[TUHS] evolution of the cli

[Andy Kosela via TUHS]

On Saturday, November 1, 2025, Marc Donner via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

> Well, the samples you exhibit are fairly verbose and rely on keys that are
> either difficult to touch type (most people who can touch type or pseudo
> touch type are primarily facile with the home key row and the row
> immediately above and below.  Most touch typists can not touch type numbers
> and almost none can touch type the shifted top row keys (!@# ... _+).
> Worse yet, too many keyboard makers move the keys around depending on magic
> that no one understands.
>
> So verbose and hard to type stuff will be hard to persuade people to use on
> the command line.  In a program, yes, but on the keyboard, I'm skeptical.
>
> And for more complex things, we have Python and other programming /
> scripting languages that are more than adequate.
>
>
>
I have to agree with Mark. It is too verbose and smells more like a modern
programming language than a shell language.


I tend to simplify things and throughout the years created a curated list
of aliases and functions which gives me a universal Unix command line
language. It is mostly based on one letter abbreviations, e.g. 'v' for
vi(1), 'u' for uptime(1), 'c' for cat(1), 'g' for grep(1), etc. The gold
standard for me was always the venerable ed(1) and its clever ways of
expressing thoughts and ideas.


For modern Kubernetes ecosystem I am using abbreviated simple three letter
tokens. Instead of typing 'kubectl get pod' or 'kubectl describe pod', I am
using get, des, log, del, exe, img etc. omitting kubectl keyword entirely.
This model is much more consistent and faster to type than the default one.


This general attraction towards simplicity and minimalism in pure text
interfaces always fascinated me. My interest in the occult alphabets and
ancient philosophy only strengthens my view that wise men since time
immemorial have always occupied their minds with studying letters and
numbers. By its different combinations and permutations it was believed all
forces of nature could be understood and changed. The classic Shem
HaMephorash -- 72 divine names consisting of three letters is a good
example of such an ancient text interface, embodying profound ideas and
concepts.


Programming in general and shell interface in particular are just another
interpretation of those ancient ideas that symbolic letters and numbers are
the key to understand the universe.


To me command line text interface will always be the most elegant way to
communicate with machines.


--Andy