltn 12y ago
I believe this is it isn't it? https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki
1ris 12y ago
Acme,or Plan9 terminal, EMACS Org Mode
anon4 12y ago
From the brief time I spent with Emacs, I think its shell integration can work like that, but you'll need to write some elisp code to get all the features he shows for xiki.
vertex-four 12y ago
Native Oberon. No, I'm kidding, but Native Oberon is pretty much this as a (research) operating system; the interface is a bunch of text editor panes, you type out commands and run them by middle-clicking on them, commands tend to produce output in the form of further commands you can run, and you can save these panes as files at any time. It's almost like a generalised version of the core operating system shown in The Mother Of All Demos.

edlerd 12y ago

looks like the vim browser with a bash file that can be commented (and run and given to friends).

pmontra 12y ago

Installed, started. xiki status says it's running but I'm back in my usual shell and nothing works any different. No mouse interaction like in the video. Maybe I'm missing something obvious, maybe the tutorial (Where is it?) or is it an OSX only thing? I'm on Linux. I started the web interface, used it to hook xiki to emacs, restarted emacs and run into the unfixed "error: el4r-instance is dead" bug. I stopped using xiki. Maybe I'll give it a try when I'll have time to investigate but it's 2014. There are too many tools battling for mindshare and if something doesn't have a good tutorial and doesn't work out of the box isn't giving a good signal.

lpsz 12y ago
With all due respect, this looks like an early-stage project. If everyone adopts such a dismissive attitude, Show HN might as well not exist.
- jonahx 12y ago
  I think the opposite is true: If the cultural norm here was to insist on good, simple installation and basic usage tutorials, then we'd see more of them and everyone would benefit. This doesn't imply that you can't share rough, buggy prototypes. It just means that before you do, it would be expected that you spend more time guiding people to get up and running and pointing out possible pitfalls. I'd argue that in many cases this doesn't even take that much time and yet is the single most important thing you can do when sharing. Note: I'm just addressing your general point and not making a comment on xiki's install process in particular.
- pmontra 12y ago
  The first commit in git is from 2008. https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki/commits/master?page=17 https://github.com/trogdoro/xiki/commits/master?page=17 From http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/778419-meet-xiki-the-revolutionary-command-shell-for-linux-and-mac-os-x http://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/778419-meet-xiki-the-re... it turns out than "Craig Muth, has been working on Xiki for ten years". Maybe not a mature project but not an early stage one.
paulrov 12y ago

zorbo 12y ago

These alternative shells always get me really excited, until I try them out. Then the drawbacks become immediately and very painfully obvious: - Some are extremely slow, especially those that rely on complete webservers / node.js / whatever as a backend - Memory-hungry. I've got an average of about 30 terminals open at all times. 50 Mb per terminal really is a bit too much. 10 Mb is the upper limit on what a single terminal should ever use. - Don't work remote. If it doesn't work remotely without installation (and none do), it's pointless to me. - Don't integrate properly. For instance, copy-pasting is suddenly painfully impossible or unicode fails or it doesn't handle ncurses or escape sequences properly. - Doesn't add anything that the history and copy-pasting don't already do nearly perfectly. - Doesn't follow the "Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible" philosophy. For example, catting large (10mb) log files or a binary file completely barfs it. I wonder if Xiki is any different, as I haven't tried it yet. It seems unwieldy to use. Why would I want to physically move the cursor to a previous command 50 lines up when I can just do Ctrl-R <part of the command> and be done with it? This all sounds a bit negative, which isn't my intention. It's just that I've become quite a skeptic when it comes to "(email|shell|editor|etc) reinvented" claims.

KhalPanda 12y ago
Wow, an average of 30 terminals at all times? Just out of curiosity... what for exactly? Real-time monitoring?
- mkl 12y ago
  I always have at least that many too. Not for real-time monitoring, just a large number of projects and threads of thought, many of which last for weeks or months. I do this for everything: I just totalled up all my currently open terminals, browser tabs, documents, etc., and got to over 700, and it's only that low because I've restarted a couple of times recently....
  - mattdeboard 12y ago
    If I had that many I'd never actually finish anything.

stedaniels 12y ago

> "When I was supposed to be doing my boring job as a software dev at banks and insurance companies in Ohio 13 years ago, I started making this thing that let me run commands and navigate files directly from my notes." With all the stories of disgruntled developers complaining that their employer took ownership of something they'd worked on in their spare time, I wouldn't be surprised if his old employers came a knocking. If it wasn't for that, I'd likely already be backing the new version, it feels very good to use. The video is very slick, there are some companies out there making good money producing these things!

bencollier49 12y ago
He would have to be very unlucky for that to happen, but admitting it online was perhaps not the best move.

jdong 12y ago

To be honest, a lot of these functionalities really don't seem to fit into a shell but into some sort of a GUI file manager.

msie 12y ago

It's cool, but I can't imagine it making my life any better over a Unix prompt. What I really want is a Windows shell that acts exactly like my OSX Unix shell. I did a little look but didn't see anything satisfactory.

msie 12y ago

For some reason I think I saw some of this in Smalltalk and Oberon.

michaelmcmillan 12y ago

It looks like a good solution to a lot of tedious problems, especially considering navigation. On the other hand, it seems like there's no boundaries for what problems Xiki should solve. Where do you draw the line? I would for instance never expect my shell to be able to manage my database. It just doesn't make sense to delegate that job to the shell.

spain 12y ago

Seems like a lot of ideas from GNU Emacs and Plan 9 (such as interactive text and evaluating within text buffers) rolled into one, so in that sense it isn't anything revolutionary. Of course it could end up being something nice, but the way the Kickstarter video rubs off on me makes me doubt it.

