Re: An idea from a Debian user
On Thu, Mar 17, 2005 at 12:28:55PM +1100, Evan Cox wrote:
> My idea is to create a frontend program that is similar to the profile
> 'Midnight Commander' in Konqueror (ie screen splint into 3/4 top and
> 1/4 CLI) that begins with iconised area relevant to the
> administration task, and ends with a screen of relevant commands for
> the appropriate task and when appropriate some GUI features.
>
> >From my point of view, a program like this would be a fantastic
> >learning
> assistant in the crossover from point and click to CLI, and add a
> central administration section to Debian.
>
This sort of thing could be a great teaching tool. It is not so much
related to a distribution like debian, but to the *nix command line in
general. Command line shells are extremely powerful, but they were
never designed in a coherent and though-out fashion, so they're much
harder to learn than, for example, an elegant programming language.
The problem with your proposal is that it's an extremely large and
complicated task if you want to do it properly. It isn't going to
happen unless someone (probably not debian) puts extensive
effort into it.
It might also be easier to implement a new, less crufty, command line
shell (and programmatic interface to standard command line tools) from
scratch while one was at it.
--
Peter Eckersley
Department of Computer Science & mailto:pde@cs.mu.oz.au
IP Research Institute of Australia http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~pde
The University of Melbourne
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