I think it's about alignment of the project and how you think.
If it won't be it this time, I'm working on the user interface of Next Generation Shell now and I would like to encourage you to revisit the project once that is done.
Tldr: interactive objects on the screen, each interaction results "interaction record" (structured data about what happened), semantic understanding of what's happening, record/replay facility.
I did hear an opinion (somewhere else) that a shell shouldn't have associative arrays either and it was a mistake...
> Nushell
Nushell is a candidate and some people use it and like it. I personally disagree with the design. Then again, I'm not objective. I created Next Generation Shell. It's a fully fledged programming language with domain specific facilities (for running external programs for example). I like this approach more than trying to improve over a shell. It fits my brain better.
Opinion. Likely controversial. The fact that we need jq highlights that we are missing this functionality in shells. I argue that these days (nested) structured data is as basic requirement as having scalars, arrays and associative arrays (which bash has). It hurts my eyes seeing five line of assignment to variables where each one runs jq to extract that particular field from a data structure.
Another big difference is that NGS is a language designed ground up for DevOps-y tasks. The result, in my subjective opinion, is clear and concise scripting. That's due to better fit between the language and problems being solved.
Edit: Python for example "doesn't like" functional programming, while NGS supports it and using map() and filter() is idiomatic.
Edit 2: explanation why UI takes so long. That's because it is being implemented mostly in NGS itself so the language must be in shape (and now it is but it took time).
I don't think the structure is the problem. I think it's fine that the higher you go the bigger decisions and responsibility there is.
The part that I think is not working is that managers neglect one of the basic behaviors they should be engaging in. Weekly one-on-ones done properly. That's the place for information to go from directs to managers.
I would like to make my DevOps colleagues more productive and less frustrated. I'm actually already doing it, it's just way slower when you can't do it as a full time job.
I started working on Next Generation Shell in 2013. I have the programming language in quite a good shape and we use it at work.
I'm working on the UI now. The main idea of the UI is to get rid of telegraph-style communication paradigm of sending text and receiving text. We can actually use the whole screen now. We have text editing using full screen since 1976 (vi) but classical shells are ignoring this capability till this day. It's time to stop treating outputs of programs as if they are still printed on paper, allowing zero interactivity.
Next Generation Shell because I refuse to believe that UI that is limiting the interaction to single line is the pinnacle of UX that we can have today.
Terminals introduced cursor movement feature in the 1970s. Bill Joy responded with releasing vi in 1976. Text editing as we know it today was born. It used ... the whole screen! How the shell responded to this new feature? It largely didn't.
Back to NGS. The programming language is in a good shape. Working on the UI.
Next Generation Shell. As a shell, it's a programming language and a UI. Half baked: programming language - pretty much done, we use it at work; UI - just starting to work on.
Hi. I'm Ilya Sher, author of Next Generation Shell. That's the only shell that I'm aware of that plans to do something "radical" about the UI/UX. By radical I mean something out of the telegraph style communication paradigm.
In Next Generation Shell I've experimented by adding
section "arbitrary comment" {
code here
}
and this is staying in the language. It looks good. That's instead of
# blah section - start
code here
# blah section - end
Later, since NGS knows about sections, I can potentially add section info to stack traces (also maybe logging and debugging messages). At the moment, it's just an aesthetic comments and (I think) easily skip-able code section when reading.
Symbols
I've decided not to have symbols in NGS. My opinion (I assume not popular) is that all symbols together is one big enum, instead of having multiple enums which would convey which values are acceptable at each point.
Yep. What bothers me is when you start looking at list comprehension is that you don't know if it's filter(), map(), or a combination. You have to read the list comprehension till the end to understand.
I worked with Python for quite a few years but at 2013 it became too painful for "DevOps". The more I was thinking about how things could/should be the more frustrated I was. Python and bash were the "inspiration" that pushed me to start working on Next Generation Shell.
Particularly annoying in Python is running external programs (yes, I know there are libraries) and manipulating structured data (list comprehension is not aligned with how I think, which is map() and filter() and lambdas not limited to single expression).
I think it's about alignment of the project and how you think.
If it won't be it this time, I'm working on the user interface of Next Generation Shell now and I would like to encourage you to revisit the project once that is done.
Plan:
https://github.com/ngs-lang/ngs/wiki/UI-Design
https://github.com/ngs-lang/ngs/wiki/UI-Chain-Design
Tldr: interactive objects on the screen, each interaction results "interaction record" (structured data about what happened), semantic understanding of what's happening, record/replay facility.