things humans are bad at: memorising specific sequences of words
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FYI
The Design of Everyday Things has a whole chapter explaining in detail exactly how and why emacs is an awful design, and compares it to desk phones in its opacity and the sheer absurd size of its manual compared to its function- text editing, being a phone; which on no sane planet should require a 500 page manual, just to get startedIt’s literally typing and editing text. it’s recieving and making phone calls what are you doiinng?
it uses these two things to explain a specific design issue: the problem of designed objects priming its users (especially women who are already culturally primed in this direction) to believe they’re just too stupid to use the object, rather than the more accurate fact: the designers of this objects were too stupid to understand the people who would be using their thing, and failed at designing something appropriate
@bri7 this is why vim is best, right?
/ducks
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@bri7 this is why vim is best, right?
/ducks
@semitones the manual for vim is just one sentence: throw your computer out the window
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@semitones the manual for vim is just one sentence: throw your computer out the window
@bri7 I really liked GarageBand. That took something difficult (digital audio) and made it pretty intuitive at least to high school me.
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english: list files
linux: ls, isn’t that a super clever abbreviation? imagine how much time you’ll save typing it!english: change directory
linux: cd [type the entire name of one of the directories that is literally on the screen right there, you can physically point to it but that will not do anything]@bri7 i mean, the abbreviations are there for a good reason: when you type something so often, brevity is more important than readability
of course, they could stand to be more easily discoverable. and the abbreviations could just be aliases for longer command names -
@bri7 i mean, the abbreviations are there for a good reason: when you type something so often, brevity is more important than readability
of course, they could stand to be more easily discoverable. and the abbreviations could just be aliases for longer command names@evin the abbreviations are literally there because the software was originally written for an actual mechanical teletypewriter, connected via 150baud modem, which are slow and have extremely limited horizontal space
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@evin the abbreviations are literally there because the software was originally written for an actual mechanical teletypewriter, connected via 150baud modem, which are slow and have extremely limited horizontal space
@bri7 it doesn't matter why they were historically invented, my point is that their continued existence serves a worthy purpose
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@bri7 it doesn't matter why they were historically invented, my point is that their continued existence serves a worthy purpose
@evin i don’t think so.
we definitely aren’t using teletype machines anymore. it’s not hard or slow to type the entire word. autocomplete is even available-just not built into unix shells
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@evin i don’t think so.
we definitely aren’t using teletype machines anymore. it’s not hard or slow to type the entire word. autocomplete is even available-just not built into unix shells
@bri7 autocomplete for command names actaully *is* built into unix shells, at least all the ones i've tried (bash, fish, zsh) but it's still much slower than abbreviations for something so common. i actually think they should be shorter. i set up 1 char aliases for most of mine
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@bri7 autocomplete for command names actaully *is* built into unix shells, at least all the ones i've tried (bash, fish, zsh) but it's still much slower than abbreviations for something so common. i actually think they should be shorter. i set up 1 char aliases for most of mine
@evin are you confusing tab complete for autocomplete?
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@bri7
Oh, and it doesn't show up for "man -k completion" which is yet another "I have to type what for the documentation?"@kirtai@tech.lgbt @bri7@social.treehouse.systems
manfor whatever reason invokeslessas a pager instead of something smarter that understands its output (unlikeinfo& info manuals).So mostly if you want something that can browse it smartly you've got to look somewhere else (such as in
Emacs). You're otherwise stuck with literal text search and no navigation aids.Assuming
bash-doc(or your distro's equivalent) is installed, evaluation of the following Elisp brings to the section I mentioned in another post:(info "(bash) Commands For Completion") -
@kirtai@tech.lgbt @bri7@social.treehouse.systems
manfor whatever reason invokeslessas a pager instead of something smarter that understands its output (unlikeinfo& info manuals).So mostly if you want something that can browse it smartly you've got to look somewhere else (such as in
Emacs). You're otherwise stuck with literal text search and no navigation aids.Assuming
bash-doc(or your distro's equivalent) is installed, evaluation of the following Elisp brings to the section I mentioned in another post:(info "(bash) Commands For Completion") -
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command line system:
you type something
you press enter
computer respondsyes, search engines, chatbots, intrractive fiction, databases and programming language REPLs all count.
you might quibble that something like bash is able to launch programs, modify the file system, etc; but technically, aside from search engines, sort of, so do all the others
mac spotlight. the control+p command palette in sublime text and vs code. Aza Raskin’s Enso.
But i would totally argue that a search engine like google remembering your activity and using it as context for future searches counte as modifying the state of a system.
Because so many people are only used to exactly one command line system, they overfit their mental definition to the exact shape that one takes; which to me seems like a kind of mental amputation; you’ve cut off the part of your brain that would have been able to imagine a better design for a command line interface
POSIX internals is second nature to us software engineers, so it’s easy to forget that the average person probably only knows bash, readline, and one or two ansi escape codes.
> and emacs
of course
> of course
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things humans are bad at: memorising specific sequences of words
things humans are good at: navigating spaces, finding objects within those spaces, interacting with objects in ways suggested by the object’s appearance and reactions
things linux is good at: making people memorise specific sequences of not quite real words, punctuations, and syntaxes
things linux is bad at: providing humans with coherent, consistent and stable spaces to navigate, or objects with appearances or reactions that suggest their function
@bri7 the FM is just a specific sequence of words that RT-ing is intended to partially memorize -
@bri7 the FM is just a specific sequence of words that RT-ing is intended to partially memorize
@apophis excellent point
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@bri7
How long is that manpage!? -
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@bri7 @kirtai i was honestly actually surprised that bash *had* a manpage because i thought that they were for, like, relatively quick guides for stuff because you couldn't be expected to just... remember all that, hit Q and do your thing
but i guess this was made for folks who had a better affordance for writing things down in physical notebooks or printing stuff out -
@bri7 @kirtai i was honestly actually surprised that bash *had* a manpage because i thought that they were for, like, relatively quick guides for stuff because you couldn't be expected to just... remember all that, hit Q and do your thing
but i guess this was made for folks who had a better affordance for writing things down in physical notebooks or printing stuff out -
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
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@quinta formalmente non per i festini, ma per diffusione di documenti riservati
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Daily Digest | 19 February 2026
Your daily dose of Privacy, Data Protection, AI & Cybersecurity news.
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Avviando col 6.17 mi va in kernel panic. Come posso eliminarlo?
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@sebzuen @andypiper the interface is one - as all the apps - but supports the snac variation of Mastodon API implementation
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Arrestato il principe Andrea per i festini da Epstein.
a volte la monarchia...
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@VanityFairItaly @news-VanityFairItaly ma ci sono indagati per omicidio?
Perché buttare un cuore è ammazzare due volte
