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this feels like a silly thing to say but even though i’ve been using linux since 2004 I feel like i’m learning recently that the impact of the GNU project’s software (and its design decisions) on me is even bigger than I thought
like even just the fact that (afaik) many of them used Emacs has an impact on me today
(please no “it’s GNU/Linux”)
for example I thought the “vim vs emacs” flamewars were silly (who cares? use what you want!)
but actually I feel like some of the GNU software design decisions are really influenced by emacs (readline, info pages) and that does actually have an effect
(please don’t tell me that readline has a vi mode)
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also this guidance on command line arguments is great, I didn’t realize these things came from the GNU project and I really appreciate them https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Command_002dLine-Interfaces.html#Command_002dLine-Interfaces
(via @zwol)
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also I didn’t realize that standardizing “—help” came from the GNU project, it makes me wonder if folks have proposed adding —help to programs that predated GNU (or are from a BSD project etc) and if so what that conversation looked like
I imagine it’s not always possible to do without breaking backwards compatibility
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anyway i’ve been thinking about how to understand the way “the terminal” works it feels really important to understand the cultural impact of specific programs or projects (like xterm, the GNU project, etc)
i think it’s something a lot of people are intuitively aware of just from using the terminal and noticing patterns
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@b0rk in '94 I used (sun's) db (dbg?, does anyone remember?) and a friend asked me why I didn't use gdb. It was such an amazingly different experience, the gdb ui seemed to be designed with care---dare I say love?---for an actual human (me!) using it.
I went to read all of gnu.org, the philosophy (empowering the user instead of keeping them ignorant), the coding standards (info instead of elitist manual pages, no arbitrary limits, etc ...) and decided I wanted to be part of this.
The reason some of us prefer to say GNU/Linux is rooted in the idea that even people that have been using "Linux" for decades, may not have heard about GNU.
@janneke oh interesting what do you mean when you say man pages are elitist?
https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/GNU-Manuals.html#GNU-Manuals
"GNU Manuals
The preferred document format for the GNU system is the Texinfo formatting language. Every GNU package should (ideally) have documentation in Texinfo both for reference and for learners."
Info manuals usually have a philosophy section, an introduction, a tutorial and describe the relationship of the software with other softwares. Some manual pages nowadays also give examples, but in the 90s the main feature of a man page, as I experienced it as a newbie, was terseness with no regard for (dare I say a elitist disregard?) for learners like myself.
@b0rk Just imagine how amazing it would have been if there would have been an info manual for Linux and for git?
@janneke @b0rk I think bork is asking a different question: why would info have been better? it’s been a loooooong time since I was a power user of either, but I remember finding info very frustrating. And I was a regular emacs user at the time so I should have known most of the shortcuts! So I’m not clear why it would have been amazing if there were info for git.
@luis_in_brief @b0rk because info tells a story, has an introduction, and explicitly includes learners as their audience. Whereas man pages (at least in the 90s) attempted to not spend a single character too many?