Re: Questions

[Oliver Logghe <oliver logghe org>]

I don't know that "easy to use" should really be a goal for a shell. The
point of a shell (IMHO) is to accomplish as much as possible with the
fewest keystrokes. If you change `ls' to `list' you've just doubled the
number of keystrokes without adding any functionality, and I think that
a new user is still going to be intimidated by the empty prompt. The
problem isn't really the abbreviations, it's the underlying terminology
and way of thinking. New users are better served by gui file managers.

I've got no problem with people trying to write new and better shell's,
and it's not a bad idea to try and help more people use CLI. What's
needed however is something to ease the transition from a gui to a real
shell, not simply an extra verbose shell that won't be useful to either
novices (because they still have to know that they want to "list" their
files) or to power users (because they'd rather just type `ls').

One idea is to log all the commands into a console pane, I think
Alias|Wavefront's Maya does something like this to good effect, and
probably others. For example, when Maggie opens her home directory with
the file manager it could log "cd ~" and "ls" (or "cd /home/maggie" or
"cd ~maggie", probably it would be best to pick the shortest possible
version) if she moves a file it logs "mv ...", if she double clicks on
an Abiword file it logs "abiword ...", and so on.

On 23 May 2001 10:21:42 -0700, delmar watkins wrote:
> I am not suggesting getting rid of Bash, only making a new shell that can be
> heralded as "easy to use" and "elegant."
> 
> Umm... think of it like busybox;  there are  a lot of commands crammed in to
> one executable.  we don't need to get rid of the old structure, we just need
> a new interface to our computers.  Bash should remain Bash,
> 
> Sander Vesik wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 22 May 2001, delmar watkins wrote:
> >
> > > See how easy it would be to have a new, fresh, GOOD syntax for a CLI but
> > > keep the power user in the loop???
> > >
> >
> > You can't get the power user in the loop - you just suggested breaking all
> > his/her scripts horribly. In fact you might easily find it hard to
> > actually find people who would write such shells...
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >         Sander
> >
> > One day a tortoise will learn to fly
> >         -- Terry Pratchett, 'Small Gods'