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In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

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412 points conanxin | 6 comments | 27 Jul 24 06:25 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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mg ◴[27 Jul 24 07:50 UTC] No.41085093[source]▶
The command line is still king.

Whenever I see new coders struggle, it usually is because they:

    - Don't know the context of what they are executing

    - Don't know about the concept of input and output
On the command line, the context is obvious. You are in the context. The working dir, the environment, everything is the same for you as it is for the thing you execute via ./mything.py.

Input and output are also obvious. Input is what you type, output is what you see. Using pipes to redirect it comes naturally.

Not being natively connected to context, input and output is often at the core of problems I see even senior programmers struggle with.

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xk3 ◴[27 Jul 24 08:50 UTC] No.41085304[source]▶
> On the command line, the context is obvious. You are in the context

While I share the opinion that the command line is _the one true way_ of computing, I don't think this is really all that true. Computers are alien. GUIs are alien. CLIs are alien. Everything is learned. Everything is experience. Everything is culture. Learning, experience, and culture blind us from the experience of the novice. This is "expert blindness".

Why Western Designs Fail in Developing Countries https://youtu.be/CGRtyxEpoGg

https://scholarslab.lib.virginia.edu/blog/novice-struggles-a...

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copperx ◴[27 Jul 24 09:21 UTC] No.41085421[source]▶
More succinctly, "the only intuitive interface is the nipple."
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fanf2 ◴[27 Jul 24 10:27 UTC] No.41085616[source]▶
Not even that. Newborns have to learn how to suckle, and their mother has to learn how to hold everything in the right positions so it can work. It’s a tricky skill and many aren’t successful even if they want to breastfeed.
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1. lamuswawir ◴[27 Jul 24 10:50 UTC] No.41085693[source]▶
Newborns don't have to learn how to suckle. It's a reflex, called a suckling reflex. Lacking a suckling reflex is an indicator of disease. Basically a newborn suckles everything that goes into the mouth, nipple or not.
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2. rolisz ◴[27 Jul 24 11:11 UTC] No.41085774[source]▶
Yes they have a suckling reflex, but they might not latch on correctly and then breastfeeding is extremely painful.
3. lll-o-lll ◴[27 Jul 24 11:54 UTC] No.41085972[source]▶
Are you a woman? Have you had children? Have you partnered a woman as your child and her cried through the night, both trying to make this “breastfeeding” thing work; both failing. “How can something so intrinsic to basic survival, be so hard!”. And yet it is.

Talk confidently when you have experience.

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4. anthk ◴[27 Jul 24 13:13 UTC] No.41086368[source]▶
Sucking it's a reflex; the rest it's pseudoscience. Your personal anecdothes don't count.
5. jstanley ◴[27 Jul 24 13:50 UTC] No.41086590[source]▶
That doesn't negate the fact that newborns have a suckling reflex.
6. lamuswawir ◴[27 Jul 24 16:08 UTC] No.41087432[source]▶
Having a reflex and breastfeeding are two different things. The baby can have the reflex, but the mother has no milk or the latching technique is poor (as mentioned elsewhere in these comments). So the child not breastfeeding doesn't mean there is no reflex. And yes, the process can be painful and stressful to many mothers most especially first timers (experience also counts).