Ivan Enderlin 🦀The case for Nushell, https://www.jntrnr.com/case-for-nushell/.
Relevant article about shells, and how Nushell pushes the boundaries further. I highly recommend reading it.
Charlie Stross@hywan @Keltounet Question: "can the state of shells be improved enough to overcome the inertia of sticking to what you know?"
This is the wrong question. It presupposes zero cost of transition, while the cognitive workload of learning a new shell rises exponentially with age (hint: I'm nearly 60, shells are harder to adapt to than a new GUI). Stability and continuity are essential prerequisites to productivity!
Ollivier Robert 🇺🇦😷🌈@Keltounet @hywan Computing is not my job. It hasn't been my job for over two decades. Time spent learning a new shell or thinking about computers is time *wasted* from the non-compsci point of view.
Thing is, the question about the utility of switching to a new shell has embedded ideological assumptions that implicitly privilege computing over applications. To 99% of the world applications of computing are the priority; the machines and software are just an annoying drag on getting stuff done.
@Keltounet @hywan There's a deeper point: the past 70 years of computing have focussed on a spurious vision of progress that forgets to consider the utility of a stable platform. Operating systems in particular are driven by commercial goals (sell more software! Get more Linux desktops out there!) that are actively inimical to the needs of their users. Forcing users to learn a new way of working every year—even if they don't need to—is crazy. And it renders computers inaccessible to the elderly.
@Keltounet @hywan I watched my mother progressively (and completely) lose the ability to use her iMac during her final decade because Apple kept f*cking around with the Mac OS X user interface, the way Mail worked, the colour of the window maximize/minimize buttons, and stuff that probably looked trivial to a 30-something UI designer but was deeply disruptive to an 80 something with impaired memory. And by losing that access, she lost touch with friends (via email).
Jyrgen N@cstross @Keltounet It was disheartening to see recently how my parents, both mid-80s, struggled when they went from Windows 10 to 11 with a new computer. My mother is more flexible, but I learned my father (whose main uses are email and editing amnesty international letters) does *everything* by rote with nearly no conceptual understanding, and the — in my eyes small — changes from Windows 10 to 11 were absolutely debilitating for him.
Medea Vanamonde🏳️⚧️ ♀@jyrgenn @cstross @Keltounet it’s not just the older folks in the higher decades .
Any time we do an OS upgrade migration at work 75% of the end users have some kinda melt down on the raw upgrade so I work on making it look and feel as much like what they are accustomed to as possible and then train them on the minor differences
Any time we do an OS upgrade migration at work 75% of the end users have some kinda melt down on the raw upgrade so I work on making it look and feel as much like what they are accustomed to as possible and then train them on the minor differences
@MishaVanMollusq @cstross @Keltounet Absolutely. My parents started working with computers only in retirement, which I think makes it extra difficult, with no work experience with computers before. But other non-technical people have similar difficulties, I know.
I sometimes get angry working with Windows myself, but that is different. As a Unix+Mac user for decades I feel with Windows that in some places no one even bothered to try to make it *good*.
I sometimes get angry working with Windows myself, but that is different. As a Unix+Mac user for decades I feel with Windows that in some places no one even bothered to try to make it *good*.
@jyrgenn @cstross @Keltounet I do half my real work at the command line or in power shell on Windows .
It’s designed for people with little to no computer skills and yet I often see people unable to cope. One of the problems being a lot of adults are rote learners and not extrapolative interactives. Windows can be distracting to such people as there are usually five distinct ways to do the same task. It’s kinda wibbly wobbly but not timeywhyme
It’s designed for people with little to no computer skills and yet I often see people unable to cope. One of the problems being a lot of adults are rote learners and not extrapolative interactives. Windows can be distracting to such people as there are usually five distinct ways to do the same task. It’s kinda wibbly wobbly but not timeywhyme
@MishaVanMollusq @cstross @Keltounet Rote learners, yes. My father absolutely, that is why so relatively small changes threw him completely off the track. My mother has weird ways of doing things, but she is interested in trying to make things work for her, willing to experiment.