TeeWEE 12y ago

The whole bash shell is built around input/output. A command generates output. Which might be input for another program. This forces commands to be non-interactive, and just plaint text. But it comes with the immense power of building great programs using functional composition. It looks like Xiki breaks that in its core, and provides "UIX" ouputs to programs. I'm not sure i like that complexity. I'd prefer the simplicity that bash provides.

5partan 12y ago

Supporting 2 new text editors or IDEs: 4 months (likely Vim and Sublime, but it depends on what everyone votes for - also which one is implemented first depends on the votes) --> Please all vote for Vim :)

notduncansmith 12y ago

The visual file navigation looks like it would be a real step down. If I already know the directory I'm navigating to, it would almost certainly be less keystrokes to cd [first letter of first directory]<tab>/[first letter of second]<tab>, etc. If I wanted to visually navigate files, I'd use Finder.

paulrov 12y ago
Does it not do both?

m_mueller 12y ago

There's at least one use case I want this for: Interactive documentation of shell based programs. As a start, imagine a git tutorial with this thing - beautiful.

Cacti 12y ago

The first part (filtering/searching/expansion) is pretty similar to emacs's helm/anything.

robinho364 12y ago

Really cool! A few months ago, I started to use vim mode in shell, for the raw way is not convenient. Furthermore, I have formed an similar idea of "interactive shell", whereas I have to finish my GRE firstly...

yepguy 12y ago

I'm personally keeping my eye on the oh shell [0]. It adds some scheme goodness to the shell without throwing familiarity to the wind. [0]: https://github.com/michaelmacinnis/oh https://github.com/michaelmacinnis/oh

AgentConundrum 12y ago

> “Originally I created Xiki for my own use,” said Muth. “When I was supposed to be doing my boring job as a software dev at banks and insurance companies in Ohio 13 years ago, I started making this thing that let me run commands and navigate files directly from my notes. Ever since then I’ve found myself unable to resist working on it. I use it for everything.” Isn't this a bit concerning? It sounds like this was created on employer time with employer resources, yet there is nothing about this in the Kickstarter page itself. It seems like there could be a potential legal issue because of this, but there is no reassurance that either it's already been cleared, or that it's a potential risk. Seems like a big oversight that might prevent some people who read this from contributing.

jgmmo 12y ago
Maybe he does own the IP outright. He negotiated for the right to create side projects and has paperwork to prove it? Or maybe he figures it's his because it's not within the scope of his employment. i.e. -- has nothing to do with banks in and of itself.
- jdc0589 12y ago
  > when I was supposed to be doing my job No negotiating your way out of that. I know lots of people have done this type of thing at work, but I guarantee you he didn't have anything in his employment agreement that said "If I dick around instead of working and get paid for it like I was working, everything is fine, don't even worry about it." That's a fire-able offense for any sane employer that doesn't have a 20% time deal or something similar. Hell, most employers specifically address this in the employment agreement. I've got 15% time at my job, and I still wouldn't do this unless it was going to directly benefit my company, including other people that work here.
  - jgmmo 12y ago
    Well I know I negotiate for the right to keep developing my own projects. Also, I work remote, and to me -- time is fungible -- I work nights/weekends etc. So if I work on a fun project 'during the workday' it is still mine, didn't become my employers suddenly, I just have to make up the worktime.

dheera 12y ago

Speaking of shells, I wish there were a shell inspired by python, able to conveniently use python libraries (perhaps even auto-import them), but with the convenience features of common shells. I can never remember the ghastly syntax of bash.

omaranto 12y ago
Maybe the now defunct pysh profile of ipython [1] is close to what you want. (It's defunct because it is mostly unneccesary in recent versions of ipython, that page shows how to get most (all?) of the functionality it used to provide.) For Perl instead of Python there are psh [2] and zoidberg [3]. [1] http://ipython.org/ipython-doc/dev/interactive/shell.html http://ipython.org/ipython-doc/dev/interactive/shell.html [2] http://gnp.github.io/psh/ http://gnp.github.io/psh/ [3] https://github.com/jberger/Zoidberg https://github.com/jberger/Zoidberg

alekratz 12y ago

This reminds me of the TempleOS HolyC shell.

ape4 12y ago

I like that it can "run" things beside programs. eg URLs, phone numbers. That seems like a good idea other shells could do.

fit2rule 12y ago

Sorry but the cognitive load for this shell is just too darn high. I understand the power, I even get close to grok'ing the 'why', but I just don't see how I can intuit all the various features from the app. Do I need to spend a few hours doing a tutorial first? If so: forget it. I don't have time to do that, not for a shell, no matter how fancy it is .. however, if there is a neat and easy and fast way to learn these powerful features built-in, I'll give it a chance. As it stands though, the video just makes me glaze over about 1/5th of the way into it .. I'm impressed by the awesome power, but the load is just too high.

the_eradicator 12y ago

Most recent discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7869246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7869246, and previously here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4512928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4512928.