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In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999)

(web.stanford.edu)
412 points conanxin | 1 comments | 27 Jul 24 06:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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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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1. noufalibrahim ◴[27 Jul 24 11:51 UTC] No.41085960[source]▶
True. All interfaces are abstractions and i think the command line interface is the best one we have. It gives you the maximum power.. It does have a steep but surmountable learning curve though and the effort is usually worth it given the ubiquitous nature and programmability.